Catholic Sensibility

It's a jungle out there And, no I don't mean the Culture of Death. Actually, I mean the culture of life, my back yard's life to be exact. Picked up the lawn mower from the repair shop this morning. After getting home, I started to gather sticks and check out what my yard has done in the past two weeks. (My wife swears it's been three.) I found evidence of a third tree the previous owners cut down, pulling out a root about three feet long from the front yard. If my grass were wheat, there's enough grain out there to stock a bakery for a day or two. The dandelions have grown to Jurassic size. I could make flutes of the flower stalks. They've probably seeded the whole subdivision. (I can see the letter from the neighborhood association now.) The wild strawberries under the pine tree have gone to flower and they might be overtaking dandelion as the plant of choice. That could be good news. I have some subspecies of grass that turns brown (no, Mark Shea, it doesn't wear shirts) in the winter and is finally coming out nice and fluffy green now that the rest of the yard has become a forest. (I hope it has enough sunlight to survive to the All Star break.) As I mowed, I got to thinking. I was mulling over plot twists in last summer's Harry Potter book. I was wondering if the dandelion would be a preferable alternative for my wife's bunnies over cilantro, their pricey favorite. I started to say the rosary, but then got distracted when I ran out of gas. I've concluded I have really wimpy grass, letting dandelion and strawberry take over. What is this, the Detroit Red Wings? A few years ago I videotaped Attenborough's Private Life of Plants documentary when it aired on TBS. Great, great viewing. Grass is supposed to be the Master of the World. Really. The grasses (wheat, rye, etc.) have tricked the human race into cultivating it and spreading it worldwide. We're really being controlled by plants. We're their thralls. In fact, I can hear my lawn sending me a telepathic message right now that I need to ethnically cleanse my yard with weed chemicals so I can ensure the Purity of the Race. Maybe they've already overrun the liberals. It might be no coincidence that the crew that eats whole grains is so Green. As we consume healthy food, those little embryonic buggers reprogram our brains to oppose internal combustion engines, cattle, and fast food. Maybe my grass needs to toughen up. Act a little like fungi. Evolve some roots that strangle thistle and plantain like fungal tendrils. Choke those puny strawberries at ground level with 'em. Stalks with grain? Heck, grow fruiting bodies the size of trees and blast the landscape in seeds two feet deep. Develop something that poisons weeds like those rain forest orange newts that kill the predator seconds after they've been eaten so they can crawl out of the corpse's mouth and go about their merry way without batting an amphibian eye. Oh well. Back to mowing. The grass sabotaged my mower while I was taking a drink a little while ago. Sixty minutes out of the shop and the danged thing has stalled out again. Maybe since they can't get me to use lawn chemicals, the grass has entered into an alliance with the dandelion. If so, I think the strawberries and I are toast.