The Honeysuckle Project

A big part of my landscaping project is removing the invasive plant, Honeysuckle, from the woods. No, this isn't the sweetly scented, dear little trumpet vine that I knew as a child as honeysuckle. It is a sturdy, fast growing, weedy, invasive, take -over-the-woods, I'll-eat-your-children-if-I-can bush. If you can tear it out by the roots when it is young, it's easy. Usually you aren't aware of it till it's taken over. I can tear out a fair amount of it by pulling and pulling, terrier style. Failing that, plan two is using a heavy garden fork. Lastly, you bring in a honeysuckle popper which is a six foot crowbar on a pedestal, that is inserted under the crown of the plant and pried out. In the worst cases, I have to call in T's help, but that has only happened about a half dozen times out of hundreds. My neighbor, I'll admit, has resorted to a tractor and before that used a wench.

That green fuzz is honeysuckle bushes making passage impenetrable through the woods. It isn't even hospitable to wildlife, in fact, disruptive.
You can see the line where I've stopped for the season. The foreground used to look like the background.
These woods previously looked like the top photo. Now they're clear all the way to the lake and off to the neighbors.

What I love is partially that it is total grunt work. I don't have to think at all. I just get in there and dig, grunt, dig, grunt. It's great physical work, and I am exhausted at the end of a few hours. Plus I lose weight, maybe because hours go by without a thought to eating.

Sometimes I work with only the natural sounds around me. There are lots of birds, including loons and ducks and geese on the water. Other times I listen to podcasts from This American Life, Radio Lab and The New Yorker Fiction. Either way, it's completely enjoyable and rewarding. I get such obvious results!