Scotch broom is a stemmy, stubborn, and prolific plant. It grows in bunches, in patches, in mobs. It’s roots branch out and grab hold of the ground, making it impossible to remove by hand. And it gets big. In a grassy meadow scotch broom is hard to spot in its first few years, but in a just a couple more it can be up to five or six feet tall, with a stem that can get almost three inches thick, and pokey branches sticking straight up like a broom. Thus the name.

In the spring, for maybe two weeks, scotch broom blooms. Actually, for those few weeks, and maybe especially for those who have never wrestled with this plant, scotch broom is kind of pretty. A few days ago I was walking with my friend Margaret, who is a landscaper by profession, and we passed a lovely bush covered in yellow blossoms. “I have to admit,” I said to her, “scotch broom is almost nice when it is blooming.”

“That’s forsythia,” she corrected me.

“Oh.” So for reference, scotch broom looks like yellow forsythia when it blooms. At least it looks like that to me.

On my Whidbey farm I have been battling scotch broom for years. I used a pick ax early on to dig out clumps of it down in my lower pasture. Day after day I would walk down with the sheep and the pick and dig out two or three plants. It took months, but eventually my lower pasture was free of the brooms.

A few years ago, my friends Ed and Gail, who own the property next to mine, found a scotch broom removal tool they could borrow from the King County tool lending library. They brought it out to the farm and we tackled the broom fields that straddled our property line. Over two seasons, we managed to get two large patches out. But two forests of the stuff still remains.

By the way, for those of you wondering, sheep do not eat scotch broom. They play in it, they hide in it, they run through it, but they do not eat it. Well, let me modify that. Sheep do seem to like the blossoms of scotch broom. During spring blooms, I have found sheep nibbling at the little flowers as they graze the upper pasture. It kind of reminds me of my own nibbling on pansies that are sometimes put on fancy salads.

This year, Ed and Gail did not join in the scotch broom removal party, but they happily borrowed enough of the tools to support my own party. The tools are labeled, “King County Noxious Weeds,” which is the perfect name for the plant. King County is actually quite generous in sharing tools, figuring, I imagine, that anyone brave enough to use them anywhere in the region is doing a good thing for all. If you look up scotch broom at the King County Noxious Weeds website (yes, there is one), you find this description: “This familiar plant . . . is an invasive flowering shrub that grows commonly throughout the Puget Sound region. Originally introduced from Europe as an ornamental and for erosion control, it is highly aggressive and forms dense, monotypic stands which reduce wildlife habitat and hinder revegetation. . . ” Amen, King County. This Island County resident agrees.

My friend Meighan has been helping me with scotch broom removal this year, along with my guardian dog Giaco, whose enthusiasm for the work is encouraging. Between us, we have managed to remove most of a large stand of scotch broom that has been blocking the path of a fence I am trying to build. The process of moving the heavy tool from plant to plant, trying to clamp it around the base, and then leveraging the tool to pull up the plant by its clinging roots, is exhausting, and yet also strangely meditative. There is something compelling about pulling “just a few more” before quitting. In a kind of Tom Sawyer move, I got my friend Ann, who was visiting with Kathleen the other day to see the lambs, to “just try pulling a few.” Once she got into a rhythm, I called out, “I’ll go start dinner,” and slipped away. About forty five minutes later, Ann came in flushed and exhausted. “I got a whole patch done. It’s almost finished. I just couldn’t stop,” she said. I smiled.

Last Saturday evening, after hours of falling under that same meditative spell, I finally had to quit when it became too dark to work. I came in the house and crumpled onto the coach, exhausted. I was so tired I wasn’t sure I would be able to climb the stairs to bed. So I slumped there, thinking of the folks who brought scotch broom to this area, for “ornamental and erosion control” purposes. I think they meant well. Scotch broom probably seemed to them like an innocent little bush. And I reflected on something Meighan had said the precious week. “If we just catch these things when they’re little, it won’t be so hard next time.” Right.

I realized that I had heard all of this before. It was a part of that wisdom we hear when we’re young. Adults would tell us that good intentions aren’t enough. That actions, even when coming from the best of intentions, have unintended consequences. They would tell us to tackle things early, when problems are still little. They would tell us that a little effort now would save a lot of effort later. Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today. Look before you leap. A stitch in time saves nine.

These truths are everywhere. I find myself practicing them, over and over, and yet never mastering them. I find myself forgetting, and remembering, and then forgetting again. All of the profound truths of life seem so simple, yet they take us a life time to learn. They apply to a small farm on Whidbey Island, a progressive congregation in Seattle, a national government, a desperate world.

So the older I get, the simpler and more complex life gets, both at the same time. I am, even in those times of deep exhaustion, both humble and grateful. The people who warned me about looking ahead and stitching things promptly are, after all, the same ones who also told me that the best things in life are free. That love changes everything. That tomorrow is another day, full of hope and wonder and love.

Oh, and by the way. It turns out that even if sheep won’t eat scotch broom, goats will. As few days ago, I saw Pearl standing knee deep in the pile of pulled plants, chowing down. Life is full of surprises.