Arin Pulling Weeds in Newlund year 2095

 Arin pulled as hard as she could, “This one is not coming out.”

Gerda picked up the spade and handed it to Arin, “Try this. Stick it in the ground around the weed and see if you can pull it up.

Arin reluctantly took the shovel and dug. “What is this anyway and why do I have to dig it up?”

“It’s a weed, and we have a lot of work to do here so we need to stay busy.”

Arin looked at the handful of green plant and brown dirt in her hand, “If this is a weed, what is the rest of this green stuff and why am I not pulling it up?”

“Weeds are what we don’t want. The seeds fly into the garden uninvited.”

Arin examined her weed, “What’s the difference? It all looks the same to me.”

“The weeds are more bitter, but some of them we could eat, but I prefer the sweet lettuce leaves. Gerda gave a leaf to Arin, “Taste this.”

Arin dropped the leaves, “I don’t want to.”

“One way to tell a weed from an herb or vegetable is to taste it, another way is to smell it. Herbs have a pleasant smell.”

Gerda sighed, “All of the clumps of green, like this, are vegetables and herbs for our dinner, then around the vegetables are weeds.”

“I can’t believe you are going to eat this stuff that comes out of the ground. It is so dirty.”

“It’s healthy and delicious. We wash it off before we eat it.”

Arin held up a worm and looked at Gerda, “Ew! What is this slimy brown thing?”

‘It’s a worm. It makes holes in the dirt so the plants can breathe.”

The worm wiggled out of Arin’s hand and slithered off in the dirt, “I’m not eating the green stuff covered in dirt and slimy things.”

Gerda pulled out another weed, “You will eat or you will get very hungry.”

Arin couldn’t believe she would need to eat dirty food out of the ground to survive.

The sun made its rotation across the sky and it was time to go home.

As they sat at the dinner table that evening, Gerda said the blessing and they all dug into their meal.

Arin bit into the fresh crunchy greens and decided food from the ground was so much better than the Nutritabs they subsisted on at Clark City.