Mulberries, the Huns of Cedar Hill

I have lived in a lot of places. Connecticut, Jersey, New York, Virginia, North Carolina, New Mexico, Iowa, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Tewkesbury (England), Palmerston North, (NZ), and traveled to gobs of other places. Not until settling myself in this valley at the crossroads of Cedar Hill Rd. and Cedar Hill Rd. (Really. They named the roads in all 4 directions the exact same thing) did I encounter the Mulberry. I didn't recognize them at all until my small children returned from playing with a little girl down the road (yes, one of the Cedar Hills) with purple stained faces. I had a moment of panic- what were you all eating???? I called the girl's mother, who reassured me that it was Mulberry season, and they were quite edible. Okay, then, kids, show me these mulberries. I am open minded when it comes to baking pies. It turned out they were everywhere. The pretty shaped tree on the top of the barn hill with the old porch swing hanging from its branches? Mulberry. The oddly braided tree at the split in the drive? Mulberry. The scrubby looking bush near the septic tank? The thousand scraggly chums growing through the neighbors fence? The graceful branches hanging over the creek near the black walnuts? All Mulberries. A-twitter with fruit. Sweet, purple fruit, smallish, like the size of a wild blackberry, and conical. They have a thick fiber cone shaped center under the fruit which makes them less desirable to bake into stuff. You end up feeling like you're eating a lot of stem, not so much fruit. The birds like them, which makes the cars covered with white and purple splatter. And the flies like them as the fruit falls to the ground and ferments. Drunken flies. And the bushes grow anywhere, and everywhere. I cut one clear to the ground 2 years ago. It is taller than the house. I neglected the south bank of the driveway turn this summer, and now they scrape the sides of the car on every pass. You can't kill them by cutting them down. Pulling them out when they're saplings seems like the best method, but I'm not nearly thorough enough to do so on this whole farm. I try to keep them out of the gardens and the lawn. I think I'm losing. I think if we were to leave the farm for one growing season, the mulberries would drive forth with no mercy, pillaging everything in their way. Cowfeathers Farm would be a forest of mulberries, covered in poison ivy frosting...