“I used to hunt pheasant and
quail. Now I hunt invasive plants,” our
neighbor said to me over the fence that divides our properties. “I keep an eye out for them everywhere. It’s sort of an obsession.”
Like my husband and me, our
neighbor makes it a priority to preserve and restore tall grass prairie, though
he manages thousands of acres, while we manage only hundreds.
“I know exactly what you mean,” I
answered. “I’ve been spending every day
this spring pulling crown vetch out of our creek buffer, making sure it doesn’t
get started in the prairie restoration in our Creek Field. And
the odd thing is, I enjoy it—can’t wait to get to it. I rush through my chores in the morning so
I can get back to the crown vetch.
‘Obsession’ is a good word for it!”
Both of us shook our heads, a
bit mystified.
“Obsession” is a word from
the lexicon of abnormal psychology, implying something “wrong” about our
concern.
“Well,” I went on, a bit
defensively. “Isn’t it insane for our
society to blithely push other species of plants and animals into oblivion? We’re losing between 49 and 383 species a
day. If that’s the norm, I’ll take
abnormal! “
My neighbor smiled. “We’re fighting crazy with crazy!” he
concluded.
Crazy might be part of
it.
In this age of extinctions,
invasive species are often the executioner’s axe.
Here in the Flint Hills, introduced
non-native weeds such as crown vetch, musk thistle, sericea lespedeza, and the
Old World bluestems have the capacity to out-compete native plants. If uncontrolled, they can replace the
polyculture of the prairie with monocultures of themselves.
Often deliberately introduced
by “experts,” invasive species are one of many ways techno-industrial society
is destroying the very biodiversity we humans, too, need to survive.
Who’s to say that the
suicidal insanity of a society cannot produce within the psyches of certain
individuals an equal and opposite reaction?
Who’s to say it doesn’t take
monomania to fight monocultures?
But as I thought about it later,
I realized that there was more to the lure of the vetch-patch than a simple psychological
recoil.
The fact is, my muscles exult
while digging crown vetch, and my spirit sings!
An excerpt from my April
diary:
I crawl on hands and knees
into a plum thicket, freeing my clothes where they catch on the thorns,
squirming awkwardly toward the tell-tale circle of green where new vetch leaves
are springing up. The aroma of just-blooming
plums fills the air. I settle into the
most comfortable position I can find on the ground next to the bright green
invaders. With my trowel I dig down
under the leaves, reach in with my hand and feel for the rhizomes and roots. Sometimes one pull brings up several of the
plant’s ropy arms, which in turn lead to others, each with their own sprouts,
so that dragging out the network can clear a large area, all at once. Other times, the leaves spring up from the
hard knot of a woody swelling at the surface of the soil. This is the ”caudex,” an enlargement of the
stem from which new shoots radiate outward, like the head of a mop. “Crown” supposedly refers to the shape of the
blossom, but I think of this woody knot as the crown of crown vetch, the center
of power. Sometimes the caudex is difficult to dislodge,
and then I snip off the top part and apply a drop of stump killer, one that
leaves no after-action in the soil.
The delicate aroma of plums
rises and falls with the sweet spring breeze.
Behind me, several hawks and a pair of coyotes are hunting in the
just-burned Creek Field. Very close,
audible but not visible, are song sparrows, Harris sparrows, a kingfisher, a
great blue heron, Carolina wrens, and barred owls. Huge billowy clouds float overhead.
I am buoyed up by this beauty
but I do not focus on it. I do not need
to. It is ubiquitous and abundant, the
context itself for the trance I am in, the tunnel vision (literally) with which
I concentrate on my belowground work.
I dig and pull until it is
too dark to see and my arthritic hands can no longer hold the trowel. Sticking to my task is my offering to the loveliness
of the twilight and the just-emerging stars.
Beauty is the altar on which I
lay the offering of my rash-covered arms, my scratched face, the bruises on my
arms and legs.
The techno-industrial society
that destroys biodiversity reduces the richness of our physical lives as
well. Too many of us are sedentary,
awash in blue light, and addicted to the “Likes” in our cyber-life.
Meanwhile, we’ve been told
that “wilderness” is out there somewhere, protected in national parks. We are to take only photos, leave only
footprints. This view that humans, in order not to mar
nature, must barely touch it had its role in the setting aside of our great
national parks.
But as a guide for how we
humans should live on this earth it is harmful and delusionary.
Wherever we live, we are
citizens of a land community—air, soil, water, flora, fauna—whether we know it
or not. By driving a car, turning on a
computer, eating corn flakes we interact powerfully with nature. We are
complicit in the very society that is creating mass extinctions, whether we
want to be or not. But we are not
helpless pawns. We can also push back
the other way. We can plant polycultures
of native plants—in our yards, schools, roadsides, and parks. We can use our technical knowledge and
political power to preserve and restore the ecosystems where we live.
Our muscles know the land
community is home, and deep inside, our spirits know it, too.
One day the norms of our
society will return home, too. Then some of us won’t seem so crazy!
(This essay was first published in the Junction City Daily Union on July 2, 2016.)
No comments:
Post a Comment