A Small Voice

Just one small voice, can you hear her? So much anguish and even heartbreak colors the tone. A mother robbed of her children and her home. Men with no hearts or feelings have plundered, oh so joyous in the spoils of their deeds. It mattered not that they had murdered so many of her beloved. The entire kingdom as it was known, is either in flames or completely obliterated. Never again will she be able to feed or give comfort or bring joy to her beloved family.

In vain, she repeatedly warned them, yet they paid her voice no notice. She raised them to understand they must never allow any harm befall a one of their treasures. Given them the instinct to protect each other and yet in the end her entire life's work was for nothing. It has all been laid to waste, her creatures and beasts of burden lie lifeless and the ugliness of greed wafts heavily like an unbearable stench. The anguish cannot ever be erased, the outcome is what shall always remain. No hope, no plan for the future, she has nothing now but a void that will stretch on for the rest of her days.

Are you saddened by her tears? Do you sympathize with her, feel the need to comfort her over your loss? Yes, your loss - for you are one of those that she has lost. You and the brotherhood of men, every bird she set to flight in the sky, each beautiful mammal lovingly placed upon the soil, all the fishes that swam through her waters and the magnificent beauty of flora that once carpeted the planet and created air for all of her children to thrive. Mother Nature does exist, she who brings life to everything on Earth with a finely woven tapestry of skill and innovation mere man could never mimic. Yet man is so egotistical that he attempts to make a better world than hers. Man was created by nature and cannot ever be nature. To continue to attempt to do so is to dig all or our graves.

You who have all become so specialized in industry that, that place so far removed from the soil. Lowly earth, your true source of sustenance and yet you cannot comprehend nor care to hear the messages. She is not amazed - it is not what you know any longer. The mechanisms and livelihoods of everything in the natural world is something you have schooled yourself to not be able to fathom. If you did understand Earth and Nature would not be in the state of abuse that they are. Natural resources belong to every living thing on earth, not to one group of humans, nor to one man. Without them being there as resources, nature will sicken and die. Without nature, there will be no life on earth. It's a circle, not an oblong. There is no Fix-A-Flat. Just one crack in the circle and that's it dude, all life is toast.

It isn't like there is another one somewhere. You can't mold one out of resin. Of all the things that could ever be broken, this will be the greatest faux pas of all time - anywhere in the solar system. The most deplorable point about all of this? It is not yours to destroy. Not yours, ours, his or theirs.

Perhaps you will understand with your last remaining breath. Perhaps not even then. After all, it would be highly inconvenient, completely non-cost effective and definitely frowned upon by those whose climb to the top you so emphatically seek to mimic. Mere man hath no power whatsoever when faced by an all consuming wrath of Nature.

More horrifying than anything the world has seen before, and yet it is a most inconvenient truth.

Wild Thing ... I Think I Love You

It is weird, somewhat wacky yet wildly wonderful. Probably one of the strangest plants I have ever watched grow! Like something from another planet, this one is best kept potted so you can enjoy it up close and personal. Seeing it go from normal-looking to bizarre is most entertaining. I am a tuned in plant person to be sure, but this strange being is just too bizarre to plant out where it will have any competition masking the daily activity.

I had never heard of this plant when a friend sent me a few seeds. She said it was cool. I looked for photos online and found nothing, so the experimental factor was high. It wasn't until a few years later that any mention of this plant popped up on the Internet. May I say that she is lacking the art of conveying a good picture? But then again, I have seen her idea of creativity, so why would I expect an apt description?

It was only potted to get the seed started ... I had grand plans for an herbary. Suffice it to say, life has a way of mucking up a plan. Instead, the subject remained basking in the intensified heat of full sun on the stone patio. Definitely, living large in that black plastic condo. All the while I raced around it working like the mad hatter at keeping the circus afloat. The herbary now a distant memory.

The blooms appeared atop the stems, so I knew the plant was doing well though set aside for later. As the bulblets grew fatter, I checked on them periodically not sure when to harvest. Lo and behold as I waited for a sureness of proper timing, a most fascinating thing occurred. Another layer of stems shot out of the original clusters and set bloom as well. How queer. Their unfolding was like the most bizarre form of modern art and I raced to freeze the image.

Presenting - Le Onion as art. Perhaps the entertainment factor dims after watching the performance year in and year out like reruns of Star Trek. Not just any old onion, mind you. Rather this one they named the Egyptian Onion Tree. The flavor of which is more than one expects from an onion. I mean , like wow! Wild thing ... I think I love you!

While small (meaning you need quite a few for a small pile of garnish) and not so easy to peel, they are worth all the effort. The flavor is more like a cross between onion and garlic. If you are into Mexican food this is the ticket for a special zip to flavor. They are wonderful on fresh salad as well. If you haven't ever grown or eaten them it is worth hunting down a few seed bulbs to get yourself started.

I suggest pot or tub growing over placing them in the ground. Onions prefer it drier than many other plants and don't get too freaked out if they go without a spritz of moisture one day. One name for this really old plant I discovered is Walking Onion because in the garden it will travel all over from dropping bulblets. Of course if you really want to get a nice sized pile of diced produce to put in some spaghetti sauce, you're going to need more plants than a tub full. I would never have the time to peel that many!

Make sure you set aside a few for next year's seed in case winter's weather causes the original plants to rot out. This little note comes from personal experience. I am now fresh out of Le Onion thanks to a particularly cold, rainy spring that left the tub saturated and half frozen stopping any drainage. Leaving my artsy salad crop roots reduced to rotted mush. Live and learn its a gardener's motto. I will restore Le Onion to a rightful spot in the potted jungle again one day.

G.G.

Share your own Wild Thing story with me - I'll make us both famous!
In the meantime - help me buy a new flowerpot!

Salmonella Tomatoes - The Saga Continues

Originally, my opinions on this news item all began as a theory with a factual basis in past occurrences of similar classification and knowledge I have gleaned throughout my soil-connected life. I was not just guessing at where exactly any city's water and sewer department actually disposes of everyone's morning constitutional. No, I knew this to be a fact. I was raised by a farmer and have spent many years of my career employed in specialty agriculture. Also, I have lived in rural farming communities for the majority of my not so short life. Not as a commuter enjoying a serene space apart from the masses faced five days a week in the snarled traffic on the freeway. No I was actually a piece of the fabric that formed the farming population. I assure you none of the previous Salmonella Tomato post was simply pulled from thin air.

Consider the events that led to the outbreak of Mad Cow Disease. This entire mess was created by feeding contaminate animal meat industry byproducts to cows. I mean, can you actually state without a doubt that you could knowingly consume human body parts or pieces and remain sane? Don't you think that animals who have scent faculties beyond any level we humans can imagine didn't at some spot in their mammal brain have an inkling of what quality of human-concocted food was being force fed to them? This is just another scenario of where trash was fed back to the source of it's origin as a means of making something unwanted not only disappear but bring in revenues instead of biting into the profit margin. Any industry that can contrive a way to actually sell their production waste is considered highly resourceful, savvy even and profits from their ability to think beyond the box.

And now we return to the tomato issue at large today in our news and perhaps you own home town. Consider this quote from the Thursday, June 12th edition of The Washington Post...
"... Salmonella is a bacterial infection that lives in the intestinal tracts of humans and other animals. The bacteria are usually spread by eating food contaminated with animal feces."
David Acheson
Food & Drug Administration
Associate Commissioner of Foods

Thank you David, I rest my case. Read the rest of the news story off the Associated Press to get the rest of the information supplied and the highly "accredited" whose statements appear within the article.
"Salmonella-Tainted Tomatoes Linked To Markets, Restaurants"

What I am curious about and watching for is exactly when the FDA is going to report or admit to the public that human feces solids are actually be sold and applied as organic fertilizer on the produce crops sold at all grocery stores and restaurants from sea to shining sea. This news item will send everyone in such a panic and rage, it might just register on the Richter scale from the vibrations linked to such mass hysteria.

I suppose the silver lining to this particular black cloud would be that they crack down harder and place twice as much control on the containment and composting of the billions of morning constitutional remains than those now costing the cattle growers so much of the hard earned pittance labeled "profit" to meet regulations for cow manure containment. Indeed, it makes wise and common sense that the substance in question being such a rapidly regenerating mass at all DPW locations certainly must go somewhere before the canyon sized tanks and vats overflow. Anyone with a great plan on what else to do with all the pooh is more than welcome to share their brainstorm with me here. You never know, we just might be able to cash in on the lucrative disposal of doo-doo too. Unfortunately, we must all bear in mind that this increase to the cost of operations to the DPW by government enforcement will probably double the amount you have to pay for your personal deposits to the sewer system in your city.

I wonder just how soon the symptoms of Mad People Disease will begin to be heard off in the distance. Something the Center for Disease Control just might not have a cure for, let alone a method for isolation. That is unless these brilliant minds can figure out what else to do with everything so cleanly flushed away in every bathroom in our great and teeming nation.

G.G.