Episode 84: Hardball

July 3, 2025·43 min·4 clips

Chip tries to pull up a strange weed, but it retracts into the earth, slamming him into the forest floor.

The weeds will not quit. Chip spends most of the day pulling garlic mustard, and the ground barely seems to notice. Kudzu has made him careful, maybe too careful, but what he sees tells him ordinary pulling, cutting, and patient tending will not do it. So he chooses fire. From the tool shed, set away from the garage and the house, he takes the endoskeleton and gets ready for the danger. The machine is blunt, ugly, and useful. Goggles on, heavy flame-retardant gloves tight, he turns toward the vine-covered remains of the old barn first. Kudzu is the bigger problem. He follows it across his land with flame, burning what he can and tracing it back toward its source. That source does not make him feel any better. The mutant growth starts past the fence, on Cumberland Valley Authority property, where Chip will not step. He burns from his own side. That narrow property line starts to feel like a warning: quiet as wire, stubborn as root. Then memory slips into the field. The weeds seem to avoid the edges where Aunt Betty planted by the signs, the way her mother taught her. Mamaw June died before Chip was born, but her knowledge is still there in the shape of the fields and in planting treated as more than plain work. The land is hurt now. Chip knows the burn will leave damage, but he can still picture planting again, helping the ground come back. Evening settles over the grass. The horror stays partly out of sight. The worst of the growth may not be on Chip's land at all, even though it has already crossed over.

As heard by us

A backwoods cleanup turns into a steady, uneasy look at memory, land, and what keeps taking root.

Chip's brush-clearing work gives the episode its best texture. Garlic mustard, kudzu, the endoskeleton flamethrower, the old barn, and the fence line on Cumberland Valley Authority land keep the scene grounded in place.

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Why you'd press play

A flamethrower, a kudzu infestation, and a fence line that turns yard work into a boundary fight.

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