Life in the Rainforest

Life is gradually changing with the weather here in Virginia. I’m gradually getting used to living in the rain forest, what with the dishes molding in the dishwasher and the water fowl breeding in the backyard.

For the past few days I have been working on weeding the front bushes and flower beds, and I am learning the perks, and drawbacks, of life in the rain forest. On the one hand, the weeds were a whole lot easier to pull this year. I’m sure it isn’t because I’m older and wiser. After all, before I became a SAHM, I wasn’t weeding the flower beds … I was weeding the legal documents instead. I haven’t weeded my own flower bed in years. Remarkably, it was a whole lot easier than I ever remembered. I’m sure it is the rain, rain, rain that has been following me around. I managed to pull all the weeds in the beds in three short stints. The first one was about half an hour, the second one was cut short by a dirty diaper, and the third one was about an hour, with some breaks for bubble blowing in between. I swear that the last time I weeded that same flower bed, I wasn’t hardly around the first bush in such time. Even better, the weeds came out so easily that my fingernails hardly got dirty! Sure the kudzu is taking over the back fence in record time – never before seen this far north, but man do the weeds come out easily!

The other difference I noticed as the rain has fallen is the number of insects and worms right on top of the soil. I’ve never seen so many. I don’t know when they had a chance to move in, but move in they have. There are literally dozens of tiny creatures in every teaspoon of soil, and with the wild strawberries come the worms in record numbers.

I actually wondered whether I should go and show the worms to the toddler and get it over with or wait until he gets big enough to bring them to me himself. Tough choice. Hopefully he will actually bring them to me and not leave them for me in his pockets, but we’ll see.

I wonder how far this heat and rain will go. When I was in law school, one of my neighbors was an LL.M. student from Malaysia, and she told me how carefully they had to store VHS tapes in Malaysia so they wouldn’t mold and rot. Thank goodness we’ve progressed to DVDs now. Progress gives is some small favors, right?