O you beast! I’ll so maul you and your toasting-iron, That you shall think the devil is come from hell (0)

"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers gophers"1

I like agaves - they are pretty, they come in many shapes and sizes, and they usually do fairly well in the desert. I'm not picky - agave-like plants are also welcome!

I do not like gophers. However, gophers do like agaves and agave like plants. This winter was especially horrendous. Since my words when i was doing this clean up were not very "family-friendly" (but did involve the letter F a lot), I had to resort to Shakespearean insults for the gophers for this blog post.

We start in the back garden, on the hillside. There were 2 Agave 'Green Goblets" there.  Now, thanks to the crusty batch of nature2 there are zero:

 

that does not look good

This one is ok?

Thy sin’s not accidental, but a trade3

looks, they are deceiving

 Thou art unfit for any place but hell.4

Not content with just 2, i noticed that my Agave 'Crazy Horse' was looking sad. A tug on the leaf core produced:

You scullion! You rampallian! You fustilarian! 5

Bloody, bawdy villain! Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain! 6

This next one really, really hurt. I have (had) a giant furcraea in the front garden. Here it was a few weeks ago:

easily 7-8 feet across

 But then...

Thou hateful wither’d hag! 7

 The three-inch fool8 dug a tunnel into the heart of the plant:

You are as a candle, the better burnt out. 9

It gets worse... I'm seeing bad signs for my favorite agave:

Whoreson caterpillars, bacon-fed knaves! 10

I haven't had the heart to go pull on it... maybe next weekend. I don't know if it was a combination of our snow and gophers, or just extra hungry gophers, but this was a horrible winter. I think any new replacements will be getting gopher cages/collars.

That trunk of humours, that bolting-hutch of beastliness, that swollen parcel of dropsies, that huge bombard of sack, that stuffed cloak-bag of guts, that roasted Manningtree ox with pudding in his belly, that reverend vice, that grey Iniquity, that father ruffian, that vanity in years?11

I do desire that we may be better strangers. 12

0. King John, Act 4, Scene 3

1. Henry VI Part 2, Act 4, Scene 2

2. The History of Triolus and Cressida, Act 5, Scene 1

3. Measure for Measure, Act 3, Scene 1

4. Richard III, Act 1, Scene 2

5. Henry IV Part 2, Act 2, Scene 1 

6. Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2

7. Richard III Act 1, Scene 3

8. The Taming of the Shrew, Act 4, Scene 1

9. Henry IV Part 2, Act 1, Scene 2

10. Henry IV, Part 1, Act 2, Scene 2

11 Henry IV Part 2, Act 2, Scene 3

12. As You Like It, Act 3, Scene 2