Calvinist fecundity

For the record, this is what I'm talking about--aliens all, undocumented immigrants, invaders from Putin's side of the world. Believe me--behind our house they're all over.

When we returned from our fiftieth in Arizona, you might have thought they were the celebrants; they were everywhere--hundreds of them, thousands. The night before we left, our parched acre was blessed with 2 1/2 inches of rain, a sacramental blessing whose gracious effects were not universally received. The spotty Great Plains downpour ladled a benediction all through our acre, but skipped the neighbors down the road almost entirely. As we left for Arizona, we thought the soaking would keep things alive.

I don't know what happened while we were gone, but since we've returned rain showers have been super-abundant. For a week, at least, we got wet, no flood, just a cold shower to tolerate the super-hot days. These days you can literally watch corn grow. That's neither poetic or hyperbolic. 

Fecundity is a word that has no business meaning what it does. Sounds horrible, but it's a blessing.

Sometimes.

Our towering tomato plants seem not to mind the muskmelons so far beneath them, taking over the backyard. We've got peppers like we've never had. Oh, the fecundity! It's just amazing.

And horrible.

Because this burden of sin is mine. Thanks to the serpent, to Eve's far too supple will, and Adam's downright laziness, this is what I'm talking about. This is my lot in life.

If only they were solitary, but when thistles come, they come not as spies, but in battalions. You can nuke 'em, but then everything else dies too, unless you handle them, literally, with kid gloves. You get down on your knees and anoint them each individually with Roundup, which is a pose I find difficult at 74, and simply refuse to do.

So I pull them instead, a couple of hours everyday, especially now when they're flowering, getting ready to loose those fecund seeds all through the native prairie we're trying so hard to be natively pure. I pull them until my back will bend no more, until sweat runs in my eyes, and my skin gets way too much sun even though I wear a hat.

I pull and pull and pull--the earth is soft--until the wagon behind the four-wheeler is round and full of three-foot-long detritus. I pull and pull and pull, knowing that if I turn around, there will be more. I pull and pull and pull, knowing that tomorrow they won't be back, literally, but they'll still be there. I pull and pull and pull because I am a Calvinist.

In ten years out here in the country, only once or twice have we had people over who actually walk back into our prairie. Just doesn't happen. Even if we host a party in our backyard, no one actually takes a walk through native prairie. So who knows the fecundity of thistles, who knows how many blasted Russians have found a home in our backyard, who sees Adam's curse up-close and personal? Who witnesses our sin?

Nobody. Not even my wife, who's picked a ton from the garden out back, not even my wife hikes though the prairie. No one but me knows how fecund those blasted thistles are. No one but me knows about sin or even the lack of it. 

Here's how I know I'm a Calvinist. I actually enjoy it. I like sweat soaking the rim of my straw hat. I like a t-shirt wet to my chest. Like nothing else, I like looking at a spot of prairie whose native fecundity is visible in cup plants or maximillians. I love black-eyed susans and cone flowers and spider warts, love 'em all, and they love me a whole lot more if I rid them of those towering unsightly thistles. 

We're all happier than we were a week ago when we returned. We're less crowded, less plagued by the Russians. Sometimes now, the whacky song of the dickcissel is music to my ears.

He and his mate don't let me get too close, so let me bring him up a little closer.

Go easy on him. He likes to think he's a meadowlark, but, Lord knows, he's not. The moment he opens his beak, his pitiful attempt at music is a dead giveaway. But he's the only friend I've got out back who spends his winters in Chile. That's why sometimes, when the prairie enjoys a moment swept of sin, I don't mind listening to him pour out that ratchet-y song. Sometimes even that is a blessing. 

Out back, I think I prove myself a Calvinist.