Wednesday Wit and Wisdom

Today I am joining Linda's blog, Senior Adventures, for Wednesday Wit and Wisdom

If you would like to join, post a photo and write a story around it. 

Such fun! Here's my  true story......

When You Plant a Garden, You Feed The World

One of the reasons Hubby and I moved out to the country was the dream of having our very own garden. We had visions of sun ripened tomatoes, crisp, juicy apples from our very own trees, and blueberry pie with just picked berries.

The first thing we did was hire someone with a tractor to till the ground. Mind you, this was ground that had probably never been turned over since the ice age glaciers came through. But, like I said, we had a vision. Who knew that many rocks lurked beneath the seemingly lush landscape? But being young and naive, we soldiered on, lugging bucket after bucket of rocks to the edge. We did make quite an impressive stone wall, though.

After a few weeks of hard labor, we were ready to plant. We were confident that we would have fresh salads and home canned tomato sauce, corn on the cob and Halloween pumpkins, all organically grown and full of life giving nutrients.

Yea, life giving all right; for every form of wildlife, big and small. It was as if we set the table and put out a call to every insect, critter, and bird to come and feast. We wanted to go organic, so we fertilized with fish fertilizer and bone meal. If there were two things on earth that attracted raccoons any faster, those would be it. As the little masked burglars searched the ground for this delectable new ‘treat’ of dead fish and bones, they uprooted everything in their quest, leaving the ground looking as if a miniature tornado came through.

As the remaining plant survivors grew to knee height, this attracted a taller patron to the feast; deer. It didn’t matter that we had two deer chasing hounds, a tall fence bordered by electric wire and whenever we saw them meandering through the garden, we ran towards them like deranged clowns, clanging our pot lids together. The deer would simply hop over the fence and wait until we left, calmly staring at us while chewing their cud.

When we turned over the earth after eons of quiet slumber, the weed seeds sprouted with new found vigor. Of course, these were not nearly as tasty and grew undisturbed by our new-found patrons. We couldn’t keep up and noticed that once they grew and flowered, they were actually quite pretty. One person’s weed is another person’s wildflower, I always say.

Apple trees were a favorite treat, not only for deer, but for hungry bears. The blueberry bushes hosted whole flocks of small singing birds, thanking us for the bounty. Soon the landscape became more like a fortress, with netting, fences within fences, and frantically running humans and dogs.  We had fleeting, evil thoughts of bearskin rugs, deer steaks, coonskin caps, and roasted wild pigeon.

Eventually we harvested a small basket of stunted gourds, a few dried beans the birds didn’t find, and three tiny pumpkins that somehow survived the cold, wet summer. Never in our wildest dreams did we think our biggest harvest would be rocks.

Hubby and I decided that farmers we were not, and down came the netting, the fences within the fences, the pot lids were put away and the dogs left to laze out their days on the front porch.  We became naturalists, leaving the berries and fruit for the wildlife and shopping for our fresh grown produce at the local Farmer’s Markets.  Now everyone is happy, we ‘garden’ in pots on the deck and nobody need know that the beautiful purple, pink, yellow and blue flowers are wild, planted by nature, and resistant to pests except for us, who leisurely stroll along picking bouquets for our own enjoyment, while the deer and raccoons curiously look on. 

I hope you enjoyed my (true) story today, 

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Wednesday Wit and Wisdom

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