Buckthorn Vigilante

Just two outings permitted to me--and the best is seeing our baby granddaughter. I prepare with a mask, gloves, frequent handwashing and I avoid touching her hands or face. Her parents are working so she has a certain amount of exposure but she's not going to get Coronavirus from me.

I'm also expanding my Citizen Pruner activities to solo trips. Mud Lake Park is just a few blocks from here and it's suffering from buckthorn invasion and aggressive grapevine pulling down the tops of the viable trees. Plus, trash and deadwood to pull out. The Boy Scouts built a path several years ago but it's getting overgrown, and the park layout is rustic and heavily wooded. Since I can't go to the gym, this serves as my exercise and an opportunity for some planning. If I rip out the buckthorn roots and all, we're done. But disturbing that much soil makes a playground for buckthorn seeds and other invasives. So I'm cutting low to the ground and repeating frequently as new sprouts emerge.

I seldom meet anyone at the park, which is the ideal for me. But last week while I was talking with a friend on my phone using my earbuds, I was on the ground savagely slashing with my Japanese saw/knife and I saw someone from the corner of my eye. He was wary--not worried as much about Corona virus as some crazy lady with a knife muttering and crawling on the ground. He flattened against the fence and kept much more than 6 feet away from me.

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