Brush had overtaken a section of our yard. I’d told myself many times that I’d take care of it soon, but never did. The salal went unchecked. It spread and multiplied. A couple of plants in one isolated area became, over time, a frenetic jumble of twisted branches that encroached ever farther into other parts of our yard and soon took over, choking out all other life.
I had the tools. Had had them for years. A machete, rusted on the blade edge, and a shovel. This past Tuesday, I found myself in the garage, scraping the rust off the machete with a sharpener that came packaged with a fillet knife we’d purchased when our children took up an interest in fishing.
I was filled with tension, a mix of grief and anger, a weight on my chest that made it hard to breathe and threatened to bring me to my knees if I didn’t do something.
I spent an hour outside that day hacking away at the brush. My arms ached from the exertion as the blade rose and fell, rose and fell. It had been a while since I’d exerted this much effort. Sweat coated my arms and face. Dirt crept into my shoes and underneath my fingernails.
I spent an hour outside the next day and the day after. The machete crashed into leaves and chopped at the thin, vein like tendrils. By the start of the third day the area looked cleared, but to truly get to the heart of the problem, I needed to go deeper.
The shovel hit resistance, slammed into buried roots, the impact reverberated through the metal spade, up the wood handle and into my tired body. The instrument softened the land, made the task of ripping out the thick, entrenched roots easier.
Easier, but not easy. The salal had established interconnected networks, that, once pulled, zippered across the ground, the dirt opening up like a wound. I no sooner got to the end of one thread when another one broke the surface.
Progress was slow and messy. By the end of the third day the area had been transformed. The brush was gone, replaced by a scarred and pot marked patch of upturned dirt.
The salal might return to this patch. Even so, it will not be allowed to dominate, to kill through attrition, all else that might grow here. I will be here, ready to roll up my sleeves and do the work.
