Day 49: By the root

February 18, 2013: By the root.

I’ve never been much of a green thumb. I’m more comfortable around cables, computer components and devices that don’t have instruction manuals. Perhaps I should’ve thought about that before buying a house that has such an enormous garden with a weed problem to match.

I don’t even know what this is I’m holding in my hand. All I know is, I had to dig gingerly into six inches of soil to uncover a spongey, intestine-like tangle of a root system growing under and around my house. Then I came across something as thick and sturdy as a tree branch, but was clearly a root, running the length of my house but buried so deeply that there was no way I could yank it out by hand.

A broken end is still protruding about a foot and a half into the air from the flower bed.