Slaying the Hemlock Forest
I destroyed what felt like a forest of hemlock this morning, after my cat woke me up at an ungodly hour and the full moon told me to get out of bed, write down what I want in my life, and go to the creek with an altar I’ve been wanting to make for close to a year.
I tried to stay in bed - it was warm and I worried about how tired I’d be if I couldn’t fall back asleep, but when I couldn’t quiet my thoughts, I eventually got up, pulled on a couple sweatshirts to face the fog, let my cat out, and headed down the trail with clippers and an abalone shell filled with dried mugwort and flowers I clipped from the garden.
Getting up early isn’t a regular occurrence for me, but I enjoy it so immensely when I do… There’s no-one around. It’s quiet, but for the birds. As I strolled down the trail, I took note of where I saw bursts of thistle and hemlock, the fire trail’s two worst offenders (according to some) for their trifecta of unpleasant characteristics: invasive ( aren’t from here but spread like crazy), spiky/poisonous (respectively), and quickly converted to fire fuel load when dry.
These days, when I see invasive (also known as “displaced” or “introduced” species) growing in the watershed, my fingers start to itch… and I want to pull them on the spot. This morning was no different, but I had something to take care of first, and so I wound my way around the snakelike bends of the trail until I came to an access point to the creek and lay down the shell and my offerings on the far bank of Strawberry Creek, which as of this writing is still gushing exuberantly out of a concrete culvert jutting out from a low point in the canyon, and flowing toward way to the Bay where I’ll, too, head this week with the second graders of Rosa Parks Elementary for the last of our creek learning series.
I wish I’d thought to take a photo of the altar, since it looked so pretty with the bright orange and yellow nasturtium set against the cool green of the mugwort and iridescent pink and silver of the abalone. I’ve seen other water altars (specifically, I’m thinking of the incredible multi-layered one tucked into the roots of the enormous fig at Harbin Hot Springs). But it was so early I’d left my phone plugged into the cord: I love those moments where you forget it’s 2025, and the only thing to do upon waking up is head downstream, with flowers.
After I’d made my offering, I noticed a bunch of displaced euphorbia growing on the creek banks, which Tim Pine - father of UC Berkeley’s Strawberry Creek Restoration Program had pointed out to me on a trail walk last week. After going to town with my clippers (which got covered in the sticky, noxious white sap they release, I noticed my own personal worst enemy Hedera Helix (commonly known as English Ivy) worming its way down the bank through some gnarled Bay roots, and risked some wet dunks with my foot in the creek (and crumbling hillside- invasives vs. erosion: hard to know which is worse) to cut that away too.
My stomach began rumbling and I headed back home to make breakfast, intending to cut a few stray hemlock and thistles out on my way. But as has been the case with me and weeds lately, once I start, I simply can’t seem to stop. It’s almost like an obsession (I’ve actually wondered whether OCD sufferers could benefit from an invasive plant removal task… more on that in another post), and the next thing I knew, I was waging battle – me and my clippers against the gargantuan leafy hemlock that had grown so high they were beginning to look like trees. Yet when I took the clippers to them, down they toppled – so satisfying! I felt them squish under my clogs as I moved from plant to plant, taking first the top flowering heads to toss on the trail (wish I’d caught them before they’d flowered, but better late than never), and then chopping the side branches and eventually, with a satisfying snip, the central stalks: hollow, would topple like they’d been slayed by a sword.
I’m not a violent person but I thought to myself how satisfying it felt to drop these opponents to their knees: akin, maybe to what slaying an enemy in a medieval battle might have felt like. Definitely as close to feeling like a knight or samurai as I ever will. How unexpected that killing could feel so vindictive, so powerful. So right.
There’s more work to do on the trail (my hunger plus an encroaching hand cramp eventually won out), but by the end there was a thick layer of hemlock laid along the trailside, where it will dry out in the emerging sun: hopefully to be composted and return in smaller numbers next season.