Thorn Rage

The Vanquished

Copyright © 2020

by Ralph F. Couey

I've never been a huge fan of yard work.  I know by that bold statement that I just alienated a whole bunch of guys for whom their grass is their life, but growing up in Missouri meant doing that kind of work when it was in the upper 90's with humidity levels north of 70%.  I mowed when I had to, watered and applied fertilizer when needed, but it was never a priority for me to have a yard that looked like the 18th green at Sawgrass.  I had four kids and a motorcycle, so my priorities were elsewhere.

I live on a tropical island now, so the lawn care -- and mango tree and coffee plant and banana tree -- season has no start or end.  It just is.  I remember how hard we had to work keeping rust off our ship in the Navy.  This is the closest thing to that endless task.

The big mango tree in the back yard drops leaves like there's no tomorrow.  In Pennsylvania, we had maples which, when they drop leaves in the fall, do it all over about three days.  After that, we were literally knee-deep in maple leaves.  Of course, once that was done, the branches were empty.  This mango tree drops leaves all year long but always has a never-ending supply on its branches.  I literally have to rake every day.  I can fill a 55-gallon trash barrel with leaves in five days flat, no problem.  There are times when I look up and swear its doing this just to annoy me.  The back yard is oriented so when the northeast trade winds are blowing  -- 20 to 25 mph -- the air just howls through the yard.  Not only does this add to the leaf droppage, but after many minutes of raking and gathering, the wind just spreads it all around again.  I have a device to put the leaves in the bin, but it seems just as I lift it up to the edge of the bin, the wind manages to empty it.  Grrr.

The banana tree doesn't drop leaves.  It does other things.  The tree is actually a collection of several trunks, each growing out of the ground by itself. When you harvest a bunch of bananas, the trunk dies, and either falls down, or has to be cut.  It's nasty work, as the trunk is sappy and sticky, which gums up the saw blade.  I guess that's the price to pay for fresh bananas.

But the plant that really gets my goat is the Bougainvillea in the front yard.  It blooms for about 15 minutes once a year.  For the rest of the time, it grows thorns.  It requires a lot of attention, because the branches grow into the trees on either side (neither of which I've identified yet).  Because of my schedule of late, I haven't gotten into Ol' Bogie as often as I needed to.  So on Wednesday afternoon, I went out with three different cutters and a pair of what turned out to be completely inadequate gloves and went to work.  I started on the outer part and carefully cut my way in.  But Ol' Bogie is a crafty dude, and as I cut one branch, another would wrap itself around my legs, the thorns drawing a bit of blood.  These branches were 10 to 15 feet in length, and really hard to handle.  Meanwhile, despite my best and most careful efforts, I kept grabbing branches wrong which gifted me a host of painful thorn sticks in my hands.  It was frustrating, but I could see I was making slow progress.  Then suddenly, one branch somehow came loose from its entanglements and raked across my back, thorns and all. 

I got mad.

After that, I was a yardman possessed.  I cut everything, with no regard for artistry or neatness.  By the time I was finished, Ol' Bogie was reduced to a shoulder-high stump, and that 55-gallon bin was full to the brim.  I had vanquished the thorn monster.  I experienced the exhilaration of victory, as I stood back to regard the results of our mutual combat.  My mood faded  however, upon realizing that Ol' Bogie will just grow back, and we will once again be forced to do battle.  

That evening, Cheryl spent no small amount of time removing thorn remnants from my abused fingers and palms.  Today, they still hurt, and every time I grab something -- or type something -- the ghosts of those thorns rise up again.

But next time I'll be ready.  I bought a pair of gloves with a double layer of leather on the fingers and palms.  I won't wait until it grows out of control again before wading in.  My ultimate plan, grabbing a bush saw and cutting the darn thing off at the base was firmly vetoed by Cheryl.  It seems she enjoys those 15 minutes a year.

I don't know where we will live when we leave here, or in what kind of dwelling. But I'd be perfectly happy in a high rise, where the only thing I have to work on is that customary azalea in a pot in the window.  I think that's something that won't attack me.

I'm not looking forward to the next round of nightmares.