Multiflora Rose is a Demon Plant From Hell.

You might remember my previous entry about removing invasive species from my land. Specifically, mutiflora rose, and bush honeysuckle.

Here is three giant bushes in a row, oh boy lucky me.

 You know what, removing the bush honeysuckle was easy. Removing the multiflora rose was like being dropped into a nest of king snakes armed only with a bag of mixed vegetables. Even if you won, you were still gonna get fucked up.

I cannot began to describe the horror that is tearing down this plant. First of all, you have to cut the whole thing and move the whole thing as one unit because all the little thorns have stuck this plant together like Velcro. If Velcro was out to get you that is.

This is how it went down. First I would cut a hole into the side of the bush and then I would began to cut each think woody stem off at the base. Now, with bush honeysuckle, each limb could be drug away to the collection pile individuality. With multiflora rose, each limb would lock together in an evil tangly mass. I wanted to remove the whole plant and chipper shred the damn thing so that meant I had to drag each limb to the nearest road. Which meant that the plant had time to fuck my shit up.

I would optimistically grab a branch at it's very base, where there were no thorns, and give a yank. In a perfect world, this would either pull the branch free, or allow me to tow the whole bush along to the pile. In this world however, all that happened was that I would cause the remaining bush to sway wildly. Which, if you were me, meant you had an angry bush swinging wildly at you, trying to grab a handful of hair or claw at your face because apparently roses fight like drunk party girls.

Also, to add to pain, the thorns had a way of sneaking around my gloves or worse yet, falling down into my shoe and getting lodged in my sock. By the end of the day I looked like I had tried to wrestle a cougar.

Have you ever walked in the door and been afraid to look in the mirror because you are afraid that your land has cut up your face? No. Just me?

Luckily my face had escaped unscathed somehow. Mainly because I was not looking forward to trying to explain to my clients and coworkers why I looked like Freddie Krueger had found me in my sleep. I am also fairly sure that telling them the monster under the bed did it would not have been worth the looks on their faces because I need to keep my job in order to pay for things.

Which is exactly why I can't be trusted with this kind of injury.

At all.