It was an unexpectedly sharp pain in the pad of my thumb, not overwhelming, but decidedly unpleasant, like experiencing the ministrations of a nervous trainee phlebotomist.
I recoiled. Had I been stung? There was no swelling, no redness. I popped out my reading glasses and peered at my thumb. There was no evidence of a thorn, or a stinger. The jab hadn't even drawn blood.
I carefully investigated. Down in the dense foliage of the bed, amidst the fat and growing beans, I found the culprit. A thistle, girded round about with needle-sharp thorns. Next to it another, and another. Further recon revealed that they were suddenly everywhere, and that they'd spread to most of my raised beds.
I'd not seen them in my garden before, but it didn't take long to realize where they'd come from. We'd had a birdfeeder in our front yard, one we stocked and restocked with seed. Among those seeds: thistle. It had gone forth and multiplied.
Thistle is, viewed through a certain lens, a very desirable plant. It feeds pollinators, which is a good thing. With a whole bunch of effort and some heavy gloves, it can be eaten, particularly the roots. Most importantly, it is Indigenous, or at least Field Thistle is, and as we all know, Indigeneity is axiomatically magical and virtuous.
But believing all those things won't keep it from stabbing you. It has evolved to stab you, and any naive romantic notions of traipsing barefoot through grass where thistle is starting to establish itself will end in pain.
Poison Ivy is a vigorous Indigene too, as a recent trip to Urgent Care with my swollen-faced 86 year old mother reminded me. Toxicodendron Radicans also grows vigorously, feeds pollinators and birds, and slathers itself in urushiol, an oily compound that causes rashes, blistering, and anaphylaxis. Were it a human, it would be the sort of human who violated international treaties on chemical warfare.
The thistle is back this year, and I don't hesitate when I encounter it. Wherever I see thistle or poison ivy, I destroy them. I root up the thistle with heavy gloves and pointy metal implements. I poison the poison ivy. I give no quarter, and I hunt them down proactively.
There are always souls who'd find reasons these plants and other creatures of similar stabby toxicity should be tolerated. They're just being what they are, one might say. They're part of Nature in all Her Beauty! Live and let live! Let everything grow! Let a thousand poisonous, needle-sharp flowers bloom!
This seems peculiarly abstracted from the reality of life.
I am not such a soul, nor do I feel that's my purpose in this beautiful, dangerous world. I am as alive as they are alive, and our striving against one another is simply part of the order of God's creation.
I appreciate my opponents, their vitality, their energy, the honed foil of their thorns. But that doesn't stop me from rooting both itch and thistle from the garden of my tending.
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