Linsey's Plant Manifesto

Forgive me father, for I have sinned. I have taken many lives today. But with God's help, I will not use a weed-whacker again.

I don't like weed-whacking, even if all the lives taken were of green matter so low, that my mother-in-law won't even deign to call them "plants." Apparently, that special title is reserved for the green things that are wanted.

Poor little non-plants.

Anyway, a death sentence hangs over all non-plant vegetable matter in my mother-in-law's garden and yard, especially the ones next to trees and buildings and the like that cannot be mowed. Sneaky little usurpers. It's that sort of anarchic behavior that calls for a brand new bright orange weed-whacker.

Ok, so I don't feel the same way. I like some long grass around trees, I think it looks nice. Kind of like how I think hair in strict ponytails looks better with a few tendrils escaping on the sides. I've always had a more chaotic preference when it comes to lawns. Whenever someone says their lawn needs to be mowed, I look at it and think it looks nice the way it is. But this isn't my lawn, so it doesn't matter. It is Michelle's, and she can have her lawn the way she wants it.

Expect, I was working for her. And David had the more manly job of chopping down a tree that I will have to hold a funeral for later (it looked plenty alive to me!). Armed with a very noisy bright orange death bringer, I set out to force order upon the lawn. The lawn that looked as though it needed to be mowed again (not my standard) even though I just mowed it three days ago!

But back to forcing order. In the beginning, I was just doing a job. It was clearing debris, snipping hair, or some other task of making things look neat. But the loss of plant life was taking it's toll. About the time I had to whack a group of perfectly innocent purple flowers at the base of one tree, I was sorry. My conscious was laden with the innocent grass-like things adorning the bases of trees. But I had a job to do, and I pressed on.

After that, I needed conditioning. I couldn't just keep killing and remain the same. So I got angry at the plants. Why were they making me kill them? Didn't they know better? Didn't they ever consider that under the trees was a bad spot? Stupid poor dying non-plant things.

Finally, I thought I had hit every tree on the lawn. Personally, if I had that many trees, I'd let them keep their plant adornments. And supposedly Michelle is the only person at that residence that does weed-whack around the trees. The kids just do the fence in the front yard.

So I put the death-thing away and went on to the other tasks. We rounded the shed to hook an ill-fated auger to the tractor, and Michelle pointed out some knee-high plant life in an area behind the shed and the horse yard, rife with junk and other not-junk stuff that was sitting in the way. "That will need to be weed-whacked too," she said.

"It's David's turn," I replied. My hands were still vibrating in their gloves. And I think whacking that portion that isn't even lawn yet is superfluous. You should know David probably won't do it, either, but he is her son and can get away with just being stubborn. He wasn't even going to cover the trees.

I also spend some time weeding Michelle's garden of various non-plant plant-resembling things. And I've decided something. If I ever put effort into a garden, the effort is going to go into specifically designing it to exist with minimal effort. And maybe I like some of those weeds.

All this to say, I would suck in the army. I can barely kill plants.