Nut Grass

All across the front of my grandmother’s house, there were flower beds.  They hugged the porch all the way around.  These were not remarkable flower beds – nothing dazzling about them.  They held some azaleas and some boxwoods – not an annual in sight.  There were a few flowers that my grandmother referred to as “volunteers,” and that was about it.  But they also held the one thing that my grandmother could not abide in a flower bed – nut grass.  It was my job to pull that stuff up.  Over and over and over again – because it is all but impossible to get rid of.  There is actually someone called the Dirt Doctor, and here’s what he says about nut grass - "There is only one guaranteed, foolproof method to completely kill nut grass. First, dig out every tiny piece of the plant including the seeds and nutlets. Make sure you sift the soil through a mesh screen. Dump the collected material on the driveway and burn it. Sweep up all the ashes and seal in a concrete box. Drive to the coast and dump the sealed box 20 miles off shore."  My grandmother and I waged war on that awful stuff every year from spring until it was temporarily stunned by the cold weather.  We never, never eradicated it.  Every year it returned full force.  I don’t think we even hurt its feelings.

Last weekend, I was working in my own flower bed in my one and only backyard.  Guess what I saw.  Nut grass.  I poured boiling water on it because someone told me that would do the trick.   It was not phased.  I poured full strength RoundUp on it – the kind that kills things for a whole year.  It did not droop in the least.  I dug it up (I hope), put it in a Walmart plastic bag, tied the top, put it in a gallon size zippered storage bag, put it in the kitchen garbage can, and ultimately sealed that bag and put it in the trash can outside.  The sanitation department took it from there.  That was on Monday.  There will probably be a nut grass infestation at the dump pretty soon.  Meanwhile, that pesky nut grass is already peeking through the pine straw!  The battle continues.

Sometimes our “battles” just get to us.  I once saw a greeting card that said, “Any idiot can handle a crisis.  It’s this day to day living that wears us down.”  Ain’t it the truth.  There are times when I feel like all I have done is fight my way through the day.  Things just happen.  There are emergencies.  There are accidents.  There are illnesses.  There are delays when you are in a hurry.  There are events you cannot control.  The list goes on and on.  You are battling the nut grass of life.  The only help you need – and sometimes the only help you will get – comes from God.  He said so Himself – and here it is:

He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.  Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.  They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.  Isaiah 40:29-31