The Flip Side of Planting
Uprootings
It’s always disruptive when we plant the food. Just ask the animals and bugs, and the weeds too.
Now is planting time, and on the garden side of operations, some serious work is underway. As I was replanting some hot pepper and herb starts, I opted to use a less disruptive watering can over by the catnip plants. The nearest can was sitting in the greenhouse unused since the fall. This was a 2 gallon plastic container with a top handle and side spout with a sprinking head. There were some leaves inside which I opted to shake out, rather than reaching in to find various spiders. I filled it with water and proceeded to empty it on the hot pepper plants which needed a drink. Finding the delivery of water to be slower than normal, I decided to shoot in a little water, and shake some into the spout to loosen any obstuctions. While emptying it, I thought I saw a flash of an object inside, but looked inside and saw nothing. I gave the watering can a shake. No movement, so I refilled it again and headed over to plant a raspberry bush by the frog pond. I dug a deep hole and dropped in this healthy sized plant, packed it into its new home, and proceeded to give it a drink from the watering can. As I poured from the spout, a good sized two foot plus snake bailed out from the top. Apparently he had had enough of my abuse and drowning attempts.
Immediately I whipped out a phone cam and took pictures as he proceeded through the grass. It was time for a vid, even though it’s hard to track a snake. But this guy was plenty aggravated, and wanted me dead. He reared back into attack mode, flicking his tongue, facing my 3 eyed phone cam, and struck. There you have it.
After a couple of failed attempts to chew me, the snake calmed down. I grabbed a stick, and lifted him up to direct him into some bushes where he could hide and recover from the abusive treatment I had accidentally inflicted upon him.
This calls forth the reason that I wanted to use the snake’s watering can home in the first place. Earlier in the planting process, there was a need to clear massive ground ivy from one of the beds. I dug into that job until I reached a catnip plant with a bird’s nest in it. The little bird exited to the west, trying to draw this giant destroyer of worlds away from the 5 eggs in her home.
I pondered her courage, as well as the size of her bird brain. After all, she had chosen a catnip plant for her nest, less than 1 foot from the ground.
Hellloooooo.
Guuuuurl.
What a way to say, “Here, Kitty!”
So I finished clearing the garden bed, mostly, then set up a blind over east side of the nest, with the dried ‘bones’ of a jimson weed, holding a few dried shepherd’s purse stems overhead, and more of those pushed up to the side where I needed to plant. Mother bird eventually returned to the nest after I left. Later, I installed pepper plants on the east side of her home. Whenever I passed too close, she would leave the nest, but we started adapting to each other. When I announced my arrival, and walked a path a bit further away, often she would stay in place. This arrangement served Birdie’s needs for about a week, until Renob of weedom followed me out to the garden.
He immediately walked up to the catnip plant and sniffed, noticing the nest as she exited from the side. I shooed Renob away, and he took a reclining position about 20 feet away, waiting. Proceeding with work on some other beds in the garden, I contemplated the impending fate of the nest, thinking that Birdie is screwed, and so are her eggs.
The latest desperate move is a border fence. There are now small bamboo stakes in a ring around the nest in the catnip bush, spaced large enough for Birdie, but too small for Renob. So unless he wants to get impaled, there’s hope that he’ll leave the nest alone. The little bird has returned to the eggs, even after all the modifications. Fingers are crossed.
This is the second low nest that was disrupted this spring. Another one with even more tiny eggs was resting directly on the ground below a grape plant. I found it as I cleared weeds, and stopped immediately. But this one was too close to Renob’s haunts, as well as where skunks and others hang out. The eggs were gone a couple days later. Tragic.
I have a split mind about the animals that compete with us for the fruits of our labors, but there’s something about their babies, and wanting them to have a chance. I’ll even catch and release some spiders and mud dauber wasps. No sympathy for ticks though. Their direct, blood sucking behavior is too up close and personal, and repulsive. They are toilet bugs. 4 of them got flushed yesterday, and 1 so far today.
Spring is both a beautiful and unsettling season. It’s the season of birth. Half of the viviparous population knows this is not an easy process. It’s the season of rapid change, and crazy, sometimes violent weather. Storms and floods are beating up the Midwest as usual.
And Spring is the season of planting, for all of us who organize growth for food production. This naturally means that living things must be uprooted. It’s a tragedy to have to rip up so many cool weeds to make space in the garden for some cultivated food. We who plant are the giants who screw up the homes and very lives of little ants, pillbugs and worms.
In the hayfields we mow over the homes of larger creatures, squishing the eggs of various ground nesting birds, sending rabbits on the run, and chopping up the ones who aren’t fast enough. The lives of countless animals are messed up or lost, to feed everyone, vegans included. Food producers are the ones doing the “un-aliving” for everyone.
Being close to the land brings the most acute appreciation of life and death, and a resolve that life should not be wasted. So we scan for bunnies and baby deer when working the hayfields, trying to give them a chance to get out of the way. We pack the worms back into the mud when hand digging, and try to dodge the bird nests when we can.
The feeders of the beef cattle get moved to the processor on the morning of their demise, so that they have only 1 bad day.
These gestures are our expression of respect for the living things which die so that we can live.
Thanks to all who visit and comment at this little SubStack. Hope you enjoyed a snapshot of life amid the disorder of weedom. More weed posts are incoming. Wishing you all Spring blessings.
(Newer readers, click those links above if you want to check out some archived weed posts.)
Loved this story!!!
My cat look just like yours....