RON MARR
WEED WARRIOR
I’m currently embarking upon my annual descent into the arcane worlds of biological and chemical warfare. Lest concerned readers misinterpret that statement and feel compelled to report me to America’s myriad surveillance agencies, let me categorically attest that I’m not (at this moment, anyway) engaged in illegal, subversive, or anti-government activity.
I am, however, at war with weeds, ticks, fleas, saplings, snakes, and ants. Every year these insidious pests declare war on my property, my dogs, and myself. They attack in numbers so great that my best response is a limited holding action lasting until the first frost of next fall. It’s a pointless exercise on my part, but I hate to go down without a fight.
My primary battleground for the past several years has been the semi-abandoned ponds at my parent’s quasi-abandoned property. These bodies of water were once top-notch catfish holes, but over the years, they’ve become weed-choked and unfishable, inhabited only by snapping turtles, muskrats, and a vibrant community of snakes. Last year, armed with a .410 shotgun (for snakes) and a backpack sprayer (for weeds), I treated the ravenous foliage with poisonous products guaranteed to decimate every known species of impertinent, floating flora.
It did nothing. The weeds experienced a mild headache and sniffles and roared back thicker than ever. The humiliation of my failure was superseded only by the humiliation of knowing that my neighbors were watching the poison-application process. Trust me when I say that sashaying though pond muck while wearing goggles, a respirator, rubber gloves, and hip waders is a distinctively bad look. I’m sure pond chemicals are far deadlier to the guy spraying—in terms of reputation and dignity—than to the weeds being sprayed.
Not that the reality of such potential ignominy stopped me. I again donned my homemade hazmat suit just a couple days back. This time, it was to treat my backyard with toxic tick and flea granules. You know these granules are effective because the label states in huge letters that you should avoid touching the stuff until a hard rain melts it into Mother Earth. I’m not sure how Mother Earth feels about this, but since I’ve not received a cease-and-desist letter, I’m assuming she’s cool.
I’ve given my dogs vet-approved pup-drugs that allegedly make them taste terrible to bloodsuckers and have thrice sprayed the fence rows with weed killer. I’ve lopped countless hedge, Callery pear, and mulberry saplings, and I have poison-painted raw stumps. I’ve set out a slew of ant poison strips in the hope that said ants will tote the toxicant back home as dinner for their unsuspecting queen.
The results of my labors are mixed. On the positive, fleas and ticks are few, the dogs are happy, and a respectable number of serpents have met their eternal reward via #5 shot. The ant population has dropped by about 40 percent. On the negative, my efforts at slaughtering weeds have been largely for naught. It’s like the Greek myth of Sisyphus eternally pushing a boulder up a hill. I try to kill weeds, and the weeds merely grow taller and laugh at my intractable redundancy.
Thus, though I obviously learn at a glacial pace, I think I’ve found a solution. In The Art of War, Sun Tsu wrote that victory sometimes arrives in the appearance of capitulation. Therefore, if it means so much to them, let the weeds have their hollow victory. I’m surrendering. Let them over-run the property.
I won’t care. I plan to move.
This article was originally published in the June 2022 edition of Missouri Life magazine.
