A guilt-ridden escapade

I spent two hours of my morning weeding my backyard. Considering that we have a rather large backyard, this is quite an undertaking to begin with. But then add the fact that we don't have much of a lawn...more like a carpet of dandelions and you start to comprehend the fulility of this endeavor. After two hours and a giant trash bag full of weeds, I was only half way across the yard and ready to call it quits. Lucky for me, Griffin woke up from his nap at this point. Isn't it nice when you get a perfectly legitimate excuse for procrastination dropped in your lap? Look at how cute he is!

Truthfully, I don't mind pulling weeds. And I believe that there is something cleansing about yardwork (Spencer, I'm sure you're shaking your head at that). But after two hours of work I like to feel as though my efforts have made a difference. Unfortunately, I fear that these dandelions will be back with a vengence. Ironically, I honestly think the yellow dandelion is a remarkably cheerful little flower and I actually spent a good portion of my weeding time contemplating the beauty of the plants I was so enthusiactically destroying. I suppose that if it weren't for their uncanny tendency to choke out all other plant life I might feel a little more ashamed of my mass horticultural murder, or is it herbicide?

During today's weed purge I also came across a giant ant hill full of angry red fire ants which I bravely dug out and then flooded with hose water, destryoing who knows how many innocent ant lives. Could one call this insecticide? Notably, this will also save our house from a fire ant infestation while we are gone to Greece.

Last on my nature hit list was earthworms. I must have uncovered two score earthworms today. (Yeah, I could have said forty...but it sounds way cooler to say two score). I've heard that having earthworms in your dirt is a good sign that the dirt is fertile. Good news for me, especially when Landon and I plan to have a garden in our back yard. Bad news for the worms because several of the worms I "uncovered" were actually half-worms by the time I saw them (invertibraticide?). It reminded me of a line from a William Blake poem, "The cut worm forgives the plough." Besides, earthworms re-grow, right? like lizard tails?

Anyway, after all of this carnage our backyard looks much better, at least the half that I finished. I just don't know if I have the stomach to do it all over again tomorrow.