We feel the earth. Our veins are nourished by the roots of her verdure. We know she remembers the beginning, and she whispers to us of the end. To her we are an enigmatic flash of brilliance. But even in our short lives we have watched her weaken. It is as if a parasite has spread a concrete and steel rash across her belly. Her skin is clogged with a gray cloud. At night as we lay suspended between sleep and wakefulness we hear her low, slow moan. Then we reach to each other and hold each other close, remembering all the beauty of life in the touch of our skin.

And in the morning, sitting in our parched backyard, dry and choked from weeds, we yearn to make something new, something lasting, something beautiful and green to nourish our hearts, our minds, and our bodies.

That's when our journey began. It has been a slow journey filled with hard soil and sore backs. It is an exploration into what is possible for an urban yard, the transformation of a yard into a productive, life sustaining eden. And it is a journey that began with weeds.

Weeds are hardy, misunderstood souls. They are the pioneer plants. If a forest is clear cut, or a fire sweeps through it, the first plants to reestablish themselves are weeds and grasses. In time these weeds are replaced bushes, shrubs, and other perennials. Deb and I were unwilling to wait the fifty years for this transformation to take place. We declared war on the bind weed and native grasses that graced our backyard. It is a war we are still waging. There are days when I wonder if it is a war, like all wars, that is based mostly on misunderstanding.