Saturday, July 17, 2010

Dealing with Hate. Mine.

All appearances to the contrary I love gardening. Those milkweed plants are intentional. Really. I love watching the butterflies dance in my garden like living flowers... and the smell of the milkweed flowers is heavenly. Obviously the downside is how rangy the plants get, and I always feel a bit guilty... I know most of my neighbors think I'm crazy... for all the time I spend out there, they think my garden shouldn't be so... well, MESSY. I guess I agree, for the most part... but when I sit out on my swing and admire the progression of the flowers.... bliss. I can easily... TOO easily... look past the rangy milkweed, the progress of the Bishop's goutweed.... and admire the irises, the daylilies, the roses and the hostas.

Which brings me to the subject of what I hate. Woodchucks. I am certain in some rosy world that all of God's creatures serve some purpose in some great plan. I despise woodchucks. They have unceremoniously destroyed my Zucchini plants, and are working their way through the garden as though it was placed specifically for their gastronomic pleasure. Mine. MY gastronomic pleasure was the intended purpose of my garden. Although down the road is the "Almost Free to Good Home Zucchini Stand," I wanted MY zucchini. mine. I harvested two before the leaves began to disappear. The woodchucks ran from the garden snickering last evening when Cinnamon the golden retriever ran toward them. She can't get into the fenced in garden, but apparently the despicable vermin can. The mildly scientific/artistic part of my nature was almost pleased... one of the two running woodchucks was melanistic.... a glossy black coat. The other looked ridiculously healthy as well... perhaps zucchini is good for fur and hair... it has certainly done them no harm.

And so here I sit... seething with disgust. I am rooting for coyotes. May they be fruitful and multiply. Darlene saw some coyote puppies playing on her deck next door... perhaps by next year other neighbors will be complaining that the coyotes are baying too close to civilization. I will be feigning sorrow at the passing of the woodchucks, one of the coyotes' favorite foods, and delighting in a more fruitful garden, wondering at how I could have harbored such hate for one of God's more defenseless creatures.

Monday, July 05, 2010




I am a woman obsessed. Always. Obsessed with fiber, and the myriad things that can be done with it, obsessed with the landscape of Western New York, Obsessed with my shop, my pets.... and for the last two weeks I am obsessed with raspberries, dark, black raspberries. They are full of anti-oxidants, they are sweet, tart, and flavorful, best shown off either warm from the bush, or in dark, sweet black raspberry pies. My freezer holds nine quarts of the things, near the rhubarb and the strawberries that await in suspended animation for the months where they are none-too-available. My husband, believing he was doing good, took down some of the still-laden bushes. I simmered. I saw in the freezer the space for those quarts .... unfillable. I share, of course, with the birds who originally brought us these bushes, and I share with Cinnamon, the golden retriever who came to us last year, already almost five years old, and as quirky as we are. Cinnamon harvests raspberries herself, standing with me as I pick, taking whole low-growing clusters into her mouth and rumbling them there, so that the ripe fruit can drop into her mouth. She will, of course, take a berry from me if I offer, but she seems contented to forage for herself, leaving a stray red hair here and there clinging to the thorns of the bush.