In the most steeply mountainous corner of rustic southern West Virginia, Jack Ponder lived with his family, refugees from the turmoil of frantic Washington DC. These were strictly city-folk besotted by the idyllic peace of back-to-the-land escapism. At first it was just Jack and his wife, an attractively diligent woman named Florance Lee (of the Virginia Lees) and their toddler son, Jeremy. After a few months they were joined by Florance's father who had been forced into early retirement by bad health. Their renovated clapboard homestead had six bedrooms and more than ample space to comfortably rear one of those populous rural broods which has made the American hinterlands an object of snickering for its rabbit-like breeding success, but what do you do at night in the country? A little later on, Mrs. Ponder's older sister, Dora Lee-VanZooker, an eccentric perpetual student, arrived complaining that she needed a rest and time to reflect on a research project which hadn't gone as anticipated at her most recent university. Dora had been married for a minute to an instructor at Cornell, but that was two universities and as many years ago. At a restless thirty, she amused herself with classes in molecular biology and the jaded life of Lord Byron. His legendary physical endowment obsessed her. Then, lastly, Jack fished a stranded dog, a mostly-Dalmatian, from the pond on the back of their thirty acres. It was a mystery how the beast got into the water, but once rescued, she followed Jack around as if she'd been his boon-companion since puppyhood. It was just as well that nobody ever claimed her because both Jack and Jeremy adored her. During their first winter in the West Virginia mountains, they got snowed-in for almost a week. It was the first time Jack became aware of the problem with their septic system. At staggering expense the old farmhouse had been renovated, but when the privy was replaced with modern plumbing, nobody anticipated quite so much toilet usage. The tile field down by the pond became fouled. Quickly, an acre of two-foot-deep snow became a fetid swamp of slimy brown sludge. When the septic service could finally deal with the mess, the ground, now melted of snow, was spongy with sewer water. A major overhaul of the septic system ensued, but it never wanted to work effectively. In the early spring, the richly fertilized plot over the tile field exploded into an exotic arboretum of dense lushness. It was a thicket of plants that no one in the house had even seen before, but that was no surprise. These were city-folk who had to research crabgrass in a field guide to the plants. Later on, they sort of decided that their real problems started when Mr. Lee, Florance's father, was put on experimental drugs to treat his liver and blood problems. A lot of the substances must have gotten transferred into his urine and flushed into the septic system. Of course, they discovered that, because he had such a bad reaction to the chemicals, he often simply dumped the drugs into the toilet. It was about that time, say April, that the farmer who occasionally mowed their brush, complained that the stuff Jack was planting down by the pond was noxious and getting hard to keep down. Robby-Joe, the farmer, warned Jack that the agricultural agent frowned on the propagation of imported plants and shrubs. It was a hazard to the farming industry and against the law. Jack pleaded his innocence, but acknowledged that the verdant patch was a tangled Eden of plants which were nothing like those which were struggling to survive in the rest of the field. But Mr. Lee's drugs weren't the only things going into the sewer system. Flossy Ponder didn't believe in paper diapers for her beloved Jeremy. She used cloth and washed more than a dozen a day. She got a bargain (being a conscientious wife, Flossy always sought out bargains) priced detergent manufactured by a local chemical company in Poka outside Charleston. It worked swell and she discovered that the mice (of which they had a-plenty) actually liked to eat it out of the five gallon pail in which she bought it. Over the months, a lot of the potent stuff became sewage. But there was plenty of responsibility to go around. Jack himself had to share the onus. He liked to cook even if the family didn't like to eat what he cooked. Who can blame them? asparagus in clam sauce? lime Brussels sprout aspic? deep fried turnip sticks? It all ended up going down the drain. Heavens knows what such stuff would do to a biological system let alone the havoc to the ecology. But, sister Dora earned the blackest marks. She'd brought along some questionable chemicals from her most recent failed biological research (she insisted that they were harmless). In the spring, while cleaning out her luggage in anticipation of enrolling in the summer term on fish biology at Lake Superior College in Duluth, she poured the gooey flask down the bathroom sink. It clung tenaciously to the slick porcelain unwilling for the hot water to wash it into oblivion. By early June, the Ponders started to realize that things were getting seriously strange. The peaceful gravel lane looping past their property gradually became a busy road congested with gawking curiosity-seekers. Their little septic mishap had become a Brazilian jungle of threatening mutants inspiring both apprehension and wonder. Word about the newcomers' curious "garden" quickly gossiped around the countryside. The problem was crystallized when a particularly brazen sightseer all the way from Bluefield rapped on their door and offered a dollar to be allowed to trudge through the oddity. In West Virginia, a dollar is not offered lightly. Dumbfounded, neither Jack nor Florence knew what to say. They refused the crumpled single, but agreed to permit the visitor to inspect their "garden." No one from the family, not even Bog, their foundling Dalmatian (baby Jeremy, who couldn't yet say "dog," had named her) had been close to the area since it had been inundated with sewage. Jack's wing tips didn't do well in sludge. When the intrepid tourist didn't return in twenty minutes, Jack reluctantly donned rubbers and, with Bog loping along beside him, picked his way down toward the pond. To his surprise, the ground wasn't damp, but the "garden" was an amazing phenomena! Although it was only a few months old, the gnarled growth towered many feet over his head. It was a confusion of interlaced green tendrils of a hundred competing varieties of unknown foliage, reeds, bushes, trees, weeds, shrubs and even skyscraper ferns. Jack soon located his visitor out of sight around on the side of the jungle. The man had found it impossible to find a way into the thicket. When he tried to claw through the impenetrable tangle, he swore that the plants, none of which he recognized (and he was a life-long farmer) intentionally tired to ensnare and entangle him. It was eerie! Although the visitor grilled him closely, Jack Ponder was unable to tell him what sorts of plants and shrubs they were, or where they'd come from. He explained how the whole problem had started and his assumption that these were just local weeds fertilized by the human sewage. As the disappointed visitor plodded back up toward the road, Jack surveyed the area trying to figure out what he should do. He thought he might spray with herbicides. West Virginia is a hotbed of chemical remedies. He realized that the growth had spread all the way down to the pond and actually seemed to be invading the water where peculiar grasses and flowers matted one side of the spring-fed pool. To his surprise, two neighbor boys were fishing from the far bank. They assured him that Miss DeMoss, the former owner, had always allowed them to fish the pond. It was stocked with bass, suckers and sunnys. Just as Jack was warning the boys, both of whom were about ten and should no doubt have been in school, that they should be careful not to fall into the water, one of the kids was almost yanked into the pool by the energetic tug of a bite on his bait. He proudly explained that he was using dough-balls. Fishermen like to tell you about their bait and fishing ploys. Only after a terrific fight which Jack stayed to watch, did the lad succeed in landing a gigantic catfish. It was nearly three feet long and remarkably energetic, beating itself angrily on the bank. Since the pond was less than a hundred fifty feet across, it was hard to believe that such a "granddaddy" could live there, but the boys assured the astonished landowner that they'd been catching such whoppers all spring. They even claimed that one day they'd seen a big carp eat a rabbit off the surface. Jack wasn't a believer in fish-tales, but wondered if three-foot long catfish might not actually be dangerous to the boys if they fell into the water. They scoffed that no fish was going to eat them, but they bundled up their catch, still wildly wriggling and shared the burden of toting it home. One of their mothers would cook it in butter and garlic for their lunch and any pollutants would pass up the food chain. Herbicides didn't do a thing. Jack sprayed five gallons around the margins of his ever-expanding monstrosity. Not only didn't it wilt the leaves, the next morning they looked even more virulent; almost menacing like wild animals. While Jack and farmer Robby-Joe with scythes, machetes and a more powerful herbicide were challenging the invaders to a second round, an official helicopter zoomed in close over their heads. It was boldly painted with an American flag and "United states Department of Agriculture." Right away, Jack realized that this couldn't be good. After circling a few times taking aerial photos, the chopper set down, tottering precariously on the steep slope beside the road. The uniformed man who swung out of the helicopter sported a ridiculously bush walrus mustache and the foul mouth of a black rap-singer. He was, as his chest pin attested, Sergeant Hann, Field Agent. His first words were a string of profanities impugning Jack's mother's chastity and Jack's intellectual acumen. In the lengthy and contentious discussion which ensued, Sergeant Hann repeatedly demanded to see Jack's license to cultivate foreign plants, threatened staggering fines, federal prosecution and criticized Jack's parents for producing such a dumb son-of-a-bitch. For his part, Jack had little success making himself understood. He tried to explain that the plants were a wild, natural phenomena, an accident, which he was already struggling to eradicate. Then he made the mistake of mentioning the rabbit-eating fish in the possibly polluted pond. "We'll blast!" bellowed the Sergeant with a bushy grin. "Dynamite will cure carp!" It took Jack an hour, but he finally convinced Sergeant Hann to delay any official action until he'd tried less drastic measures. Hann told him to "get flame-throwers," but the landowner thought that was a tad extreme. Uniforms make many officials behave psychotically. The official attention attracted the notice of the local media or, at least, the weekly newspaper from the county seat. While Jack and Robby-Joe were slashing futilely at their green nemeses, a reporter with a banged-up camera ambled down from the road. Jack again explained his story. It was getting trite and boring. He went on to relate Sergeant Hann's threats and demands. The reporter knew Hann and averred that the official was a bully who didn't really have any authority to force the destruction of Mr. Ponder's property. "Just call it a crop," the reporter suggested. He went away happy with a photo of the two exhausted weed-whackers posed before a wall of menacing green. When slashing and a second helping of Vietnam-grade herbicide made little progress, Mr. Ponder began believing that flame-throwers might not be such an unreasonable solution. Sure, the machetes chopped off branches and limbs even though the foliage was sinewy and so tough that it tangled instead of cutting. Worst of all, the jungle grew back and filled in almost as quickly as it was hewn. By morning the previous day's work had vanished. Robby-Joe's chainsaw made much better progress. By madly flailing the growling machine through the brush, the sly farmer was able to gouge a swath through the "garden" in just over an hour. At every step within the dark forest he was confronted with even more bizarre growth, vines, tendrils, spike-thorns, sticky, clinging leaves and bark that burned the flesh like lye when spraying chips were thrown against the man. It all stunk like putrid flesh. And the spiders! species he'd never seen before, huge, black and hairy, or stunted like yellow scorpions with bony legs, each with its own gooey web; insects, too, all looking like tropical monsters from an alien world or a bygone eon. Encouraged by the hard-won success, Jack rented a chainsaw and the two men went at the plants fast and furious. By dark most of the invaders had been cleared and gathered into thorny, unsavory heaps to dry and be burned. That wasn't going to work. In the morning, not only was the original verdant patch springing back to life, but each of the heaps of clippings had taken root. There were a dozen secondary jungles surrounding the mother. The two men could only look on in wonder as the foliage seemed to grow before their eyes. For the several days while all t his effort had been proceeding, the two fisher-boys were landing whoppers and observing the heroics of man versus weed (combat which any homeowner understands). The bigger lad who's name turned out to be Michael opined that what they needed were bugs to eat the plants. Potato weevils were the first choice. Garfield, the more clever of the kids, thought they should just let it grow and sell tickets while waiting for winter, or they could sell cuttings so that people could start their own plants. On the day that the piles of cuttings took root, Garfield caught a carp with tiny beady blue eyes. It seemed to have claws sprouting from it's fins and it spat water at the anglers as they joined forces to beach its bulk. That was the last straw. Jack Ponder resigned himself to the reality that his rural haven had become a deadly dangerous pollution problem. He mad the boys leave the fish lying on the ground and forbade them to do any more fishing in the pond. "I don't think it's safe," he explained. "Maybe you should go to the doctors for a check up just in case the fish that you've eaten were poisonous. That succeeded in terrifying the boys who dashed off home with tales of monsters and mutants. Within an hour both apron-clad mothers were at the Ponders' door. It was an ugly scene. Not even Mrs. Ponder's cookies and punch would placate them. The scene was repeated in the evening when the weary fathers arrived home from work. Relatives gathered and neighbors materialized. It became like the peasant mob scene from Frankenstein and grew so threatening that Mrs. Ponder called the Sheriff just to be on the safe side. That resulted in poor Jack Ponder getting hauled off to the slammer. What sheriff was going to side with a toxic newcomer against good hill people? With the aid of sister Dora, a deal was struck. One of the woman's many classes at American University was on arbitration and negotiation. The Ponders agreed not to prosecute the boys for trespassing and to pay for a medical exam (they proved to be healthy - at least at t his point) and the peasant mob was invited to join forces to eradicate the noxious plants. That's when the Ponders' house got burned down' homemade flame-throwers. In the meantime birds had carried off seeds to other parts of the county. Pretty soon other blotches of blight were sprouting on nearby properties. It became so ugly that, before July, the Ponders had to slink off in the middle of the night back to Washington where they hoped they'd be free of their pollution problem. But, do you remember that dog, Bog? She had seemed to be foundering in the polluted pond when Jack rescued her. The Ponders took Bog with them to Washington. It's enough to say that she had spots, but wasn't really a Dalmatian.