Trina Machacek: Spring and spray

Ask most anyone I know and they will tell you that nobody wants spring too much more than I do. I’m out checking the barrow pit along the road daily to see the first signs of green grass. I am up at the crack of like 5 — OK, maybe 6. All right, 7! I’m up at the crack of 7 a.m. to see if the temperatures are to my liking yet. And, finally. Finally, the daytime temperature is above 32 more than it is below 32 in a 24-hour period! A sure sign that the snow will soon turn to massive amounts of water and mud and a smile will be plastered on my face and many faces around me. Spring! But! Yes, a springy but is bouncing in…

But a sadness has come over me this past week with the coming of sunshine-filled days. It is that the sweatshirt season and all that the sweatshirt has come to happily hide is coming to an end. Yes, you, too, are now looking at what you are wearing, aren’t you? Now, it’s not that you can’t wear a sweatshirt all year long. Like if you live in the Antarctic. But soon, the sun will rise closer to us and stay up longer each and every day — well, until summer solstice anyway. We will have to ditch the sweatshirt, and, yes, that also includes sweatpants, and soon, we will be faced with short sleeves and short pants, uh, shorts.

I welcome that season with all the gusto of spray-on tan and a brand new gallon of never-opened, strong-as-the-government-will-allow — weed spray! The first item, the spray-on tan, is just to protect the eyes of those who will cross my path on my first few outings when my legs, which have been in hiding since last fall, come out again and are as white as the snow that will soon have receded into memory. Yes, our white, glow-in-the-dark legs of winter are getting ready and will be coming out very soon. You might want to update your sunglasses. As for the weed spray, well, let me just say you don’t want to get those two spray-on products mixed up with each other!

While we are just in the throes of early, very early spring, let me open that weed spray door a crack. HA, HA, weeds rank right up there with all things that need to find a place to live that is far, far away from people. There is nothing good about a weed. It is not grown for ground cover, cattle feed, conservation or decoration. If it were food, I’m talking food, food, not food from back in the Depression era, when weeds were sometimes needed for food. If weeds were food, they would be welcomed by one and all in gardens and even fields and the “little woman’s” flower beds. But they are weeds and weeds are not invited to the garden party of spring. That said, I am not alone in taking note of the fact that weed spray has gotten less and less effective and here is my little ole brain thought process on why…

I know that too much of something, especially something that is used to kill something, like weed spray, too much of that used in the wrong manner is a very scary thing. Awful things can come of the wrong use of weed spray. But awful things can come of the wrong use of, say, a car — a crash. Or a lawn mower — didn’t want that sapling anyway. Or a ribeye steak — will check my cholesterol later. But as full grownup grown-ups, we take it upon ourselves to not crash, not mow the new tree that was just planted, not eat steak at every meal — throw in a veggie, for goodness’ sakes. So why can’t we still get weed spray that actually kills a weed when it is applied? Riddle me that, why don’t you?

Man, the airway up here on this soapbox is thin! Let me step on down… OK, moving on.

Yes, spring is coming. I just had to get your spring juices going. I can see that the cows across the road from me are all scattered and all their heads are down and they have found teeny, tiny green grass shoots and are eating as fast as they can. I’m betting that they don’t touch the weeds between those grass shoots. That’s OK, I plan to go out in a few weeks and scare everything in sight by showing my new spray on orange tinted tanned legs. Yeah, if I were a weed, I’d keep my shoots covered! Happy spraying on of pre-emergence to your weeds.

Trina lives in Eureka, Nev. Find her on Facebook. Share with her at itybytrina@yahoo.com. Really!