Putting a Garden In

Putting a garden in so often entails putting wildlife out. You develop an adversarial relationship with nature, fencing, trapping, shooting, poisoning, getting a guard dog… It’s this sad reality that many years ago turned me against what had been the reigning passion of my youth.

onion bed pulling out wild onions

But my wife suggested from her bunker in London that as long as I am stuck in Pennsylvania for at least half the summer due to the pandemic, I might as well grow some vegetables. Great idea, I said, already relishing the thought of getting my fingers in the dirt again. But just planting fence posts, I displaced three adorable baby bunnies from the long grass, and when our neighbor plowed the site up, a meadow vole rushed out, all fur and panic.

wire fence the wind’s new whistle