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Small Talk: Spring showers bring more … weeds

actually wore boots twice in a week. I believe that’s a first.

I do like some rain. It’s good for the snow pack, it’s good for the water supply and aquifers, and the flora and fauna seem to love it. That’s where my delight in rain crashes to a halt.

The flora that loves the rain the most are the weeds in my yard. More specifically, the weeds that thrive in the decomposed granite I chose to line my fetching walkway that runs through both front and back yards. Six inches to either side of the walkway is weed-free, but oh, do the weeds and grasses love that DG.

Had I given it even a moment’s thought, I would have remembered that I already knew about the marvels of DG. I lived in East County in my high school years. Our house was built on DG and, despite the heat, things loved to grow there. We were surrounded by wonderfully productive avocado trees, fruit trees and lush grass. Anything my mother planted came up beautifully.

The granite around us, some decomposed, some very definitely not decomposed, became a family joke. My dad tried to jackhammer up a granite boulder in our back yard, to put down a patio. After watching several jackhammer heads curl, leaving only two small holes in the rock, dad determined that we lived atop an enormous granite hill, and that boulder was the tip of it. He bowed to nature and just laid concrete around it.

The point, of course, is I should have known the local weeds would do their happy dance if they landed in the DG, rather than the miserable clay we sit on here. And the rain provided the dancing music.

I walk out my front porch every day. Suddenly, yesterday, there was a weed of a startling size right in the pathway. This prompted me to grab my digger tool and take a quick look around for other offenders. About 30 minutes later I had three piles of weeds, soggy knees and backside, and a headache.

It is gracious of the rain to make it so easy to yank those bad boys up, roots and all. Next time I need to remember to change out of my good jeans.

Jean Gillette is a freelance writer who has decided that clover is not a weed. Contact her at [email protected].