“Will the cops come and get us?” my son asked, half seriously.

“No, I don’t think so,” I replied.

“What if the neighbors see,” my daughter said, “Will they come over and get mad?”

“I doubt it.”

We stood in the backyard of a dark and empty house, armed with trash bags, shovels, buckets and a single LED flashlight. The company included my oldest two children, my friend Allen the Beekeeper and his girlfriend Laura.

Allen had gotten a call earlier that day from a friend.

“Hey… there’s some plants and a bed of sugarcane in the back of my house. The landlord doesn’t care about it. Dig it up now or I’m gonna mow it all down tomorrow.”

After the call, Allen called me.

“Want to get some plants?”

The answer, of course, was yes… the problem was, we weren’t both free until well past dark.

When we got to the house, it looked like this:

Perfect conditions for a garden raid!

Dark. Very dark. But there were plants that needed saving so we pressed on. Laura held the flashlight as we cut down cane and dug up what had been a 4′ x 8′ bed of the stuff. Thanks to a mild winter, the canes were untouched by frost and deliciously sweet.

I may have paused during the daring raid, O reader, to give the children a few choice chunks… but I never lost sight of the mission.

Overall, it took us about an hour of digging to remove all of the sugarcane.

Allen takes charge.

Beyond that, we also nabbed a few rosemary bushes (which I greatly doubt will survive transplanting) and a nice clump of lemon grass.

On the way out, I couldn’t help looking through a pile of yard waste by the side of the road… and was greatly pleased to discover (and rescue) a freshly dug clump of Jasmine, unwilted with some good roots remaining.

We can’t save every plant… but we can try.