in my speedo

My laguna is tamed.


So I believe in my most fevered moments.  At least, it looks a bit domesticated.


When I returned to Melaque from my summer highland adventure, the water lettuce I had been battling to clear had returned with a vengeance.  The photograph at the top of this post was my first view of my work undone.


Just as I was getting ready to clear my version of the Augean stables, the laguna was drained in anticipation of the hurricane that did not happen -- but the flooding that did.


The water lettuce simply settled on its bed of muck.  I was tempted to wade in and start forking it out.  That plan came to a quick end when I discovered the muck was at least knee-deep.  A year’s inventory for The National Enquirer.


Instead, I waited for the day when the laguna would start filling, and, like some supply side dream, all lettuce would be lifted by the rising tide.


And I was correct.  At least, about the water lettuce.  Up from its grave it arose.


I say “grave,” because much of it had gone on to vegetable heaven (where rutabagas torment vegetarians).  The effect was artistically interesting.  Almost as if a topographical map of North America had melted on the surface of the inlet.

Schools of mysterious minnows went to work on the dead.  But there were still plenty of green candidates waiting to be harvested.


When I moved down here three years ago, my brother convinced me to purchase a pair of Speedos.  Not the swim suit.   Water sport shoes.


After sitting in the closet unused all this time, I slipped them on, grabbed my pitch fork, and kept a sharp (but myopic) eye out for the return of my small crocodile, who has been prowling the inlet every night.


After almost a week of clearances, this is the result.

Not bad, if I do say so myself.  There is still the odd plant here and there.  As there should be. 


Clearing the vegetation is a journey, not simply a one-shot project.  Like Candide, the best I can hope to do is to tend my garden.


I suspect my Speedos will never dry.