halcion daze

I've spent the last few days out in the yard doing all of your basic spring clean up chores. I will admit I find this a very appealing way to spend a few hours.

It is remarkable how over the course of the winter the yard can get so...."primitive". Stuff is overgrown, other stuff is busted, still more stuff is rusted. You really get the sense that nature just lets us borrow the world for a while and when we are done nature will step back in and reclaim the whole darn thing. "No rush,Take your time, but do you see that little crack in the concrete? When you finish I Have a few weeds I'd like to see growing there"

Weeds. Thanks to the dandelions my front lawn looks like the poppy fields outside the emerald city (Oz not Seattle) Which brings to mind the spectacular lyric... "I'm afraid there's no denyin'/ I'm Just a Dandy Lion" from the Wizard of Oz,a lyric you couldn't get away with today. I digress......

So I go to the hardware store and get some Weed No More, or whatever it's called. Kills broadleaf weeds (ie dandelions) dead! I bring it home and read the directions- wear long sleeves, long pants, socks, shoes, rubber gloves, and eye protection when using this product. Very sound advice I'm sure.

So as I'm covered from head to toe spraying the invading army of unsightly greens my mind wanders back to those late summer days of my youth, when the mosquito truck would drive through the neighborhood. This was a pick up truck that had a gas powered spray thingy on the back which drove down the heavily populated (baby boom you know) streets of suburbia spewing clouds of sickly sweet bug killer into the air. Of course we responded the way any red blooded, dim witted american boy (and a few girls) would. We jumped on our bikes and followed this deathmobile for miles breathing in a constant fog of god knows what. To this day I am always suprised that the generation that we spawned weren't born with lobster claws for hands.

So for the time being I delude myself into thinking that I have won the war against the invading dandelion, but there's another one waiting to step in. and another and another and......