When Plants Go On The Attack

James L. Davis

My mom has a green thumb and it frightens me for a great many reasons. Because she has a green thumb she is one of those people who sometimes has been known to talk to her plants, which wouldn’t bother me too much. What bothers me is I believe her plants talk back and are plotting against me and my dad. Now that might sound crazy and I certainly wouldn’t argue the point, but just because it sounds crazy doesn’t mean it isn’t at least partially true.

The reason that I believe my mom’s plants are plotting against the two of us is because we have, through no fault of our own, been known to kill a great many plants in our life, which is not a good thing when you have someone like my mom in your life.

Although I’ve never really tested the theory before, I am fairly confidant that if my mom tried she could probably make a rock grow.

Of course, if she did make a rock grow my dad would accidentally kill the rock by putting it somewhere she didn’t want the rock to be, to which my dad would wonder why she decided to grow a rock in that particular spot in the first place. I would say that this continual back and forth banter is developed only after 50 some odd years of marriage. I would say that, but I can’t because when it comes to my mom growing things and my dad un-growing things the banter has been bantering for most of my life.

Currently my parent’s house is being slowly consumed by grape vines my mom planted some years ago. They all but hide the front of the house and have climbed up and swallowed one of the old trees in the yard. The grape arbor more closely resembles a grape woolly mammoth. I can’t be sure but I believe my mom planted one grape in the ground to start all of these vines growing…a seedless grape.

Sitting on the front porch my dad will look at the grape vines intertwining here and there and comment under his breath that no one actually eats all of those grapes and wonder if perhaps it wouldn’t be a good idea to prune back the grape vines before they gobble up the cat. Meanwhile my mom sits on the other side of the porch and contemplates where else in the yard she could plant something.

Which is why when visiting my mom’s house you have to be careful where you sit, where you walk and what you touch because there is a very strong possibility that it is not only growing, but may be equal parts thirsty and hungry.

She has plants in jars, plants in cups, plants in boxes and plants taking root inside of water bottles and when you visit her house she will look at you with a gleam in her eye and ask you if you would like to take some starter plants home with you. I usually say no thank you because on more than one occasion I have taken plants of my mother’s home and things usually end with the plant dying a slow, horrible death.
The truly frightening thing about that is when I visit my mom’s house I get the distinct impression that the other plants know that I am a plant killer. They know and they are not amused.

And therein lies the problem with my mom’s green thumb, she has planted everything that she can think of to plant in virtually every spot available to plant it. But the plants want her to plant more and that only leaves the lawn to plant things in. For that reason I worry for my dad’s safety because he is the one that cares for the lawn. I worry because it is only a matter of time before he makes the plants horribly angry.

While I do not know for a fact that the plants around my parent’s house actually wish ill of my father, I do know that he is the grand master when it comes to tending lawns and he is almost as fanatical about keeping a lawn nice and green and trimmed as my mom is in keeping her plants alive.

So it is that more often than not my mom’s plants end up the victim of my dad’s trimmer. I worry that the plants are growing more than a little upset about my dad’s use of the Weedeater.
To try and save her plants from the Weedeater and my dad from the wrath of the plants, my mom started taking my dad on a tour of the yard before he started mowing to show him where she had planted new plants.

Apparently the end result of this practice was that my dad carefully trimmed around the area my mom had pointed out to him that held one of her plants. Unfortunately what my dad took to be a weed was the plant my mom was growing and the plant he took to be a plant was in fact a weed.
“It looked like a weed to me,” he told me as we sat on the front porch, apparently oblivious to the mortal danger he had placed himself in by being a plant assassin.

In response to his comment I would smile and nod my head nervously, never quite able to keep myself from watching the grape vines for any sudden movement toward my dad.

Celebration Overload

James L. Davis

It’s seems a shame that when it comes to community celebrations you have to pick one over the other.

And for those of us who call Emery County home we definitely have a choice to make when it comes to this weekend’s entertainment. The communities of Castle Dale, Cleveland, Emery, Green River and Orangeville have community celebrations going on at the same time.

That’s more than half of the cities in Emery County having a celebration on the same day and while each of us may call one town or another home, we also probably feel some connection with a neighboring community; either because we have family that live there or because combined we are all one community.

If you want to visit two different events in two different towns you’d better have your running shoes on or your foot on the gas pedal and even then chances are you aren’t going to make it. And if you happen to be an organization that desires (or is asked) to take part in more than one parade or activity you have a choice that has to be made and someone isn’t going to be happy about that choice.

While the 24th of July is a celebration of the state’s pioneer heritage, couldn’t the cities of the county get together and decide that one or perhaps only two communities would have celebrations on that day and the other communities could pick another date for its own celebration?

We have an entire summer where communities could celebrate their unique heritage not only for the citizens of that one community, but for all of Emery County residents to celebrate. By setting separate dates for our celebrations we could support our neighboring communities and everyone would have a chance to mingle and enjoy the heritage that we are proud of.

Rather than every town picking the same weekend to celebrate its unique heritage wouldn’t it be far more unique for each city or town in the county to have a “day” that is truly its own that we can all help celebrate?