Friend and foe, nature is a splendid but unrelenting force. In the spring garden bed, she is pure trouble likely to wrestle her chosen adversary and win.

Her unpredictability is both source of inspiration and frustration as she spends her seeds sown in fall and lying in wait over winter.

Though we love to throw open the windows as the spring weather hits the Springs with dappling sunlight and gentle breezes, the air carries clouds dense with pollen.

Every year I have to remember how to throw off that yellow-tinted dust cloud. If I let myself succumb to its depressing weight, the aggressive creeping vines and runners will undermine the permaculture I’ve managed established. I’m reassuring myself now that I’m ready for transformational change. It’s ok that I must dig up the first garden I put in on the front lawn; if I don’t turn over its soils now to separate out a particularly tenacious invasive, I’ll be in a pitched battle against this foe for many seasons to come. Nature is my dear friend but, where our purposes cross, the carnage is real.