I spent about two hours last night and another two or so this morning weeding our little garden patches. I'm a negligent gardener; I am not one of those folks who putter a little every day, pampering and pruning and mulching and spraying. My roses are an embarassment, dying from Japanese beetles and black spot and crabgrass. The veggie patch only thrives because the crops I choose to grow take care of themselves in humid Virginia summers.
Yet somehow, once the weeds get to a certain point, I really enjoy getting out there and cleaning everything up. I think perhaps I need them to look pretty bad because I'm such an instant-gratification girl, and if the weeds are messy, I can immediately see progress as I leave bare dark earth in my wake. 
Discovering along the way how well some of the plants are doing is a fun surprise. We have cucumbers and zucchini that will be ready for picking soon.
Tiny cherry tomatoes and nearly microscopic watermelons are appearing. The yellow squash is starting to produce. The lettuce might rally. Several radishes were plump enough to pull up. The zinnias look like a wash and the beans are basically bunny food, but there are still beets struggling to survive, and we'll see what they do. I had expected them to do nothing, since they were last year's seeds.
There are other benefits of weeding. Some are aromatherapeutic: the scents of basil, rosemary, thyme. I almost never use the herbs I grow and suspect that I plant them just to enjoy them while weeding. I love how tomato plants smell, and catching a whiff of zucchini and cucumber while nudging their vines aside to get at the weeds growing beneath them. Even radishes smell wonderful. This is the first time I've grown them. Somehow I never knew that even their greens have that tangy scent. Beneath it all is the aroma of damp earth. Delicious.
Last night I was serenaded by a host of invisible birds who seemed to
be enjoying the cooling evening as much as I was. This morning my son
and I heard mourning doves, some birds that were probably house
finches, and two male cardinals who were perching on our swingset and
trying to outchirp each other. We also learned that it's cicada season
- some bugs were really getting warmed up in our neighbors' trees.
I love seeing worms in the dirt, discovering interesting beetles, even finding a slug and explaining to my 4 year old son (and 35 year old husband) how to distinguish between a slug and a worm. I find it hard to hate slugs as much as they might deserve.
How can you hate anything with such cute little tentacles? I 
learned this morning that one type of weed grows tiny white star-shaped flowers. Their leaves were wet and my gloves were soaked. My knees were smeary with damp dirt, despite my kneeling pad (or as my son calls it, my "healing pad"). Wisps of hair curled around my face from the humidity.
I've been taking prenatal yoga classes lately and relishing the practice. I suspect that my weeding could be considered what one of my instructors calls "a different kind of yoga" - one that is less about poses and breathing, and more about one's internal state, practicing a sort of being in the moment that I am normally not very good at. At one point I was mourning the fact that an older gentleman who has given us bags of veggies from his farm has not done so yet this year. Why mourn those veggies? I should just be happy for what is given to me when it is given, without expectation of ever receiving anything. A lesson I need to remember more often.
I even managed to forgive the bunnies for their beanicide. I have given up on having my own beans this year. My neighbor told me that the whole neighborhood seems overrun with them. Indeed, this evening while on my front stoop, I noticed one in my front yard and one in the yard across the street. My husband has observed that our backyard is a "bunny highway" at a certain time in the evening and he wonders if the rabbits, who were not nearly so populous last year, are fugitives from the properties across the street, which have been cleared to for two new suburban neighborhoods. Poor refugee bunnies. They may have my beans.
