It might have been the best weekend of the year- maybe one of the best 4th of July Weekends in a long time. The humidity was down, temperatures were mild, and I turned off the air conditioning at the farm and threw the windows open to the inviting sounds of the birds, occasional gunfire from neighboring farms and the dull roar of other tractors doing what I was- trimming up the property.

The tractor work was done on Saturday, and I was contemplating the new Husqvarna gas-powered weed eater. The owner’s manual said there was a real threat from debris being thrown up from the nylon filament and blinding the operator, which was nothing I had on the calendar. Problem was I couldn’t imagine where my safety goggles might be in the vast sprawl of boxes and furniture in the garage.

I thought continued vision was worth at least taking a tour of the prospective projects and see if anything was resting on top of the piles, and looked around. Sure enough, there was a motor cycle full-mask helmet from my brief infatuation with Harley Davidison motorcycles, and I grabbed it and tried to pull it on. My glasses snagged on the base of the helmet and dragged the little plastic wire guards off that protect the ears from chafing, one dropping into the darkness of the office side of the structure.

That wasn’t going to work, and having invented another project- i.e., fixing the stupid glasses- I did that while peering owlishly around the shelves- and saw the answer. Carl Simmons had given me one of his old flight helmets when we worked together in Navy legislative affairs, and it was the kind that George Lucas had taken as his model for the Start Wars costumes. It had a clear visor that pulls down, and was ideal for the task, particularly if I was going to be pulling negative g’s on the trimmer.

OK, OK, I looked like an Imperial Storm Trooper while I was whacking the weeds, but so what? Later, when I did the laundry, I just washed everything, to put it delicately, and enjoyed the cycle time on the dryer sitting out on the back deck au natural.

Anyway, I was thinking about Carl, and wondered how his family had done after he passed away, and my pal and former Congressional Den Mother Annie for whom we both worked, and who, like me, has a bolt hole. Hers is out in the Shenandoah Valley. She likes it out there and commented on my weed problems.

“Drastic action must be taken against the offending weeds coming up through the gravel! Pure white vinegar and lots of it – ATTACK! Pour the vinegar along fence lines and under the deck. Old fashioned watering can works great. I’ve got to buy several gallons of white vinegar and go to town around here.”

She send me a recipe for an organic weed killer a while back, but it seemed you could just pour the vinegar on the pesky things. I looked around the barn to see if there was a watering can, and of course there wasn’t, and then transiting the Great Room to get reinforcement coffee I looked up what she had sent me.

Here is what I found:

Whiz Bang Recipe
for the large and small noxious weeds.

Looking for an environmentally friendly recipe that will get the job done without having to mix big batches? Don’t want to send poisons down to the wells at the bottom of the road? Try this one:

“Vinegar has proven itself an effective weed killer. Like most commercial herbicides, it’s nonselective, not caring whether it kills weeds or your petunias. Unlike commercial weed killers, vinegar is eco-friendly and won’t harm people, pets or the environment. Vinegar’s only real drawback in certain cases is that it has no residual action, so new weeds soon arrive. Permanent removal is occasionally desirable for stubborn weeds in gravel drives and paths as well as cracks and crevices in walkways and sidewalks. Add common table salt to vinegar to destroy weeds for good in these trouble spots.”

Recipe:

Pour 1 gallon of white vinegar into a bucket. Everyday 5-percent household white vinegar is fine for this weed killer. You won’t need higher, more expensive concentrations such as 10 or 20 percent. It may take two or three days longer to kill the weeds with the lower concentration, but they will die.

Add 1 cup of table salt. Stir the solution with a long-handled spoon until all the salt dissolves completely.

Stir in 1 tablespoon of liquid dishwashing soap. This will act as a surfactant and make the vinegar and salt solution adhere to the weeds more efficiently. Blend thoroughly.

Funnel the weed killer into a plastic spray bottle.

Drench the weeds with the solution on a dry, sunny day. Coat all surfaces well with the spray. Any plants soaked with this solution will die within several days. They won’t be back and nothing else will ever grow there.

Funnel any leftover weed killer into an empty plastic container. Cap it tightly. Label it clearly and store in a cool, dark spot indefinitely.

I decided to try it- it is a sunny day. I read some of Annie’s other notes while I was waiting for nature to take its course. Uh Oh.

My eyes widened in horror as I read the words: “Oh, you’ll be needing chainsaw chaps. Yes, you will eventually be out there cutting down something. Get a Stihl brand. We don’t mess around in the country.”

I was trying to imagine the sort of rustic figure I was going to cut in chaps and a flight helmet. I guess it is a good thing the property is posted, you know?

(PGI Sawbuck 4 Ply Kevlar Chainsaw Chaps – Green. Photo PGI).

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocora.com
Twitter: @jayare303