Garden Chat

Avant Guardians

By Jean Lundquist

A splash of safety

Never a bad idea

I’ve always been a “Yeah, yeah, yeah” kind of person when it comes to taking safety precautions, or even reading safety precautions on any appliance, product or piece of machinery.

I laughed at admonitions like, “Don’t cut toward your body. Cut toward your buddy.” And, “Don’t try this at home. Try it at your friend’s home.”

I used to mow ditches that were way too steep for the mower I was riding. I used to run with scissors.

Now that my parents are gone, I will even admit to tilling the garden once barefoot. But one day, something changed. And on the day I write this, I’m glad it did. And I wish I had paid more attention earlier.

My boss (before I retired) one day was digging around in a copier in the office with a screwdriver, trying to free it from a paper jam, or some such thing. I asked him if it was unplugged, but I could not understand his mutterings. I looked. It was not unplugged, so I went around to the back and pulled the plug.

Fast forward to this spring, when I noticed how truly prevalent buckthorn is in our yard. It’s thick in the spirea bushes. It’s thick in the windbreak. It was thick around the old, dead plum tree. In fact, every place in the yard that had not been mowed or trimmed in a few years was thick with buckthorn.

I asked Lar to start eradicating it with his chainsaw. His response was, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” So I bought a chainsaw for myself. I’ve never thought of a chainsaw as “cute,” but this one almost is. It has a 10” blade, it is cordless, and it weighs 6.19 pounds.

We used to heat our house with wood we cut ourselves, so I am no stranger to chainsaws. I’m terrified of them! Their power can rip through a full-grown tree in minutes, if not seconds. And as fast as it can cut through a tree, it can cut through a human leg or other appendage in even less time.

Even though my chain saw didn’t have the strength or power of its full-sized cousins, I treated it with respect. I read the safety precautions.

While eradicating some buckthorn, I wore safety goggles, though they made me look like a bug from the neck up. I wore the toughest Wells Lamont gloves I had. I wore ear protection. Then, I terrorized the buckthorn, feeling relatively safe.

At the end of the project, I was sore, but had cut nothing off of myself. Several times I was glad for the goggles, when sawdust and limbs of the terrorized buckthorns came for me.

At the end of the day, I decided to try spraying some plant poison on some of the weeds that I figured needed

it. I mixed up the concoction in the sprayer, careful to put the water in first, then the plant poison. (If you put the plant poison in first, then fill with water, it will suds up before the sprayer is full.)

It started out fine. Then, nothing came out of the nozzle. I removed the end and looked through it — it was clear. I looked down the other end of the sprayer and saw nothing. Maybe I didn’t have enough pressure built up, so I pumped the sprayer some more. Still, nothing came from the sprayer.

Well, heck. Maybe the sprayer was broken and not building up pressure. So I gave the top a slight turn, and I was sprayed in the face.

I have never read the safety precautions for a sprayer or for plant poison, but I’m pretty sure they recommend pointing it away from your face while using.

My lips burned. My face burned. My hair was dripping. My shirt was soaked. I had just had eye surgery, but fortunately, I had on my regular glasses, plus my wraparound sunglasses, and my eyes were spared.

For just a moment I stood there, wondering why I had put my face over the top while opening the sprayer.

Then, I dropped everything and headed for the house, peeling my clothes as I ran. I jumped in the shower, and was very generous with soap as I stood there thinking about how bad this incident could have been.

Reading precautions is one thing, but thinking is something else.