I live in a house that was built in the late 1800’s…around 1868 to be more precise. It was built from wood acquired from the local mill …. good “clear” pine without a single knot to be found. Constructed of real 2×4’s, full size with evident kerf cut using old fashioned saw blades…… A sound piece of construction with an adjacent yard surrounding the premises. The yard is primarily comprised of green grass interspersed with a perimeter of shrub and tree species such as lilac, plum, apple, hawthorn and elm trees.

I do not know how long ago the grass was planted in the yard, perhaps as early as the 1930’s, 1940’s at the latest…. regardless, it was most likely after the plumbing system was put into the house. Earlier photographs of my house and town show bare dirt. All I know, I have attempted to outplant dozens of flowers, shrub and even strawberries over the past 25 years. Notice the word “attempted”, for it is key to describing an ongoing war I have had to battle with…….the grass….

This is no ordinary grass, mind you. This grass is indestructible, kind of like gorse on a golf course. I swear it has the genetics of dragon scales with a rooting density that out competes bacteria in a hot spring. It’s meristems are easily activated and kick it into overdrive when temperatures begins to warm. It is ever encroaching into any unoccupied nook, cranny or corner in the yard and oftentimes completely chokes out emerging resident species, such a my planted wild rose. Gnarly to whack back with a weed eater, I often go “for its throat” with my bare hands, tearing it out from the edges of planting beds, underneath my elderberry and other luscious little sites. I have given up on trying to introduce anything along its borders. It defends its territory so well, that I am tired of putting out anymore effort to restrain or “retrain” it’s indomitable spirit……

I now choose to release it to its own muse….look on it as Friend who will continue to stretch its boundaries. I think I would like to mirror its Strength, Persistent Temerity, and flat out Will to Live as something for me to take to Heart…Namaste.