Up Rooting

A girl in my ward was able to get a temporary job for me as my search for a field-related job continues. Today was my first day. This temp job is at a plant nursery on the outskirts of Rexburg. They are a plant restoration business - they restore native plants of Idaho in areas that were previously detroyed for some purpose. Being the tree hugger that I am, I greatly support this kind of business.

My day started at 7:30am this morning by filling out paperwork and getting a brief orientation, then I went to work. My first job of the day, which lasted until our first break at 10:00am, was watering a large number of baby Quaking Aspen trees. Quaking Aspens are one of my favorite trees and so I enjoyed watering these trees as I thought about how beautiful they are going to make any area they will be planted in some day.

The remaining 6 hours (minus a 30 min. lunch and another 15 minute break) I spent hunched over in ankle or higher deep water weeding willow bushes. The below pictures will give you an idea of this job......

We get to wear rubber boots! When I first began this job of weeding and walked into the water I realized that my boot had a hole in it! My sock never really completely dried after that.

Rows and rows and rows and rows and rows and more rows of Willow! I do have to mention that I did have a change in scenery. I began with Drummlin Willow and then when I got done with those I moved onto Coyote Willows. The above picture is Coyote Willow. Woohoo.

Here is me in all of my excitement! This was like half an hour before work ended. I was beat and way tired. Definitely ready to go home by this point.

The excitement was almost more than I could bare! Working for 6 hours hunched over only got more exciting when my allergies began acting up - despite the allergy pills I was popping. Itchy, runny, and burning nose and eyes, plus beaking out in hives on my arm that also itched and was made worse when the scratches and cuts I got on my hands and arms swelled up. And of course you never feel it coming on until after the fact, but I have a good sunburn on my face, as well as on the lower of my back from being bent over and the wind blowing my shirt up a little bit so my back was exposed. (BUT thank goodness for an amazing friend who gave me some remedies to put on it with the advice of taking a cold shower - even if it feels as though icicles are coming out of the shower head! :o) Now, if that ain't excitement for you folks, I don't know what is! (It's ok, you really don't have to be jealous).

There was very little to no social interaction while weeding. But I did come across two lady bugs that greeting me with their beautiful and welcomed presence. There was LOTS of time to think. Maybe a little too much time to think in my current state. But I did learn a good lesson as I applied pulling weeds to my life. We all have weeds in our lives. Some have a lot. Some have few. But we all have them and we all are working to pull them out of our lives. One can't just pull out the weed without also pulling out the roots to ensure that it won't grow back. But some of us just pull the weeds out and leave the roots to only have it grow back again. I found as I was weeding that some weeds were easy to pull up, root and all. But others were quite difficult - having to dig down deep into the dirt, getting your hands dirty with dirt getting caked under the fingernail, and then having to use both hands to pull the root out, sometimes twisting back and forth to losen it up even more. There are some things in our lives that are easy to root out of us, but there are things that are so extremely hard to up root that sometimes we question if it is possible to rid it from our lives.

The weeds were often times tangled up or camoflaged in the plant. Because of this I had to really sift and search through the plant thoroughly in order to find the weeds.

I also found as I was going up and down the rows of willow that the pots that were in the middle of the rows contained the most weeds. The reason for this I cannot explain, but I found it interesting. Most of the weeds were at the heart (center) of the rows. This is where I spent most of my time weeding. It made me question, "Do I spend more of my time weeding out things from my heart that are the most important, or do I spend my time on the edges where there are less weeds and that are easier to pull out? How hard am I searching and sifting for the weeds I have within me? How much effort am I putting into pulling these weeds of the heart out?"

We are not alone in this effort of trying to up root the weeds in our lives. We have a Master Gardener who is there by our side helping us weed, whether it's the easy or hard-to-pull-up weeds He's pulling right along with us. He's given us the opportunity, knowledge, tools, and way to de-weed ourselves through the atonement. He's made the way possible. And He's there to aid us every step of the way if we let Him. He is the Master Gardener and He knows how He wants His garden to look and be. Perfect....just like He is. And that is why He is there to help because we can't do it without Him.

As hard and as long as it takes to de-weed ourselves, esp. the deep rooted weeds, I have never been more grateful for the Master Gardener and His atonement than I have been in the last year. I have learned so much about Jesus Christ and the power of the atonement through study as well as through personal experience on a day to day basis. I know it is real. I know it works. I know it changes lives by changing the heart through its cleansing and healing power. There is no greater power or blessing than the atonement.