Stopping the Invasion

 



We had a professional forester write a tree management plan to submit to our county. Once the plan was approved by the accessor, it would lower our property taxes. We’re still waiting for the lower taxes...


But when the forester walked our property, he scowled when he saw invasive vines. I hadn’t noticed them before. Pronouncing judgement, like an Old Testament prophet, the forester said if we didn’t get rid of all those vines, they would take over the forest floor. Then he pointed to all the dead limbs. When trees had fallen, we cut up the wood, but left the debris. Wrong answer. Limbs had to go too. He said there was enough kindling to start a major forest fire.


I’m a decent housekeeper, but a forest-keeper, not-so-much, obviously.


While I had been taking fun beach walks and and ignoring our forest, a slow and steady invasion of vines had been taking place. Now it was time to clean up my forest act.




Those pernicious, prickly, trailing vines don’t yield delicious blackberries. Nope, these are the kind that snag your pant legs. Any bare skin would yield red stripes from the scratches. Tiny thorns embedded in my fingers. I wore two pairs of surgical gloves and a pair work gloves over the top and tackled one area at a time. 


It has taken months, and I’m not done. Those dead limbs that should have been picked up years ago created the perfect invasive vine incubator. From there they crept through sword ferns and over the top of the salal bushes and wrapped around tree trunks—robbing precious nutrients from the natural plants.




I’m dealing with this now because I wasn’t paying attention back then. Never again. Not on my watch. I’m on active reconnaissance.


But the hours I’ve spent in this eradication effort have given me plenty of time to think about other things I’d like to root out—within me. Here's #1: I’m so quick to think I’ve got the right solutions for everyone else’s problems. Um, no I don’t.



 


Every vine is a reminder that my wrong thinking can travel a long ways and hurt innocent folks as it goes. It just took an overgrowth of prickly vines to reveal some unhealthy pride inside me.


Now I’m on patrol, pulling out  things that don’t belong—in my heart, mind and in the forest. Hopefully, we all will be healthier.

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