No Leaf Clover -- Metallica (S&M)

Yesterday, as the girls and puppy romped in the back yard, I went looking for a four-leaf clover. Needless to say I didn't find one all day.

Mom was the best at finding four leaf clovers. In fact, she found clovers with many more leaves than just four. She had a secret for finding them. She told me her secret, and when I was younger I would be able to take a walk around the yard with her and find four-leaf clovers. The field was the best place to find many-leaved clovers, or the shoulder of the narrow country road. I will not disclose the secret here, you'll have to figure that one out for yourselves, but I will say that my sister Sarah has inherited the gift of finding four-leaf clovers. I don't think that I have found one since Mom died.

The frustrating part of it all is that in our neighborhood of perfectly groomed lawns without a weed or bare patch, my yard full of clover and dandelions stands out. That's okay with me, I like to feed the bees, but I don't think some of my neighbors are too keen on my not-weeding-much-of-anything approach to gardening. I like to grow wild flowers and would like to have so many flowers that weeds wouldn't even survive there. But I guess that's not exactly how it works.

I liked growing up where we could go out and play in the front yard and not have to worry about stepping on the grass. Mom weeded things all the time I suppose, but she had this kind of organic approach to gardening. Certain areas of the yard we just chock full of flowers, sometimes surrounded by rocks, there are flowers that edged the field down the hillside, peonies nestled into a strand of bushes next to a plum tree, wisteria growing up an iron "R" topped tripod that Dad made, and the mound where an old well is covered in various flowers, bushes and sprouts another plum tree at its edge. Though Mom is gone, things around the house still look about the same.

My house isn't in a rural area, but I like to go out in the middle of the yard and plant things. What's wrong with that? I just planted a peony and a tall, straight maple tree that had begun to grow in my garden, as well as transplanted hostas and day lilies to line the fence. This year the lilac bush Mom gave me a long time ago bloomed for the first time, and I gathered the girls and Jamie to smell its irresistibly sweet fragrance.

I think that I will keep my clover and dandelions. Maybe one of these days I will find a four-leaf clover. After all, if you're familiar with my previous work, you may know already that weeds like crab grass are C4 plants, meaning that they take in only carbon dioxide, thereby increasing their growing rate and sucking more carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere than other grasses, which accept other air molecules than carbon dioxide. And dandelions feed the bees. Just saying.