Minty Ground

She thought that mint would be a sweet addition to her garden and so she transplanted it from the edges of the pond into the little plot beside the house. It smelled so good when she knelt barefoot in the dirt to weed out her thyme and basil, or bent over at the other end of the tilled ground to inspect her blossoming peas. Sometimes she could even find the minty flavor springing into her kitchen window while she washed dishes.
The velvety, fragrant little community became a literal multitude of happy greens, all spreading their roots throughout the entire area of herb beds as if it was theirs to keep. She was concerned as she thought of the carefully mothered tomatoe seedlings sunning in front of the house. It was time for the mint to go before they wove their lacy strings around every beet sprout and chive stem and suffocated the whole garden of her manure-enriched loam.
As she began cutting into the mass of mint with her spade, the fragrance almost changed her mind and for a moment she paused, pointing her nose up into the air to smell the apple blossoms from the orchard next door. She resumed her task with new energy, hauling pounds of mint down to the weed and brush pile near the pond. She hummed as she opened the up the soil to new life and stopped to study a toad she unearthed from its burrow.
Straighting up--finished and breathing freely--she noted the depression in the soil caused by the drastic surgery. And she knew that the scent of mint would linger on her hands for hours.