Football Fingers and Lessons Learned From Monocot Roots

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This is not my hand, nor are these my fingernails.

Oh, but I do plan to get mine done like this once college football season begins!!!! And that, my dear non-college-football-fan bloggy friends, is a mere three weeks away.

How do you spell EXCITED???

Thanks to a friend of a friend for putting this picture on her facebook or pinterest or something. And thanks to my friend for e-mailing me a copy.


There has been much mention made in blogosphere of the fact that for those of us suffering through a very droughty summer (no, we're not suffering through the summer, we're suffering through the drought) we have observed that while grass has turned to a crispy winter-wheat-ready-to-be-harvested golden brown the weeds are thriving.

Actually, we have had just enough rain that our golden-brown-harvestable wheat has begun to have tiny (by tiny I mean TINY) threads of green amongst the gold, and the gold itself has turned to rather a charcoal gray-brown.

Now, in the above picture you can see my day lilies shooting their sprouts up through a lush cushion of green.

That lush cushion of green is a thick mat of weeds.

I do not enjoy gardening. (I know - - - for some of you those are blasphemous words, but they are true nonetheless.) In fact, I have repeatedly mentioned here in this space that I am a botanical homicide expert. No, I'm not an expert at CATCHING the homicidists, I AM a homicidist.

I have found over the years that day lilies and marigolds are strong hardy plants that even I have trouble killing. So I have a propensity for planting those.

When I gently set their small, infant bodies into the soil I whisper sweet words to them:

"OK cute little baby marigold, I am placing you in this soil, but if you are going to survive here, you are totally on your own.

And you, sweet little day lily root clump, while I do so hope that you will bless me with your luxurious blooms, please know that I shan't be watering or weeding you often and you must be able to survive in this cruel old world on your own."

Yes, I really do say that to them. I believe in letting them know ahead of time that they are going to have to FIGHT for their lives if they are to survive my touch.

Well, Thursday we were getting gentle, and some not so gentle, rain most of the day.

As I looked out at my day lilies gasping for their very life breath because so many weeds were choking them, I decided I would go out and pull those dastardly sap-suckers out of my day lily bed.

Besides, the high temperature Thursday was only in the mid-60's, which removed ONE of the things I HATE about weeding - - - sweatin' like an oldie.


The soil was wet and pliable. In no time I was actually finding "live and well" day lilies.

Now, very shortly into my weeding stint, I learned some very important weeding information.

If the weed is a dicot (branched leaf veins) it has one main tap root which is rather easily pulled up and disposed of. Those were the FUN weeds with which to deal.

Conversely, if the weed is a monocot (parallel leaf veins) the roots are a tangled mass of spaghetti-like fibers some of which may run for a foot or more horizontally under the surface of the soil. Crabgrass is of THIS variety of weed.

Those nasty old monocot weeds required much elbow grease and even a few pokes and prods with my garden claw before I could successfully pull them up.

As I sat there working, in the now drenching rain, several things happened.

First, the neighbor's son drove up, took one look at me struggling away with my weed pulling antics, and said, "just because it hasn't rained all summer doesn't mean you have to DANCE in it now!" Funny man he.

Secondly I began to think there HAD to be some lessons in those roots.

First Lesson: Friends whose lives are tangled in a bulwark of mutual support are not easily shaken nor destroyed.

(I'll take a little pregnant pause here to let that one sink in.)



Second Lesson: "Oh what tangled webs we weave when first we practice to deceive."

Sin in our lives causes tangled roots of deception which we ourselves are incapable of removing. Oh, we might try for a while to clean up a potty mouth or change a bad attitude - - - but as long as those nasty old monocot tangled roots of sin are still in our soul, we will never, no never, pull them out and eradicate them on our own.

It just isn't possible.

For eradication it requires the gentle prodding and poking of the Holy Spirit (our garden claw in this scenario) followed by cleansing eradication by the blood of Jesus shed just for that purpose for each and every one of us.

Whew - - - I don't OFTEN go to preachin' on this here ole blog, but I think I just did.

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