Opportunities in the Weeds

Dear Parents,

I hope you are enjoying the beautiful weather and spending time outside. For me, much of these beautiful days are spent working in my garden. I don’t know about you, but the garden frequently has something to teach me. An afternoon in the garden last spring was no exception.

Weeding has probably never crossed your mind as an enlightening activity. It can be tedious and backbreaking. There is literally no end to bothersome plants growing where you don’t want them. My adversary last year was Jewelweed, Impatiens capensis. 

All things considered, it’s not a bad plant at all. Found on forest edges, among other places, it serves as a nice understory plant for the towering trees around it. It self seeds and produces a lovely orange flower in midsummer. Its seeds are enjoyed by birds and rodents and the plant has been seen serving as a food source for caterpillars and of course, the white-tailed deer. What’s not to like? 

Early last spring I noticed what seemed like thousands of small seedlings blanketing the back edge of my yard. Normally this would be a welcome addition to my flora. Jewelweed grows several feet high and the blossoms are lovely to look at. But the plant didn’t stop at the edge of my yard – it infiltrated an area I call “The Bog Trail”. My husband and I added this feature a few years ago after an inspiring hike we took. Our sump-pump dumps excess water there and over time it has become a bog: permanently super soaked soil. Jewelweed, I forgot to mention, loves any place that is wet so naturally, it loved the bog trail area and took over. A weed invasion of epic proportions. 

I tried to recruit my son to help. The seedlings were just an inch high and were everywhere. There was nary a place that wasn’t green with the little pests. We lasted about 20 minutes or so, that was it. Clearly, I was going to need another plan.  

The year prior, my weed adversary was garlic mustard and my approach then was to pick one hundred seedlings a day for the month of March. It worked. I was able to eradicate that invader, temporarily at least, so I decided to employ the same tactic – just a few a day – and go from there.  

I started at 10am with the aim of pulling weeds for 15 minutes. I could handle that, right? Fifteen minutes came, and I kept working. Thirty minutes, 60, 90. I became an automaton. Pick with my right hand, collect in the left. Sweaty, stiff from my bent-down position and growing weary at the enormity of the task before me, I looked up…

Pointing up to the heavens, tall and graceful, were the delicate fronds of a cinnamon fern, Osmundastrum cinnamomeum. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I quickly looked away. Was this an apparition? I had been looking for some sign of life from the bare root fern bulbs I planted late in the fall but up until that moment, I had seen nothing. I had actually given up any hope of them growing in that super soaked soil of my sump pump’s creation. 

But here it was right before my eyes. I looked again. Yup, that was it alright. “Quick,” I thought, “remove the competition.” I relocated my weed pulling efforts to the area around the fern and scanned the area for any other signs of fern life. Sure enough, two more of the initial five were poking their tiny rounded heads just above the surface of the soil. Yes! A thought came to me: “Here I am, ‘deep in the weeds’ and a glimpse of beauty is before me.”

The sayings “deep in the weeds” and “being in the weeds” are not usually said with joy. Those words are usually uttered in the negative. But for me, being in the weeds was where I got a glimpse of the much anticipated cinnamon ferns. I would not have seen them otherwise. They were too fine and camouflaged by all the Jewelweed around them. Now that I saw them, I was able to remove the weeds and set out to protect them to ensure their survival. 

In my work as a first year Head of School I have had lots of “in the weeds” moments. Financial papers, budgets, teacher contracts, interviews and snow day decisions, to name just a few. This work, like tackling the invading weed armies of my yard, seems never ending. And just like my glimpse of the ferns while stuck deep in the weeds of my yard provided beauty and a reminder of hope – there have been many such glimpses of the beauty and the hope of a Christ-centered, Charlotte Mason education at Ambleside. 

Students happily serving guests at our 2nd annual golf tournament, 1st graders proudly holding their puppets and bowing during applause for their job well done, and a student’s response with confidence and conviction when asked by a prospective parent, “What was your favorite book this year?” 

By around 5pm that day in my yard, after nearly seven hours of work the job was done, the Jewelweed eradicated. I had picked it all. Likewise, come July 1, my first year as the Head of School will be behind me. In the meantime, I welcome the weeds of the work as I know I will continue to see glimpses of and be inspired by the beauty, hope, and ultimately the fruit of this worthwhile work of education.