Killing the bad weeds and keeping the good ones

There are many valuable metaphors that agriculture hold out that we can gainfully harvest to improve our lives – last year, the hill top on my land was infested with an evil weed that gobbles up all the nutrients leaving the trees and soil depleted of all nourishment.

No one knows where this evil weed comes from…some say it was brought by the east winds. Others say it is from as far as Russia. But I have seen this weed before in Africa – it is a very intelligent plant as it has a brain, so to amount of chemical warfare can ever defeat it….they will just develop resistance within a very short period of time and proliferate vigorously. Many farmers have gone down that road only to win the battle but lose the war – as their land is transformed into a poisonous field where nothing can grow…to defeat this evil weed only another weed can do the job.

The magnificent fern.

The fern is a prehistoric plant that predates even dinosaurs. It has seen it all, only it has the uncanny power to muscle out all forms of weeds….but it is not a easy plant to grow as conditions must just be right….otherwise it will say, Dowan lah!

Since last year. I declared total war on this evil weed. It has been a very long and protracted campaign where I have been mindful to only use herbicides judiciously in very small controlled doses where I supervised the applications personally – followed by painstakingly going deep into the jungle and taking each sapling by foot and planting them carefully row by row.

In the beginning the ferns did not seem to want to take root. This saddened me and there were many times when I asked the Queen fern – why don’t you want to stay and make this place home….only for her to remain silent – but with patience and diligence and lots of tender loving care soon she and her friends changed their mind and proliferate they did only to overcome the evil weeds.

Since ferns are natural givers. They bring with them countless benefits to soil and trees. Their roots are far reaching and fibrous but not so vigorous as to compete with fruit bearing trees, so they hold loose earth well preventing valuable loss of top soil during torrential downpours – they shade the expose ground keeping the temperature low thereby promoting organic matter and humus…the list of benefits goes on and on.

Ferns will be important when La Niña hits as the quantity and intensity of rainfall is predicted to increase dramatically – with my land covered with my little good friends….I hope to weather thru this storm comfortably.

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‘Life is really only about a couple of things – the most important being – cultivating the wisdom of discarding the useless, dangerous and time wasting and knowing how to keep and nourish the good so that it goes from strength to strength.

That’s why if you are lucky enough to come across good friends and kindred spirits who support and nourish you – go the extra mile to take good care of them. If possible give back and give more whenever the opportunity presents itself because with good friends, it always comes around, it may not be tomorrow or the day after but it always comes full circle with them and when it comes to blood suckers, just politely give them a miss.

Why or how they became vampires – is not a question for you to seek an answer too…you will go crazy if you try to find out or worse still end up a vampire yourself – could be as baby they fell off the table and knocked their head really hard. Maybe no one taught them the social skills of give and take and live and let live…but what’s jugular is one must absolutely develop the wisdom to winnow the takers from givers.

Since I am autistic. I had a lot of problems with being able to spot takers from givers. Hence early on in life it was very common for me to end up short changed most of the time. One day I said to myself, this cannot go on, otherwise my parents will suffer, so I developed a highly sensitive radar that today is so sharp and defined, I can spot a taker ten miles down wind on a moonless night.

Because if one does not know how to do this – the taker will take, take and take till not only will there be no double happiness, but you will probably double mati as well.

As for the givers like ferns tend to them diligently, encouraging good weeds to grow is not so different from being a good host – one must be attentive, considerate and above all prepared to give before one receives.

If you only do this ONE thing in life diligently – everything else I guarantee you will fall into it’s rightful place very beautifully….life need not be complicated….it can be easy and beautiful.’