In the Weeds

Late summer is reductive work. You harvest, take away the best, and plants, likewise, contract. The oldest growth — green leaves rimmed in death, tattered at their edge — cannot hide the fruit. A life cycle is complete … or, at least, nearing completion.

Weeds, robust, and some 6 feet tall, tower over the remnants of the first melon planting. Their seeds are not mature, but the threat is burgeoning. One year at seed takes seven to weed. So the mower goes.

We battle weeds all season, but in August, when the farmer is too busy reaping to spend time on maintenance, the weeds can take the lead — in first plantings, where mechanical weeding was impinged by row cover, like the melon patch.

I am grateful for the cab tractor. The hornets rise angrily and steadily above the fenders. Their bomber bodies, searching for a target, ride the air beside the tractor. We move at the same speed, allowing me to watch the blur of their wings, their changing elevation, and, eventually, their falling back, into the splattered path.

Weeds, however undesirable, are like a coral reef for winged things. The structure is protective and alive.

On an early, very cool morning, my bumper brushes the edge of the asparagus. These are dense and weedy rows, and the dew has bent branches in the path. As we drive, we disturb the peace, and hundreds of sleepy dragonflies ascend in front of us. They rise as we advance, gradually, doddering, shimmering; a great line of them forms along the field’s weedy edge. The morning hunt is on.

Deep in the lettuce — it’s less weedy here — a garter snake takes its chances and has curled itself under a head of romaine. The snake and the lettuce are almost the same color, and as I bend the head back to cut it, I haven’t seen the snake, but nor has the snake moved. And so, by the time I do see it, I also think I might have harmed it.

I withdraw my knife and, pushing the lettuce back the other way, look at the snake. About 4 inches down its coiled body, the long bulge of its latest meal explains its unhurried state. A life cycle is complete, and others are still nearing completion.

I leave the snake and the lettuce in peace.