by Wendy Dudley
Several summers ago, a new flower bloomed in our far west fields. Tall and lean, it had blue-green leaves and wore a crown of yellow. It towered over all the other grasses and flowers, dancing in tow-headed circles. I flipped through the pages of my flower guides, searching for its identity, but nothing came close to describing the lanky stem which encased a milk-white sap. I welcomed this new arrival as I would a new neighbour, but then one day a stranger showed up at our door, asking who owned the far field. A field man from the agriculture department, he had noticed our carpet of yellow while driving by on a hunt for noxious weeds.
"Those fields would be mine," I said.
"Well, you've got leafy spurge."
"I've got what?" I asked.
"Leafy spurge. It has a yellow flower."
"Oh, those flowers. I wondered what they were. I thought they were quite pretty."
The weed officer tried not to roll his eyes, but he gave a heavy sigh as his shoulders dropped and he turned his head away. I'm sure I heard a mumble about blasted hobby farmers, or something of the like. Visiting the field with me, he confirmed that we were indeed talking about the same plant. He sentenced the weed to death, warning me that if it wasn't killed, it would crowd out every living thing in its path and rule the pasture like some malicious monarch. If I didn't kill it, the municipality would do the deed with a spray gun, then drop the bill on my doorstep, he said.
"Spray it?" I asked. "When it's growing on a hill and so close to the creek?"
At first the ag man shuffled his feet, then assured me spraying would be safe. Within a week, a masked weed man was tending to our unwanted garden, hosing the plants with some foul-smelling liquid. Gasping for air, the flowers faded, wilted, and then—came back! Full strength and full bloom, with the petals as bright as sunshine, as if snickering at our foolish effort!
I refused to spray again, already feeling guilty about ignoring my conscience. How could I taint the creek that faithfully gurgled at the bottom of the hill? Whether
weakened by drought or strangled by ice, it never ceases to run, weaving its way through bog and beaver dams. It's not that our creek is pristine—far from it. In spring flood, it runs wild with rubber tires, pop cans, and plastic gas tanks. Cattle and horses wander its banks, dropping gifts of manure, and I'm sure I've seen Maggie dog squat in one of its many dark pools. But heron fish on this creek, little minnows dart beneath its long reeds, and muskrats rudder their way around logjams and bulrush thickets. No, there must be another way.
I couldn't use the donkey and mule as grazing power, since the spurge's sap would burn their mouths. Someone told me goats—they must have asbestos lips—could take care of it, but that would mean building a goat-proof fence. I could barely maintain three strands of wire, never mind wrestling with page wire and more than a mile's worth of work.
Well, what about me? Thinking I could nip it the old-fashioned way, I spent several days as a bipedal grazer, snapping every flower from its stem, my work gloves sticky with the sap. But it was back-breaking work, and I didn't look forward to adding yet another chore to an ever-growing scroll of summer tasks. So the following summer, I pushed our hulking Husqvarna lawnmower up the hill, squeezing it between spindly tree trunks bordering a woodland trail, and then maneuvered it down another hill before crossing the grassy slopes to the new hatch of spurge. Firing up the orange beast, I began to cut, sculpting a tidy crop square. With no trace of tracks in the long grass, it looked as if the mowed patch had landed there. I laughed, thinking of all the passersby scratching their heads. This could be one for the tabloids, a variation on alien crop circles. I had often watched mysterious green, yellow, and red lights, with no definite shape or sound, pulse overhead at night. So it wouldn't be too far-fetched to think of these fields as Roswell North. Sure enough, it didn't take long for several neighbours to inquire about the squares. "What's going on over there? What exactly are you doing?" As tempting as it was to embellish my wing-nut reputation, I fessed up that I was the creator, that I was in a face-off with leafy spurge. Their faces went blank; their eyes glazed over. Most hadn't heard of the weed, and the others were soon bored by my detailing of its biology.
The following summer, I was eager to check the spurge's health, hoping to find the plants frail and stunted. Surely my cutting had weakened their roots. With no leaves and only short stems, how much food could they manufacture for growth? As the range management experts say, "No shoot? Then no root." But I was horrified to find what appeared to be robust spurge, with more leaves than ever, spiralling in every direction. I was now growing spurge bushes. The plants were so thick I could hardly find a stem of grass. Baby spurge was crawling everywhere.
"Never heard of this happening before," said the weed police on the end of the phone. "Don't know what to suggest. Maybe you should call the agriculture research centre." My call to the Lethbridge Research Centre opened the door to a whole new adventure with this defiant weed. I was told that the lush new foliage was a sign of stress, that indeed my plucking and pruning was causing the spurge to panic. Determined to survive, it was shooting out growth to counter my attempts to kill it. But I also learned its arsenal was endless —a root system that could sprawl almost fifteen additional feet each year, and extend more than twenty-five feet deep. It gets worse. Each plant produces about 14o seeds and casts them about fifteen feet when the seed case explodes. Each seed survives up to eight years. Native to Europe and Asia, leafy spurge has no natural predators in Canada.
Yikes! Now that I knew my enemy, it seemed hopeless. I was sure my pasture was doomed. Not necessarily so, said Ray Wilson from the research centre, who outlined a new plan of attack—insects, thousands of them! Little black flea beetles that would gobble up the spurge, even while I was sleeping.
"Sign me up," I said.
"Done deal. You're on the list. We'll call you next spring," said Ray, eager to plot another test site. There were no guarantees of success, but I was excited by the prospect of using bio-control. For once, I was receiving critters that would feed and water themselves, hibernate in winter, and actually do some work.
Nine months later, Ray arrived at my door with a plastic container and a big smile. Weeks before, he had screened my field to ensure it would be a happy home for the bugs. Apparently it was a five-star lodge, a perfect flea motel with a south-facing slope and good drainage.
I peeked inside the plastic tub, and several of the beetles jumped out. I couldn't believe how tiny they were. Even with five thousand of them—less the few that escaped—they could have held a party in the palm of my hand. Ray warned me it would take several years for them to gnaw their way through my patch of spurge. Several years? I was sure it would take at least a century, making it the longest smorgasbord on record, but I remained committed. The project wouldn't cost me a cent, and it was environmentally friendly. Besides, I needed all the help I could get.
We set the wee gaffers free, wishing them well on their gastronomical journey. Over the next week, Mom and I made daily checks, curious about our new boarders. We soon discovered that our little beetle friends, officially known as Apthona lacertosa, are extremely gregarious, lining up along leaves in a chain of black dots. But for most of the year, they are invisible, preferring to spend their lives underground as larvae. In the depths of darkness, they feed on spurge roots, striking the plant where it hurts the most. The beetles have been with us for less than a year, but before they burrowed down, they savaged about ten plants. Not bad for a month's work, and just think, only several thousand more spurge to go!
Oh well, they fit into Burro Alley just fine, munching away on donkey time.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Snow in Summer
When my fields are dappled yellow with blooming buffalo bean, I know it is sage to plant poppies, lettuce, or sweet peas.
It is the second day of August, and it's two degrees below freezing, with snow predicted for the high country hills and mountain slopes. Snow halfway through summer? Snow at a tim
e when much of Alberta is baking in a drought so bad it has old-timers dusting off their memories of the Depression? Just two days ago, we were wilting under a sun that had wrenched every drop of moisture from the soil. The dogs were squirrelly, digging holes under the trees and pressing their bellies against the dark earth to get some relief. Black crows sat on fence posts, their beaks wide open like the mouths of panting dogs. Red squirrels, who normally use tree trunks as speedways, stretched out on limbs with their white bellies against the bark and their tiny claws gripping for balance. Only the mule and donkey joyously basked in the desert air, but then their ancestry dates back to the wild asses of Africa and Asia, animals used to scorching heat and brittle dry brush.
Well, so much for our heat wave. Today dawned with a heavy snowfall warning, sweeping in a rash of migraine headaches and cranky moods. Lord, this place is crazy. I've often said if you don't have a mercurial temperament, Alberta will drive you wacky with its roller-coaster weather. But it all depends where in the province you live. If home is on the sunlit plains to the east, this forecast of winter in summer may as well be coming from Mars. Chances are no one there will spot a flake of the white stuff. But we live in the foothills, that borderland between the prairies and the Rockies, and I'm convinced our valley is the bull's eye of a local snowbelt. Only two months ago, in late May, I was still up to my knees in drifts, wondering if summer would ever blossom, if we would ever awaken from the slow pulse of winter. The pale season lingered, ever the reminder that life is vulnerable, that life ends, that nothing lasts forever. The first spring robins struggled to find worms and grubs in still-frozen ground. They darted across the snow, their red breasts bursting against the stark white like a summer sunrise. Mom put out bowls of raisins and leftover dog food, nursing the shocked robins through the cold spell, but its cruelty killed dozens of bluebirds, swallows, and other insect-eating birds.
So, after only two months of back-warming sunshine, I detest this return of a winter that obviously never really left. What has me quaking in my snow boots are the furry coats the mule and donkey seem to have grown overnight. Raven hasn't even finished shedding, and again her coat is thickening with coarse hair, and Lucy has added a layer of peach fuzz, her slick summer gloss lasting less than a month. I should have known snow was sneaking over the hills by the way she danced, bucked, and paced along the fenceline this morning. That animal is a walking, trotting barometer. When a storm is on the move, she's nervous, anxious for food. It's as if she fears every blade of grass will disappear beneath an avalanche of heavy snow. I'm sure it's the survival instinct. Eat while it's here; stock up for the big one.
The darkening sky reminds me of a freakish whiteout several years ago when I learned never to turn my back on a nervous animal. It was a late-night blizzard, several days before Christmas: the wind was blowing so much snow that my footprints vanished like a ghost. Heaving several flakes of hay into the wind, I dodged Lucy and Raven, who were pivoting and bolting, churning the snow with their nervous energy. I waited until they returned and settled into their feed, then turned my back and walked through a narrow gate towards the barn. Suddenly, I was struck in the back by what felt like a Mack truck. Knocked to the ground, I heard pounding hooves pass by. My ears throbbed. My heart raced. I covered the back of my head with my hands, waiting for the lethal strike. As the drumming hooves continued, I thought a phantom herd had joined my posse of two. Hours seemed to pass, and then all was quiet. Doing a push-up in the snow, I raised my upper body, pausing to see if I could make out any shapes in the snowy darkness. Wham! A stomp on my back, a hoof landing between my shoulder blades, drove my face deep into the snow, knocking the wind from my lungs. I lay still, too scared to move, wondering if the heaviness in my chest would crush my last breath. I knew I had to get back to the house. Groaning, I eased myself up, anticipating the sharp, stabbing pain of a broken rib. But there was only a numb stiffness in the centre of my back. I stumbled to the house and flopped onto the couch in front of the Christmas tree. If this was my time to move on, I wanted Mom to tell everyone I died happily, watching the tree lights twinkle like diamond stars.
I think of this brush with deadly hooves every time a wicked winter storm moves across the mountains, but I don't expect to be haunted by the memory in August, when the night sky is full of summer constellations. This is a time when the garden should be blooming, when sunflowers are reaching for the sky, when pansies are laughing and nasturtiums are ripe for salad-picking. But instead, the flowers are gasping. With a lean six-week growing season, foothills gardening is never easy. We gave up growing impatiens when Jack Frost turned them black overnight. And if it's not high winds breaking the necks of fuchsia blooms, it's hail ripping leaves until they look like grasshopper feed. We've had summers when we fed frost-nipped vegetables to the mule, and autumns when pumpkins froze solid.
Without stalwart geraniums and petunias, our garden would be anemic, as most plants, like Depression-era farmers, give up trying to carve a living from the soil. At least we can bring the geraniums inside for winter and watch the deer tapping the windows, trying to nip the foliage. If the weather doesn't murder your plants, the wildlife will. Gardens look like prison yards, chicken-wired to keep the deer out. If that fails, nylon stockings stuffed with human hair and tethered to outdoor stakes usually keep the critters away.
Sometimes I think it's best to forget the tame flower garden and enjoy the palette of wild colours dotting the pasture: pink shooting stars, yellow buffalo beans, the prairie rose, and the fiery paintbrush. That way, one doesn't pay much attention to the moody weather, like the pelting rain against my window which is now turning to splashes of snow. I can see the wall of white moving in from the west, the gusting wind rocking the spruce tops across the valley. Just in time for the long weekend. I feel a little guilty—not a lover of scorching heat, I innocently remarked the other day that winter couldn't come early enough. I didn't think the sky gods were listening, but with a daytime high of thirty-five degrees—the coldest second day of August in about sixty years—I'm having second thoughts. I wish I could take it back, but it's too late. The valley is hidden behind a wash of white. We don winter sweaters and light a fire, the smoky curl rising from the chimney to tease the aspens' shivering green leaves.
Please, I beg the creator of all things bright and beautiful, bring back the heat. I promise I won't complain too much. Well, at least not until next week. When the drought returns.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Jesus Donkeys
Like most animals, donkeys prefer to have company, whether a horse, cow, sheep, or goat. There is nothing more forlorn than a lone donkey in a field.
Peso pushes his broad forehead, its bristly hair the colour of grey barnboard, into my chest. Rubbing the inside of his ear with one hand, I stroke his velvet black muzzle with the other. He rolls his eyes until he's cross-eyed, trying to focus on my hand. I poke a finger inside his mouth, massaging his gums in the space between the incisors and the molars. He sucks on my finger, then lets me curl back his lips. I notice he's missing his two milk nippers; the permanent incisors are just beginning to drop down. "Poor little one," I say, caressing his mop of a forelock. "Makes it tough to chomp winter hay, doesn't it?" Three-year-old mules and donkeys have a tough go of it. They're losing baby teeth and cutting new ones, and their gums are red and inflamed.
Stocky and sassy, Peso is our little one, a miniature donkey given to us by our neighbour John, who wanted no money, just a good home for yet another donkey jack born on his property. He may be called Peso, but he's not as worthless as the Mexican currency. Far from it, he's a dear heart, knock knees, underbite, and all. What he lacks in show conformation, he more than makes up for in character. We could have named him Merrylegs, since his stubby limbs never stop moving, pumping like pistons as he charges across the fields, his wispy tail spinning like a windmill. His bray is nothing like Raven's; her vocal cords resonate with the depth of the Grand Canyon, while his are a shallow shriek, like
someone pinging rocks off a tin can. But he's feisty, hoofing a heave-ho at the mule or Raven if either tries to sneak a slurp from his tub of bran mash. He may be little, but he's a giant when it comes to attitude. Napoleon B. would have been a good second name.
But there's something else about Peso that makes him the chosen one, that makes us forgive him when he dances the limbo beneath the bottom strand of fence wire or nips instead of using his lips to pluck a peppermint candy from our hands. He bears the cross on his back, telling the world he is special. It was a donkey that carried Mary to the stable manger on the eve of Christ's birth. And it was a donkey that carried Mary and the newborn babe when they and Joseph had to flee Bethlehem.
What of the brays that shake our valley when dawn comes? Well, the story goes that the donkey's keen ears heard Herod's soldiers nearby, but that he could not awaken Joseph, Mary, or the Christ child. Up until now, the donkey had had no voice, but all of a sudden he was blessed with a miracle—a shattering bray that woke the family and allowed them to escape. From that day on, all donkeys could speak.
It was a donkey that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. On the day that He was crucified, it is said, the donkey wanted to help carry the cross, but the animal was pushed aside by the crowds. He waited to say goodbye and, when he turned to leave, quietly shed a sorrowful tear while the shadow of the cross fell across his back and shoulders. So all donkeys, no matter their colour, bear a stripe of dark hair down their back and across their shoulders, and the light markings around their eyes are shaped like teardrops. The marks are to remind us that this is the humble creature that carried the Son of God both to his birth and to his death. Such devotion to the holy child is why some people refer to the shaggy creatures as Jesus Donkeys. In olden days, a mother whose child had whooping cough would pluck hairs from the donkey's cross and hang them in a sack around the child's neck.