weeding invasive plants – Susan J Tweit

I'm writing this from my space at Mammoth Campground in Yellowstone National Park, with rain thrumming on Red's roof, and me drying out after a wet morning of digging invasive weeds. (The photo above is the partial rainbow that just appeared in a brief patch of sun between showers.) The good thing about a couple of days of wet weather is that it's easier to pry stubborn perennial weed plants out of the soil. The bad thing is that all of the plants are soaking wet, so I end up getting pretty wet too.

Being wet and cold while doing hard physical work is nothing new for me. I've been an outdoors person all my life: I grew up hiking, backpacking, and cross-country skiing; I worked in the backcountry as a field ecologist when I was younger, walking miles every day as I mapped and described forests and grasslands. In recent years, I've done carpentry and renovation, and now I spend my "vacation" time in Yellowstone hand-digging invasive weeds in bone-hard, muscle-aching sessions.

Bitterroot (Lewisia rediviva), one of my favorite spring wildflowers and the state flower of Montana, is one of the native plants that flourishes where I've removed invasive weeds in Yellowstone.

What's new is that I'm learning to notice when my body has had enough. Enough stopping and digging, enough being cold, enough wet. And once I notice I'm beginning to tire, instead of pushing myself to do more, I do something I would never have done back in the days when I believed myself entirely invincible: I stop working. Not immediately, of course.

I'm not that good. But sooner than I once would have, usually soon enough to keep my Lupus from kicking in and sending me into a state of feverish shivers and muscle aches that make me feel like someone beat my whole body with a ball-peen hammer.

You'd think I would have learned that lesson long ago, since I've had this autoimmune condition all my adult life. I have learned to mind my energy and my limitations in many ways.

But not with work I love, work that puts a smile on a my face and a light in my soul. When I'm digging in new perennial plants for the pollinator habitat in my yard or wielding tools to do finish work on my house; when I'm digging invasive weeds to restore wild communities in Yellowstone, I am in the zone, making a positive contribution in the world, and I am so not paying attention to my body. That's when I'm likely to work beyond exhaustion and make myself sick, and then have to pull back and take it easier for a few days or a week.

Rocky Mountain penstemon (Penstemon strictus), another native wildflower that flourishes where invasive weeds are removed. I dig weeds to restore these plants and their community.

Only since I've been here in Yellowstone this week, I've noticed myself paying attention to my body and my physical condition, and pulling back before I am exhausted, not after. I'm surprised, but I like it.

It could be age bringing some belated wisdom–I'll be 62 this September, unarguably a senior.

Or it could be the badger I saw on my way to Mammoth on Friday afternoon. I was three hours into my drive, thinking ahead to getting to the campground and claiming my site, and getting my first look at my weeding areas. It was a showery afternoon, and I had just slithered through a bear jam (a mama black bear and three cubs near the road) that had traffic stalled for half a mile south of Tower Junction, and I just wanted to get on my way.

I passed a car stopped dead on the road to shoot a video of an elk, and then swooped around a corner with clear road ahead when I saw a hump of salt and pepper fur fronted by a wide head bisected by a black slash in the middle of my lane: a badger. Motionless.

The body was under my truck and gone before I had a moment to respond, and when I did, I thought, I can't stop. I have to be in Mammoth by four.

Only that was a badger, dead on the road. The last badger I saw dead on a highway was thirty years ago, and that one set me on this path of speaking for those whose voices we fail to hear and atoning for the thoughtless destruction we cause to Earth, our home.

The essay I wrote about that first badger, "Picking Up Roadkill," a piece that appeared in the Denver Post, and also formed part of one chapter of my last book, Walking Nature Home, still ranks as one of the best pieces I've ever written. It opened a door in my life, and gave my work new purpose.

And here was a second badger, and I was in a rush. I cursed under my breath, found a place to turn around, drove back and pulled Red as far as I could off the narrow highway. I reached behind my seat and found my weed-pulling gloves, waited for a break in the traffic, and dashed onto the road. As I carefully lifted the badger's body from the pavement, I was surprised by how limp and warm the body was, as if the animal was simply sleeping.

For a moment I thought the badger might wake and snap at me. There was no blood, no skid marks, no broken bones. Just the badger's heavy form, soft fur, and brown eyes. Just death.

Tears filled my eyes as I carried the badger off the road and laid it gently on the ground between two fragrant sagebrushes, lupine blooming nearby. I lingered a moment, my hand on that thick fur, saying good bye. And then dashed to my truck, peeling off my gloves.

"Thank you, badger," I said, as I pulled Red back onto the road and drove on. "I get it. I'm slowing down."

As I spoke the words, I felt the badger in my hands again, felt the weight of the limp body and that soft fur, felt both badgers, thirty years apart, and I promised my own body that I would pay attention, go slower, be more mindful. Take my time.

And now, with rain thrumming on Red's roof and the windshield steaming up from my out-breaths, I am doing just that. Taking my time, letting my body rest between bouts of pulling invasive weeds. Savoring my moments. I can't wake that badger, killed crossing the road in its home territory of Yellowstone, theoretically a protected place.

But I can live my life in a way that honors the lives of badgers and all other wild beings by taking my time and doing what I can to mend this battered world and all who share this extraordinary home, our Earth. Me too.

An elk calf who watched me weed for a while, along with her mom.

I'm coming to the end of my sojourn in Yellowstone National Park, my "vacation" spent weeding invasive plants, those species that imperil the health of natural communities, and impoverish us all.

Here's what I accomplished in the past ten days:

Worked 35.25 hours
Hiked 47.5 miles
Dug approximately 3,050 houndstongue (Cynoglossum officianale) plants (plus musk thistles, Carduus nutans, and a few other invasive weeds)
Hauled 25 trash bags weighing around 290 pounds of adult houndstongue plants loaded with prickly seeds to the trash dumpsters for safe disposal.

Two large houndstongue plants I dug up this morning, including their extensive roots. For scale, my plant knife is a foot long including the handle!

Beyond the data, I got to spend time living in Yellowstone. (The photo at the top of the post is the view from my "office" one morning after a rain. You have to imagine the resiny fragrance of rain-washed sagebrush leaves, and the musky smell of a small herd of mom and calf elk downslope.)

I got to watch elk calves so new they were still wobbling on their long legs. I learned the herd-mama "Wah-ooo-ee!" call, which means "Get over here now!" and the calves "Wah! Wah!" cry, which could mean either "I'm hungry!" or "Where are you?"

Mom elk calling her twin calves, right in the Mammoth Campground (I shot the photo from my truck, no telephoto lens needed).

I also saw pronghorn fawns still wet with after-birth, two glossy black bear cubs, plus a mom grizzly bear with twin cubs, her pale-tipped fur a straw-gold nimbus against the sun.

Spring is baby season in Yellowstone, from baby Richardson's ground squirrels, the lunch-meat of every larger predator out there, to baby bears. And baby birds, too. The baby wrens at the restroom nearest my site at the Mammoth Campground were ridiculously loud for such tiny 'uns!

I worked in every kind of weather spring in the Rockies can deliver: snow, rain, and sizzling heat.

Weeding in wet snow is cold and nasty, but the white landscapes surely are beautiful!

I usually worked alone, but I also got to spend a morning weeding with my boss, Park Botanist Heidi Anderson, and her crew. Their main focus is mapping and restoring wetlands, so catching up with them was a bonus.

I also had two mornings with longtime Yellowstone "weed warrior" Dan Smith, who is in his tenth summer of volunteering. Dan came down from Lake, a scenic but long drive, to help me dig out two particularly daunting patches of houndstongue, each involving hundreds of plants. (Thanks, Dan!)

A twenty-pound bag of houndstongue full of seeds, part of our morning's weeding haul…

My days in the park are simple and retreat-like (albeit physically grueling). I wake with the light at five-thirty or quarter to six, and greet the day in my sleeping bag as the robins, western tanagers, chipping sparrows, and other birds weave the dawn chorus.

Once up and dressed, I set my backpacking stove on my truck tailgate to boil water for instant oatmeal. As I inhale the hot meal, I think up my daily haiku. After cleaning up from breakfast, I drive up uphill to the Mammoth Store, where the cell reception is good enough to use my phone as a wifi hot spot, so I can share the poem and photo, my gift to all.

I fill my to-go cup with cocoa in the store, and then head for wherever I am working. If I'm hiking, I shoulder my day pack with weed bags, first-aid kit, bear spray, water, and extra layers in case of rain or snow.

Look closely at the dead tree: The golden-brown spot on the left-hand side is a Coopers Hawk with wings spread wide to dry after a drenching rain. I've never seen a Coopers Hawk do that before!

And then I dig houndstongue until I wear out, usually around noon. While I work, I scan my surroundings for wildflowers and wildlife, like the sow grizzly bear with twin cubs I saw one day from a distance. (No, I didn't think to take photos. I was too busy making sure I wasn't in their way!)

After I get back to the truck, I dispose of my day's haul of trash bags full of weeds, take off my gloves, clean my plant knife, and head back to camp for lunch.

The rest of the day is my time. Some days I drive downhill to Gardiner, Montana, the nearest town, to charge up my laptop and cell phone, and use real internet. While in town, I also go to the grocery store. Or take a shower. Or do laundry.

Some days I want more solitude, so I ramble in search of new wildflowers, and then sit and identify them. Or perch on a rock in the sun and read a book. Or write a letter…

One of my favorites: Penstemon cyaneus, blue penstemon, an endemic plant found only in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.

Yellow bells, Fritillaria pudica, another favorite.

After eating my simple dinner, I curl up in my truck-topper cocoon: a super-comfy, four-inch-thick Thermarest mattress, sleeping bag, and pillows (yes, more than one). Cozy, I read or write in my journal until sunset.

After which I say my gratitudes for the day, brush my teeth, and sleep soundly, snug until the light wakes me before dawn to hear the bird chorus. This morning's chorus began with the distant howling of wolves, a ululant grace.

Dawn from my campsite.

Weeding to nurture biodiversity in a place I have loved since childhood is deeply satisfying. Even if my inner economist reckons the dollar cost high–as a freelance writer, I live perilously close to the financial bone, unlike those who have salaries to offset volunteer time.

The thing is, I cannot afford to not do this work. Weeding for biodiversity is my gift to life. The light in my soul as I lug another heavy bag of houndstongue down the trail is life's gift to me. This work is a positive statement in a world that feels far too negative. This is my mission, the why of why I am alive:

I nurture and celebrate biodiversity, plant by plant, word by word. That our planet may thrive, and we–all the gloriously diverse kinds of us–along with it.

Nurturing biodiversity is a spiritual practice, and a radical act. A plant knife dug into the earth to resist global climate change. A sweaty step toward healing all beings–humans, bears, sagebrush, yellow bells and lupines and bumblebees, and the earth we hold dear.

Tag: weeding invasive plants

Lessons from Nature: Picking Up Roadkill Redux