Large and small rocks of our geologic history decorate the hills and fields of northeastern South Dakota where I grew up. Scattered among them are beautiful wild grasses and flowers. As a child I loved both. I spent hours looking for a special rock to add to my collection, and searching for wildflowers, sometimes picking, but more often just stooping to admire them. To me these were to be enjoyed, to my father and brothers, they meant hard work.
Recently I was discussing geodes, those ancient bits of earth, with my older brother Bob. Those rocks, left in the wake of the giant glacier that had covered northeastern South Dakota during the Pleistocene Era, were scattered across two of our farm fields. My father left that acreage untilled, using it as pasture instead. The rich dirt of the lower fields, laid down by an ancient river, had no giant geodes on its surface, making it relatively easy to cultivate.
To me the geodes are items to hold in my hand and reflect upon. They’re treasures. Each is composed of different kinds of rock, forced together under the weight of that last great glacier. Bob can name those individual stones, and he has a strong appreciation of the giant forces that created them, but his empathy for the farmers’ struggles is far stronger.
As a boy, he and our older brothers helped my uncle clear his fields on the slopes west of Big Stone Lake. Practicality required the largest geodes, weighing tons, be left in place. In the summer bright green grass, and in winter banks of snow highlight their sculpted curves. If the fields were to be tilled and harvested, the geodes of lesser weight (still hundreds of pounds themselves) had to be pried from the earth, rolled onto stone boats and hauled, sometimes uphill, to expanding rock piles. This was exhausting work--sprained muscles and dislocated shoulders were a common danger. There was no “finishing” this job. Each year water from heavy rains and melting snow unearthed more geodes. Even now decades later, Bob’s face shows his frustration as he remembers those long days.
Even in my father’s fields where there were no visible geodes, danger still lurked beneath their surface. One day Bob, eleven, was balancing on the tender behind the cultivator, when a tine hit one of those unseen hazards. The jolt threw Bob abruptly forward. His nose took the brunt of the impact, giving him his first broken nose that’s still in full display.
My father’s maxim, “Any flower growing out of place is a weed,” meant that no matter what plant, however lovely its blossom, must be pulled, cut, hoed, or otherwise eliminated by any means necessary. As a young girl, this seemed terribly unfair to me. My Dad deemed me dreamingly impractical. As an adult, I consider myself eminently sensible, consistently planning and writing endless lists, making sure I never run short of coffee beans or any other essential. When traveling, I pack both a rain slicker and an umbrella, no matter what the weather forecast is. When it comes to flowers though, well--that’s another story.
In my first years in New York, I occasionally found I had a few like-minded allies (complete strangers to me). There was the owner of a nearby brownstone who carefully watered his corn plant that grew in a tiny plot of land by the street’s fire hydrant. And the horticulturist of the famed Central Park Conservatory Garden who includes a few giant bull thistles in his intricate flowerbeds that sport glorious indigo blue blossoms each August.
Before I continue, let me say a little about the species of amaranthus that I’m most familiar with: the common pigweed. Some of that species have colorful, ornamental blossoms, but those of the common one are nondescript and drab, and as they mature the blossoms become ugly. It’s a hardy plant with a long tap root, and it thrived in the rich top soil of our family garden. As a child I struggled to weed plants taller than I was, some with stems two inches thick. I had to exert so much energy that I sometimes landed flat on my back when the root, at last, broke free.
A few years ago some friends and I were walking by a florist’s shop in my Manhattan neighborhood. Never missing a chance to admire flowers, I stopped at its window. I was shocked to see that there, nestled amidst the roses and lilies, was a common pigweed. The florist had chosen the plant to add height and texture to a large bouquet.
That day in New York I pointed out the errant plant to my friends, and explained that for me, who appreciates all flowers, a pigweed is definitely not a flower!
And had my father been with me, he would have pointed out the irony. City folks are happy to spend their money to buy weeds!