Scratches

This morning's volunteer project saw my group weeding out a section of the SF Botanical Garden. This little thicket hadn't been cleared of weeds in a long time, so there were lots of them. In particular, there were lots of blackberries- not the fruit, just the thorny tentacles.

Blackberry is a very skilled weed. It grows over the top of other plants, then every few feet drops another root down to the ground. So at any point if you break it, the root part will just sprout anew. The roots tunnel deep into the earth, and if there is a tree root or rotten wood or log anywhere near it, the root will dig under it so you have to move the log or dig into the tree's root system to get the blackberry out.

It's also one of the most pervasive weeds in the Botanical Garden, so if you leave an area unattended like the area we were in today, a single "mother root", as we call it, will connect a system of thorny tendrils extending out more than 20 feet in several directions. That results in a lot of scratched and bleeding volunteers. I look like I fell into a box of feral kittens or a heroin addict with ADD.

It's not usually so grueling or dramatic, doing gardening work. I often try to make weeding more macho by using the biggest possible tools and shouting while holding the tap root over my head, "Behold my vanquished enemy!" But today I think such boasts were appropriate. And besides, the cuts still sting six hours later. I think tomorrow I'm going to go out for pancakes with blackberry syrup, to drink the blood of my defeated foe.