This morning, I buckled on my sharp shiny sword and stepped out the door to do battle with the monsters growing at the edge of my property. I had postponed this for weeks, but it had to be done before the day got any hotter and the monsters got bolder.
The cult movie, The Little Shop of Horrors, featured a sentient carnivorous plant named Aubrey II that fed on human blood. My own monsters were threatening to swallow vehicles for the moment before moving on.
I wasn’t sure if my plants were carnivorous but why let them keep growing?
Was the dog safe? The chickens? See why I needed the sword? [spacer height=”30px”]
Prone to exaggeration
Because I have been known to exaggerate, I need to clarify that my sharp shiny sword is really a DeWalt cordless pruner, but hey, tomayto, tomahto.
This pruner can cut through three-inch limbs, so I strapped it on and headed for the monster forest surrounding my wood pile. Oh, the irony.
We’ve had a Seattle kind of year in normally arid northeastern Colorado. Really. We usually get about fifteen inches of rain a year while Seattle gets more like 34. Flip-flop those this year and you get the idea why the monsters were so eager to stretch into trees.
They’ve been thirsty forever and finally gulping gallons of rain.
Gulping gallons
This year, entire stacks of wood have disappeared within their jungle. Maybe devoured by the hungry dripping teeth of the Aubrey II’s out there.
Just for clarity, these are more like hybrid Aubrey II’s. Some people call them wild sunflowers. But potayto, potahto.
These guys are threatening to blot out the sunlight and swallow not only the log splitter in the yard but the privacy fence. The uncut logs. My entire house.
Last month’s hail storm left dents in heavy metal but didn’t even bruise these plants.
The trunk of several were bigger than my wrist. Huge by wrist standards.
I started by gripping the base of one and pulling in case it didn’t have a good root system. Maybe they’d all fall like dominoes and my work would be done.
As it turned out, if they could stand up to the pounding hail, my grip was a mere annoyance and no more.
I was kind of afraid of that.
Out came the sword. (Remember: tomayto, tomahto.)
Wrong choice
I should have worn a hard hat instead of gloves because it turned out the sword was mightier than the monster. The sunflowers began falling with a crash onto my head.
Imagine sunflowers succumbing to my trusty sword (humor me here) and slamming onto the ground. Or me, depending which was closer.
It was usually me.
Domino effect. Clunk, clunk, clunk. Onto my head. (That alone may explain this post. Brain injured.)
I now have a pile of slain sunflowers by my driveway. The monsters had surrounded an old coffee table, two tree stumps, and a tomato cage.
And, boy, am I glad that I got those rescued.
That’s my report for today and you can believe whatever you want. Just like The Little Shop of Horrors.
