life in West Nile

I spent a full May 2006 Saturday digging up the weeds by the roots, turning them over, chopping up the exposed soil with the blade of the shovel, and moving on to the next shovel-full. I discovered that the mosquitoes here are pretty damn hungry. After covering every bit of exposed skin with itchy welts, they went on to bite through my jeans and shirt.

Once when I was in high school, I'd managed to cut myself pretty badly on a piece of glass on the way to a talent show audition and I remember some friends following the trail of drops of blood through the hallways to the music room where they adoringly told me, "You have such pretty blood!" Apparently if you're a tiger mosquito, it tastes pretty good too. Whenever I go to my garden, it's like I'm wearing a dinner bell around my neck. My neighbors don't seem to have this problem. Vegetarians really do taste better (or at least smell better according to this study).

Anyway, by hand tilling I managed to save all the asparagus plants. I also found some plants that looked like, well something potentially edible. They weren't. BTW, I still do this when something different looking shows up. I've had better results since. Last year, this strange vine appeared out of nowhere and I decided to let it be. Turned out it was a lima bean plant.

I do plan to finally rototill the non-perennial sections of my plot this spring. There is some kind of deeply-rooted mean-spirited weed that pops up everywhere on extremely short notice through inches of mulch and even wooden boards, and it chokes the hell out of my plants. The winter strategy review concluded that the infantry can't always handle it quickly or thoroughly enough, so an air strike is needed.