Attack!

There they stood, tall and defiant. Probably the most successful crop of skunk cabbage I’d seen in years. You may have a different name for them where you live. Actually I think they may even be called something different here. But in Colorado, we called them skunk cabbage, a tall, leafy plant with horrendous stickers all up their stems and on the backs of their leaves.

They had chosen a less monitored spot of ground—the “berry patch” (a rather elegant name for the row of blackberry bushes a friend had gifted me with several years ago)—as their growing place. And they had apparently taken full advantage of the layer of goat leavings which lay composting there along the side of the house.

My husband had decreed that they were my problem. I needed to get out and take care of them. (In fairness, he’d never wanted the berry patch in the first place. Neither does he particularly care for the flower beds in front of the house, also not as manicured as he would like. And he does take immaculate care of the lawn and as much of the other outside work as he can manage on his schedule.) For several weeks following the commission, I had walked past them with my head hung in silent shame. No time, no time, not enough time to do that.

So this morning, after grubbing out some squirrel-donated trees from the flower beds, I decided to tackle the skunk cabbages. I tried to grab them as low as I could on the stalk in order to avoid the more mature, more threatening stickers. Their shallow root system made pulling them a breeze, and they were soon dispatched to the “compost pile” (another misnomer for a heap of dirt beside our metal storage building which I have tried in years past to tend with mixed success).

My gardening gloves having disappeared long ago, it was with bare hands that I attacked my enemies. The tallying of injuries stands at one verified sticker in the heel of my hand and a suspected one on one of my fingertips. Not bad considering the weeds’ intimidating appearance.

So in the future, perhaps I will remember the lesson of the skunk cabbages. No matter how lousy and uncomfortable the job, there will come a day when it has to be done. And perhaps most jobs are similar in that the major obstacle is the getting started. Isn’t there a saying, “Once begun, the job’s half done,” or something of that nature?

Lorraine - 1, skunk cabbages - 0. I like that score!