Invasives

7:30 am

                Still at the farm, now with K and Tigger. I have put barricades at the stairs of the porch so Tigger will stay on, since he is wearing his diaper and I don’t want him off the porch with it on. It will make it easier as far as going in and out goes. If he starts wanting to be on and off the porch, which he probably will (his favorite activity has always been to sit on the top of the south lawn and bark at neighborhood dogs), it will be a problem. I suppose at some point I will take the diaper off, let him onto the lawn and put the barricades back so he cannot get back on. This is why I was so glad not to have him here all week.

                Drove halfway home last night to meet K and G. She wanted the car for the weekend, so K and Tigger got into the station wagon. And we traded off three bales of hay for G to bring home. I don’t know if we’ll be able to bring any more tomorrow, it will mean tying them to the roof since the back of the car will be packed with my stuff, plus there is K and Tigger to accommodate.

                Right now the thing that is most concerning in the back of my mind is the note I just got from my aunt P. It so typifies my habitual reaction to things. She had written earlier about needing money for the company that will be dealing with the invasives in the woodlot. I had written her back to clarify how much she needed and who the check should be made out to and was waiting and waiting for a response. Meanwhile, I had finally called Mom, nervous about her reaction to needing $300, but she was fine about it. Then I kept waiting. This morning before doing MP’s I decided to give a quick check to email, and looked at work email instead of Comcast, and there was her answer, which she sent on Tuesday. I never saw it because all week I’ve been only checking the Comcast. Most of my non-work mail comes there, except a few of the groups I am on, like Meatrabbits and Techspin. I had forgotten that for some reason P uses my work email. I will need to ask her to change that. Anyway, my first reaction is that sinking, rock in the pit of my stomach feeling that I did something wrong. Not that it matters, since what she said is that she doesn’t need money from Mom yet. But then she also said, and rather firmly, that the invasives group found some on our property, right across the street, and that we need to take care of those so they don’t spread. It is true, and we do need to, and she is just repeating what the control people said to her, but it still gave me that awful sinking feeling. I’ve been a bad girl. I’m naughty. I did the wrong thing. I’m being chastised. I’m unloved and unlovable. Oh brother. The only reason I’m going on about all this (mentioning all these ridiculous things that I do know are silly) is because I’ve been reading that You Are Not Your Brain book and those are deceptive brain messages. They come up in just those kind of situations and they feel awful. My usual response it to want to hide. Or to quickly take care of the situation, frantically, make it all better. So part of me wants to go right out and start dealing with the invasives immediately, all on my own. It’s not a terrible impulse, and I think it is fine to take it on as a project, but I won’t be able to do it all alone. I will have to communicate with everyone and involve the whole gang. One more thing. Don’t suppose they’ll be thrilled and they may not appreciate P’s ordering them, but if I couch it as coming from the Invasive Control folk it will be better. And really it is not a huge issue, in the case of the stuff around the house – honeysuckle, barberry, and the bittersweet by the garage. My mistake in the past trying to cut that back is that I was being purist and not using herbicides, but we really will have to. I don’t think any mention was made of the Japanese knotweed, I don’t think it is apt to move into the woods, but it would make sense to try to get rid of the patch that is here on the street. Not sure about the huge amount by the river. And I don’t know how bad the bittersweet is down there.

                As for today. Well K didn’t seem interested in doing anything in particular, though when he wakes up he may well want to go into town for coffee and something sweet and caloric. I could do that. Then I think I will play with some of the random stuff I brought along. The huge box of “random bits.” I gathered some last night, just must now figure out how to combine and spin them. That should be fun.

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