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(parental advisory...)
January 5: Yea. Got my first seed catalog today from Minchigen Seed Co. Everything looks so good and they even have a contest! Told my wife I expect to grow most of our veggies this year. The initial investment might be high, but I expect to recoup it and more by next year. Sent off my order for $79.85 to Minchigen Seed Co. and (I hope) my winning entry.
January 6: Three more seed catalogs today. Johnny's, Burpee and Cooks garden. Wow, am I going to have a beautiful veggie garden! Sent out checks for $81.35, $134.23 and $67.30 respectively. A little more then I expected, but I'm sure I'll get my money's worth. Plus, I like supporting companies that are environmentally sound.
January 7: Twelve more catalogs arrived today. I know I got some I never ordered, how is that? [...some entries deleted...] February 1: Another six catalogues arrived today, making a total of 132 catalogs. Do they expect me to buy from all of them? I've already ordered over $500 of seeds. Should have kept better track of what I ordered. Each type of tomato seems better then the last. Oh well, what's a few dollars, if I don't use it this year, I'll use it next. Better news, I WON at Minchigen Seed company! OK, it was just a package of lettuce seeds but this qualifies me for the bigger drawing. Sent in another order today for $56.78 along with my entry form. Minchigen Seed screwed up my first order, but hey, everyone is entitled to a mistake.
March 1: It was raw but beautiful in Humboldt County today. We went out together and decided on where to put my garden. I'll start with a quarter acre this year and expand next. Saw my first deer today, gently nibbling on some tree bark. How beautiful she was, how could anyone ever shoot these poor animals. Ground is rocky and I decided I should buy a tiller.
March 2: Opened the Troy Built catalog and ordered an 8 hp Pony tiller, a 5 horsepower chipper/shredder, and a lawn tractor. Ouch, it was an awful lot of money, but the order person at Garden Way assured me I would have these until the day I die and then pass them on to my children. Now getting second catalogs from companies I haven't ordered from. Some are even threatening not to send more catalogs unless I order now. Kind'a like threatening a kid caught playing hooky with expulsion.
March 3: Won again in Minchigen Seed company. My fifth time. Another package of lettuce seeds :-( They still haven't gotten my orders correct, but maybe I'll win the grand prize. Sent off another $18.50 for some things I don't need right now but I'm sure I'll use sometime. I'm beginning to feel this company is not all it claims to be. [...some entries deleted...] April 15: Ah, tax time. This time next year I'll be able to legally cheat the government. After all, they can't TAX any of the produce I grow. For each dollar of food grown, I would have had to earn $1.50 before taxes to buy it. And none of what I grow can be used to bail out some corrupt saving and loan official. I wonder why more people don't do this. The deer, rabbits and woodchucks are so tame. They almost come up and eat out of your hand. I'm going to love it here.
April 16: Started to till up my plot today. Troy Built assured me I could till 1/4 acre in less then a day. The tiller cuts through the sod like a politician through campaign promises; but alas, when it hits a rock it bucks and jumps forward, carrying me along. I feel like Wile E. Coyote when his Acme Jet Sled takes off, the arms stretching back twenty feet and then the body snapping forward, rocketing over the handlebars. I keep telling myself I'd be paying money at a health club for such a workout. If only my rubber arms would believe that! As I haul rocks, I think to myself how my ancestors, so close to nature, would use rocks from their garden for walls. How thrifty of them, not like people of today who sit on the couch, mindlessly watching television, their only monument a mountain of garbage. I'm going to make my mountain of rocks a cairn that I can point to, and my children can point to, showing all the work I did clearing the land. It will be my monument for all time.
April 17, 18, 19, 20: Still tilling and hauling the damn rocks. The pile of rocks is larger then the area I tilled. Ordered 10 yards of topsoil. Won't tell my wife :)
April 22: Decided that 1/4 acre is too large. I'll start with about 1000 sq. feet garden. Oh, my aching back. A neighbor came over and when I told him that next year I wouldn't have to clear more rocks, he took a chaw of tobacco and spit it on my Reeboks, looked me in the eye and said, "City fool, don't ya know that this here ground grows rocks, next year you'll have another fine crop." But he did give me some good advice: to grow zucchini on the land that I didn't till. Told me with a big grin that "I'd git a good return." Right friendly of him.
April 30: Despite the troubles with clearing the land my feelings soared today. I began my first planting! The sun was warm, the air crystal clear and the insects buzzed. I decided to be totally organic. How could farmers poison their soil, crops, and even their children with pesticides? I know better: nature, left alone, will nurture my crops; her beneficial insects and my companion planting will protect them better then artificial barriers or chemicals. Of course I am helping nature out a little by ordering, for $79.00, a package of beneficial insects from Gardens Alive and another $49 box of lacewings. A great beneficial insect! Natural balances are the best, farmers are such fools. The rabbits here are so cute. Six small rabbits hopped up near me, their big eyes watching me plant, almost as if they knew we all were one together with nature. Who cares if they take a nibble now and then. My garden will be bountiful enough for all of us. I've given them names from children's nature books: Peter, Flopsy, Mopsy, Thumper, The White Rabbit and B.J. Funnybunny. Birds chirp in the trees, as if talking to me. They playfully dive-bomb me, often landing on the soil I just seeded. In the woods I can see a few deer. So tame they will now eat out of my hand. Man spoils so much. Nature is perfect. I, like Thoreau, am in tune with my garden. Went to Sears in Eureka and bought a 25 cubic foot freezer to hold all my produce. I am thinking of becoming a vegetarian. After seeing the animals, who but a psychopath would ever want to kill one, let alone eat it.
May 1, 2, 3: Spent these days in bed with a herniated disc I ruptured while bending over and planting. I'm in traction and cannot move anything except for my right arm. My wife hooked up the phone and computer keyboard so I can call or write. I know that although it may have been gardening that ruptured my back, it was life in the city that first weakened it. After all, you don't see old gardeners with bad backs. Do you? The garden sustains me: I lay back thinking of how my lettuce, tomato, eggplants, and peppers will look when I get back to them. How much will they have grown? How sweet will be the smell. When will I get my first salad of radish and lettuce? Speaking of lettuce, I've just received another package of lettuce seeds from Minchigen Seed Co. for winning another round. I must write them to get my orders straight. How hard is it to put the right thing in the right box? I'm not sending them another thing until they fix my order.
May 4: My pile of seed catalogs, about 8 feet tall, cascaded down on top of me. The pile knocked the telephone out of my reach and I was totally covered, unable to phone for help. After about an hour, I realized I could use my computer to log in to my work and tell someone I was in need of help. My coworkers all thought I was making a grand joke about being buried with catalogs and dunning credit card notices. At last I convinced them it wasn't a joke and to call 911. Damn catalogs. Damn credit cards.
May 6: Received a letter from Minchigen Seed Company saying that my name was drawn for the grand prize but because I hadn't responded in time, another name was drawn. The ultimate winner turns out to be Joe Minchigen, two year old grandson of the owners of Minchigen Seed Company.
May 8: Tomorrow's the day! The day I get out of my bed and back to the garden. I can't wait to see my plants. Have my peas sprouted? Is my lettuce large enough to pick? A sweet, light rain comes down. Just can't wait.
May 9: TOTAL DISASTER! Nothing left in my garden but a few stubs of my plants and a few fat bunnies. How could such small animals eat so much! All my seeds are gone too. Looks like someone dug them out. Must be the damn birds. Mud up to my ankles. How the hell can there be so much mud and so many rocks at the same time! Only saving grace is the zucchini, no one ate those. Counted 113 young plants. My neighbor was right!
May 10: Spent about $150 on chicken wire and lumber. Replanted everything and surrounded each plant with a frame and tacked on chicken wire. Like to see any friggin' rabbit get in there now!
May 11: Reseeded the peas, carrots, etc. and covered with floating row covers. Damn mail order wouldn't send me anything, claimed my credit cards had reached their limit. After all I bought from them, you'd think they would cut me some slack. Had to "borrow" $40 from my wife's purse just to buy the row covers. [...some entries deleted...] May 24: Plants doing well, peas, carrots and kohlrabi are all up. Just takes a little thinking to outwit our "friends." Harvested my first zucchini, how sweet and tasty. Wonder why, of all the plants, nothing eats them?
May 25: UNDERGROUND!! Who would have thought they could go underground! Woodchucks dug under some of my cages and devoured four tomatoes, two peppers and a half dozen lettuces! I went to the hardware store and got 4 foot lengths of stainless steel rods, drove them into the soil in a ring around each plant. Cost me an arm and a leg but let's see if those mothers can get past them! [...some entries deleted...] June 1: Everything growing well, only lost a few plants this week. Rabbits all over the place, they are multiplying like, like RABBITS! Dumb birds find the littlest opening in the chicken wire, crawl in and then get caught in the cage. You would think nature would have evolved a little smarts for these guys. I thought it was survival of the fittest. I'm growing rutabaga in my garden that are smarter then these birds.
June 2: Getting a little tired of zucchini. My wife bought a new cookbook, "One Thousand and One Zucchini Dinners." Tonight we had zucchini dumplings in zucchini soup with a dessert of zucchini crisp. I went to Safeway and bought some lettuce, radishes and gave them to my wife saying "look what I found in my garden." I didn't tell her I grew them :-) A little white lie to make up for White Rabbit's belly full of my greens. [...some entries deleted...] July 1: What were beautiful plants on June 30 are full of holes today. The plants are covered with Asiatic beetles, Japanese beetles, Cucumber beetles, earwigs and aphids. Not a ladybug to be found anywhere. Where are my $49 lacewings! Decided enough was enough. Went over to my neighbor and he lent me a sprayer. Took a trip to San Francisco and behind the Civic Center found someone selling DDT. It is made in the USA and shipped to third world countries, then illegally shipped back here to be sold for ten times the original price. Still it's cheaper then those worthless ladybugs. At least DDT will give me "positive" control. No more wimp organic sprays for me!
July 2: Sprayed those mothers to death! My wife thought I was crazy jumping up and down and laughing as the DDT soaked beetles gave up the ghost, rolled over and DIED! They looked so cute on their backs with the legs up in the air! Birds had a feast on them. What's a little DDT going to hurt this great big planet; my garden is more important.
July 4: Still too much zucchini, am drying, splitting and stacking it like cordwood to burn next winter. My neighbor, stands foot on fence, chawing his tobacco and grinning at me as I work. If he ever sets a foot on my land again...
July 7: A lot fewer birds around this week, but am getting worried about the rabbits. So many of them. Also, I think a herd of deer is living nearby. Last night I dreamt I saw their eyes staring out of the woods at me, just waiting, waiting to eat my plants.
July 8: The tomatoes and eggplants are getting too big for their cages and I am going to have to take them apart. I decided my best defense was an offense, went to the dog pound and got a cross between a pit bull and a Doberman to chase away the rabbits and deer. Called him Fritz. I'll keep him a little hungry and he can dine on rabbits. Show those mothers!
July 10: Fritz won't go out of the house anymore. Each time he did, the rabbits would terrorize him. Yesterday I found him trapped in the zucchini patch, surrounded by hundreds of rabbits, mice and voles. He was whimpering, spirit broken as the squirrels cast acorns on his head and chattered away, castigating him. Cost me $350 for the vet just to stitch up the rabbit bites and another $20 for tranquilizers to stop his shakes. I took a few myself.
July 12: The deer and rabbits are now working together! The deer knock down the cages and eat the tops of the plants. The rabbits finish the rest. Drove to town today and bought a 12 gauge shotgun and shells. Spent the rest of the day blasting those mothers! Bam! Bam! Die Bambi. Die Peter. Die Flopsy. Eat my damn plants will you. Bam! Bam! Die Faline. Ha ha ha. Mr. McGregor had the right idea all along; Rabbit Pie! Bam! Bam! Blasted a zucchini plant to hell and back. Last time I trust a neighbor. Bam! Die Thumper. Bam! Die, friggin' die, Mopsy! Bam! Die Black Jack Zucchini. Bam! Kill,die, die, White Rabbit...
July 13: The Humboldt County District judge ordered me held at Sempervirens pending psychiatric evaluation to see if I'm competent to stand trial. The National Enquirer, The Eureka Times Standard and Time Magazine have requested interviews with "The Bambi-zucchini killer." My coworkers are all saying "he seemed like such a nice, normal man." But at least now I'll be able to recoup some of my losses. The view through my padded cell is wonderful. Concrete and glass buildings, parking lots and roads. Not a tree, a bush, a deer or a damn rabbit in sight. [...Entries about trial, bankruptcy, divorce deleted...] January 1: A new year, a new beginning! Finished moving back to Humboldt yesterday. Watched 10 straight hours of football today and dined on fried rabbit legs, beer and venison steak. Fritz lies at my feet, basking in warmth of a fire of dried zucchini logs, chewing on a deer leg. My Sears freezer is still half full of rabbit and deer. Life doesn't get much better then this. *************************************** POSTSCRIPT: They found him on January 2, lying in the front foyer on a pile of mail, dead of a stroke, his hand grasping a letter emblazoned with one inch red type: "Order Early! You May Have Already Won!" It was from Minchigen Seed Co. They buried him on his land, a lone grave marked only by a cairn of loose stones. |
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