Hey, Yew!

You know, there are many disadvantages of working for TheCompanyIWorkFor. You hear about them all the time, via me, via the old blog. Some of these come under the heading "Dealing With The Public." But oddly enough, that heading has an asterisk and a subheading, which is called, "Well, It's Not All Bad."

For every cantankerous bastard who yells at you for 30 minutes about things that aren't your fault, there's a woman who gives you a bitchin' recipe for soup. Or for every boring half-wit who loves the sound of his voice so much he thinks you want to hear it drone on about nothing in particular for an hour, there's a client like Q, who comes in, tells the world's best stories, and makes us all laugh so hard we fear for the dryness of our pants. We have every social and economical background in our client base, so there's not a whole lot we don't see or hear.

Today I was the lucky recipient of a conversation with R. I've known R for years, graduated from high school with her brother. She lives in town, but she and her husband also farm. They have cows. I hear a lot about the cows. They're nice cows. In fact, R once pulled a little bit of a joke on me with one of the cows. We'd had some long-running banter going about how often she was in our office giving TheCompanyIWorkFor money, and that sooner or later she was going to just run out of money and have to bring me a cow in lieu of a check. And one day - she did just that. Well, OK, she didn't actually bring the little fella into the office, he was on the truck, but she took me by the arm and led me outside to accept her payment. And he was just a baby, and you know, all baby animals to me are so cute, even baby alligators and the like, and I would have been just as happy to take the cow and not her check. I doubt TCIWF would have been pleased, though.

So anyway, R was in the office this morning, and I don't know how we even got on the subject, but I was talking about my vines. I have these vines, you see. I don't think I've told you about my vines before, which is odd, since I've told you much more personal stuff. But I do have these vines, and they snake around the front and side of my humble home, the Poderosa. They're half ivy, half kudzu, and half something else, and that's a lot of halves, and I'm half crazy trying to get rid of them. Right now, they're still clinging to just the foundation of the Pod, but they're spreading and rising, all the way to the bottom of the siding and down one half of the foundation on the far side of the house. They're also hopelessly wrapped around the base of the hedges in the front of my house, and are choking them to death.

Early in the summer, I bought a three-pronged hoe, which isn't nearly as dirty as it sounds, and decided I was just going to have at it, swing that hoe like a woman possessed until I had vine pieces flying around in my yard, but it didn't quite happen that way. In fact, it happened kind of this way. *Swing!* ›Thud.‹ *Swing!* ›Thud.‹ That hoe would land in the vine bed, and I couldn't have pulled a vine out of there with a team of draft mules.

And so in typical "me" fashion, I just let it lay. For the whole summer, which has been the hottest and driest on record around here. It's rained once. That was last weekend, and a week or so before that, when I was doing a little hedge trimming, I thought I'd give it one more go with the Swing-Thud. And you'll never guess what happened. I didn't have to Swing-Thud, because the ground was so dry, all I had to do was yank and those vines started coming right out of the ground. (I used to love that Everly Brothers song, "All I Have To Do Is Yank.") I mean, it took some work, I had to put my back into it, but feet of vines were coming up. I got the entire far side of the Pod, it's now completely vine-free, a good portion of those at the corner and around the last hedge, some around the front door and steps, and all of those from the other corner of the house and up the dennette steps. In other words, people, three leaf and garden bags full of the vines formerly known as part of my home. Those behind the hedges though, the whole front of the house - it's going to be tough going with those, because they're, well, behind the hedges. I have no way to get to them.

But R suggested the miracle cure I needed, something that would kill the vines but not the hedges. Vinegar. Plain old cider vinegar. Now, I have vinegar out my earholes, because it's cheap, I seldom use it, and every time I make a recipe that calls for it, I forget I already have some and buy some more. So I think I'm going to try it and see what happens. Either it will kill the vines and not my hedges, which is very good indeed, or the vines and my hedges, not so good at all, or neither the vines nor the hedges, but between the vines and the vinegar, I"ll have a good start on a yard-sized salad.

(And by the way, don't laugh, OK? I'm not stupid enough to think that pulling 1/3 of the vines from my house means I have 1/3 less vineage. I know how they work, I know they'll come back, and I also know that about the only chance I have of getting rid of them forever is to burn my house down. And then it's possible that I'll have vines covering the ashes. But I've at least made a good start, possibly good enough to keep up with them a little better as they grow back.)

The vinegar and vines now discussed, R and I headed into my back yard, conversationally speaking, when I mentioned to her my pine tree there. My berry-bearing pine tree. R told me in her not-so-subtle way that pine trees don't have berries, and I kind of knew that anyway. I mean, I have other pines, like my perfectly-shaped Christmas tree pine, back there with nary a berry in sight. But this is a large edifice with prickly needles that scratch and itch me when I breeze by while mowing, and at the end of the limbs are red berries.

R said she'd get back to me on that one. She has kids and kids-in-law in every scientific field you can imagine, professors, etc, one even works for the Nature Conservancy. And R got back to me. R got back to me not ten minutes after she left the office. I don't even know if she was home yet, or was calling from her car. Seems she'd called her son, and he told her it sounded like what I had on my hands, and in my yard, was a Japanese Yew. I was advised to Google it, and see if he might be right. And she was calling for a reason. If it was, and I had any pets, she wanted to make sure I kept them away from the plant, because they were poisonous. In fact, a Yew had killed one of their cows. Apparently, one munch and Blammo.

Well, I looked online there at TCWIF, and found a million different bushes and shrubs, some pictures showed the berries, and some didn't. Then I found this little close-up of a Japanese Yew.

















I went home for lunch today, and the first thing I did was walk around to the back of the house to look at my tree. Here's what I saw.





















And then I heard the Voice of God say, "Congratulations, Ms Bet, you're the mother of a bouncing baby Japanese Yew. Good luck."

Then I did some reading, on another website, and found these little nuggets of information. And golden nuggets they are.

TOXICITY RATING: Extremely toxic, death is likely.

ANIMALS AFFECTED: All animals (livestock, pets and birds).

PLANT DESCRIPTION: Several species of yew are planted as ornamental shrubs or hedges. They are woody perennials with flat 1/2-1 inch long evergreen leaves lighter green on the underside and broader than pine needles. The "berry" (technically called an aril) is grape-sized, juicy, and bright scarlet, with a hole in the end which makes it look cup-like.

CLASS OF SIGNS: Sudden death is the typical sign.

SIGNS: "Found dead" is the typical presenting sign.

FIRST AID: First aid is usually impractical, since the animals die so quickly.

Lawks a mercy, that's a mean one, that Japanese Yew.

And so I am the proud owner of a Plant of Death. I'm pondering a "Beware of Plant" sign for the yard. On the upside, though, if I ever want to kill anyone, I don't have to worry about messing with guns and such. I can just invite the offending party over to dinner. If you've ever pissed me off and get an invite, you'll definitely want to pass on the cobbler for dessert.

Oh, how I love the Poderosa.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Acrowinners, we have acrowinners! Very, very late acrowinners. But we got two more players, so I guess it was worth it. So, tell us about Shermuzorro.
- Honorable Mentions go to LilyG, with her, "Tradition orders paired epees, mask," and Capt A, with his, "Touche! On point! (Easy mouthful.)
- Runners-Up go to DeepFatFriar, with his, "Those other personalities? Eat me!" and the Eggman, with his, "Touche! Ouch! Poke easier, man!"
- And this week's winner is the dishy Michelle, with her, "Takes ornery prisoners, eats most."
- Thanks to all who played, sorry for the delay in winners, and you've all done very well!