A Line Drawn in the Dust

 A line drawn in the dust

The weeds had taken over my flower beds. Gone from home for only a few days, I returned to see amber waves of seeded grass stalking my poppies into submission. Coneflower and Indian Blankets, still green, but fighting for future purple and red-headed blooming were barely discernible inside weedy cages. 

With a sigh, I surveyed the wreckage and headed to retrieve gloves and mini-tiller. It was already hot and it wasn’t quite eight a.m. There had been record breaking heat while I camped in Ohio, and clearly it hadn’t been easier here at home. Lugging the tiller over, I decided to first make an effort to clear some of the knee high stalks clear of the rotating blades, hoping to diminish the number of times I would need to stop, remove the pins, strip away gobs of matted stems glued with dirt, replace the blades, restart the temperamental machine, and continue.

The flower beds silently begged me to hurry. Tugging at handfuls of grass made me feel like the unworthy knights who wished to remove Excalibur from its stony lodging. The dirt was too dry, and the top inches were deceptively powder-like as the ground beneath had clearly turned to concrete. Still, at least six to sixteen inches of weedery wouldn’t be getting stuck inside the tiller.

Within a quarter hour I was sweating through my clothes, and knew my face was streaked with muddy attempts to swat mosquitos and clear sweat from my eyes. Satisfied that it wasn’t going to get much better, I pulled the tiller to life, reveling in the miracle of its starting after only fifteen or so attempts.

A cloud of dust rose into the air as the twin blades spun, doing their best to tear up the roots of the offending flower suffocating weeds. Getting as close to my beauties as I safely could was difficult as the dust cloud grew, and I feared it might become a road hazard as it wafted southward toward Kipp. I tilled on, determined to accomplish the task at hand. Lines in the dusty soil showed where I’d been and I focused on those as the air became worthy of historic dust bowl infamy.

Finally, the little tiller’s blades ceased spinning, caught in the grasp of hardened weedy remains. Turning off the machine, I waited for the dust to blow off and surveyed my beds. It would require hours more of careful hand to grass combat, but for now, at least I could see where my lovelies were growing, their places marked with lines in the soft brown dehydrated dirt. I could at least rake up the grassy remains and offer some sprinkler time, and they would perk right up, hardy and strong, requirements to thrive on my farm.