Frogs, yes. Blackberries, no.

These images downloaded from Google Images 02/08/09

It has been beautiful weather recently, part of what I call the February Fake-Out.  The sun wins the war against the clouds and rain, blue skies kick their blankets off, and the temperature soars to the low fifties.  I believe that it is God's way of keeping all western Oregon residents from moving away or committing suicide.  Really.

So, being an avid gardener who cannot wait for the planting season, I go outside to take stock of the winter's toll on my yard and garden.  Ick.  Time to rake up the leaves that hadn't fallen when I hung up my rake last fall, clean up the dead plants that I failed to prune, and make another pity pruning of my roses.

I check the little rock pond that my son built a s a nursery for native Pacific or Western Chorus frogs (commonly called tree frogs), a hobby of ours that helps a threatened population and gives us hours of entertainment and smiles.  It is black and clogged with leaves and water plants, the plants alive but still clinging to their slimy dead last season leaves.  The pond smells like rotten eggs.  I remove the plants to a nearby concrete pad for trimming and bail the odorous water out onto the lawn.  Next, I hose out the pond and prepare it for refilling.  Only a few of the plants will go back in, the rest I will return to our two acre bass pond or compost.

Now, the nursery is ready for the tiny globs of clear eggs that will show up in the pond after the cacophonous mating season of the frogs.  We literally have to close the windows in the spring to hear on the pone or to get to sleep, the frogs are so loud.  We love it, though.  We have provided a habitat for the ittle guys in every home in which we have lived for nearly three decades.  When my son was thirteen, he slept upstairs, over the pond.  At night he took a flashlight to bed so, if the frogs became loud enough to awaken him, he could shine out the window for a momentary respite from the noise.

Next, I move on to the blackberry vines, a constant and vigorous invader of our area.  The fruit is luscious.  Late July and August mean blackberry picking in the Willamette Valley.  Eaten plain, just off the bine, or in cobblers, pancakes, or syrup--the berries are incredible.  We would miss the fruit if they were to completely disappear.  But, like English ivy and Florida's kudzu, blackberries are a non-native plant that wreaks bavoc on our land.  The plant is dispersed by seeds from bird droppings, create massive impenetrable walls and thick mats of vegetation, and root down to twenty feet.  It covers acres every year, twining into tall trees and stunting or killing them.. It grows over buildings and cars in one season, gobbling ground water and cutting off sunshine to other smaller plants.

Controlling blackberries is like a little war, bloody and requiring strategy and special equipment.  An endeavor not for the timid.  The woody runners can gracefully sweep around and slice up an unprotected face.  The one half to one inch thorns easily pierce leather gloves.  Carrying a pitchfork full of the demons, I feel a hot stab like many cat claws imbedding themselves into the flesh behind my right shoulder.  I cry out in surprise and pain.  Not cat or cougar, but a bloody ambush by the snake-like invader.  I try many times before I can pull the runner from my back.  Where the hell did that come from?

Finally, bloody and tired, I go inside, muttering about idiots long dead who brought in non-native things in order to make this place seem just like the place they just left.  As I sip my coffee and look outside to the grey stubble of the winter ryegrass field, near the pond, I see a pink and grey hunched form skittering along.  'Possum.  Speaking of non-native things.  But, that will be for another blog.  Right now, I need to pluck the tiny tips of the thorns that have gone right through my blue jeans and broken off in my skin.  Battle wounds to tend.