It seems the garden prep takes more time every year.  

It's time to haul out the stalks of sunflowers and squash shells from last year's garden. Time to dig out the quackgrass that invades on all sides. Time to plan a new layout.
 
My seed potatoes have already arrived. Garden planting anxiety has set in.  

Easter is behind us. 

Suffering from a sugar hangover, I download my weekend pics and reflect on soft plants and horses instead of sticky peeps.

Lupine is emerging.  Horses look forlorn as they shed their winter coats.

Both are furry.

As I research pubescent leaves, I think about how lupine uses those downy hairs or trichomes to protect itself against moisture loss to the elements. Hairs that create a boundary layer between the delicate leaf surface and drying April wind. Hairs that reflect the damaging rays of a July sun.

Furry leaves are one of the many adaptations that keep this native prairie plant healthy during a Wisconsin growing season.

What about that water droplet in the center? Is there a function associated with this entrapment? Does it create a lens effect which magnifies the sunlight, warms up the center and enhances photosynthesis during a cool spring morning? Or maybe the plant absorbs the droplet slowly before the sun has a chance to evaporate it away.

So many questions.

Do you know?

“Mom, if you could have any superhero power, what would it be?”

I want to answer “I don’t know” right away because I don’t want to think about superhero powers just then. I’m thinking about stopping to get the mail, making dinner and a million other things.

But…I come up with an honest answer.

“I would want to be able to get rid of the garlic mustard on our property in one second”.  “Maybe even get rid of garlic mustard in the whole country in one second”.

Zane is quiet as he thinks this one through.

“That really doesn’t count as a superhero power, mom”.  “I mean like flying or teleporting or flame throwing or turning things into ice.” “I mean, how would you do it?”

I’m just proud and sad that my son even knows what garlic mustard is.

I add, "I would be able to blast the plants with surgical strike explosions through the tips of my fingers." Zane seems satisfied with this embellishment.  Visions of targeted explosions make it a way better superhero power.

When we get home, he helps me pull these plants for a couple hours…swinging his hefty bag full of garlic mustard like Thor’s hammer. I keep telling him that if we don’t pull the small patches now, they’ll multiply exponentially into bigger and bigger patches and take over the whole woods.  

Although I know they’re just an opportunist making a living without any predators to deter their unwelcome invasion, I can’t help but hate them. I truly hate them and get great satisfaction from removing each and every one.

14 person hours and a week later, my land is once again safe from the choke of garlic mustard, at least until next April.

I feel like a Superhero.