Our warrior marches on

L & M left early Friday morning to Barron County, where M was a presenter. It's a nearly five hour drive! My schedule didn’t allow for me to go, so I stayed home with the animals and focused on cleaning and grading. M’s presentations were on Saturday, so they had all of Friday to themselves. They hiked for hours, got Chinese takeout for dinner, and returned to the hotel to watch Aliens in the Attic, which they took to watch on M’s laptop.

Saturday wasn’t nearly as fun for L. Mark’s presentations were divided up over the course of hours, which meant that L had to sit through the other presenters’ talks. We explained to her how the day would be if she went with daddy, and she chose to go. The minute she returned home, she started telling me about one of the presentations she had to watch. She was furious!

I’m not sure where the guy was from or even the topic of his talk. He spent a good portion of the time addressing garden ‘pests’ and the various sick and twisted ways they have come up with to kill them. She was seething throughout the talk and was sharing her disgust with M. She had a small sketchpad with her (to keep her busy), and she drew a picture of the speaker, Tim, which M tells me is really very accurate, except that he was not wearing a bra and panties. The bubble says, "We tell the rat labs to breed stronger rats for pesticide testing...to Kill." Here’s a note she wrote to M while the critter killer was talking. ("I hate these people, seriously! Pests? Creatures that are animals like humans, feel pain, can think, and even if they are annoying, they are special in their own way!"

I simply can’t comprehend why someone would attempt to garden outside, in nature, and then spend the rest of their lives trying to eradicate the nature that WAS ALREADY THERE when the garden was started. A true gardener is able to make the garden flourish by paying attention to the natural world and working within the constraints one has. If one needs the complete eradication of the insects/animals that naturally occur outside, one should just stick with houseplants and terrariums.

Before they started the trip home, they squeezed in a little more nature time. They had found and removed several ticks the night before after that adventure. L was very concerned about her dad’s ability to properly check her scalp for ticks, so during our Friday night phone conversation, she informed me that she would need me to check her again, because daddy might miss some. They had to stop on the way home to remove a tick she had just found on the back of her neck. Eeeww, those things are just so nasty! The minute she walked in the door Saturday night, she stripped down completely and wanted me to check her again for ticks. I didn’t find any more. She told me that if my job was to check people for ticks, I would be really good at it. I’m not sure what criteria she used to evaluate my tick-checking skills, but it’s nice to know I have career options.