Babies

Babies seem to be the same all over the world, regardless of species. Babies, or maybe we should say toddlers seem to be precocious, full of boundless curiosity, energy beyond imagination, and a little bit of a defiant streak.

Over this past Memorial Day weekend, I finished planting out my gardens. I had made the decision to plant my gourd plants and any extra melon or squash plants around the base of my giant maple tree in the back yard. I figured with all the extra room the vines will need, I can try it out Native American style and wrap the vines up and around  the tree. It's a huge old tree, and in it live a family of squirrels. We've lived here for over 5 years, and the generations of squirrels just keep on coming. I thought about the squirrel family and how they would take the plants, but figured that they'd leave them alone. They're spiky, and prickly and big leaved. I didn't figure they'd care about the plants at all. I started planting ground cover around the base of the tree about three years ago, and it's filling in, and the squirrels could care less about it.

We also have quite a network of rabbits in and around our yard. (I think the rabbits like our spot best because we serve up organic dandelion greens, and clover.)

So, this morning I woke extra early, about 5am, and snuck downstairs to get myself my morning dose of coffee, and snatch my computer back from the spot Sophia had been sitting with it playing computer games. I came into the kitchen and thought "check outside and see if they left your cantaloupe plant alone". See, yesterday, I pulled the blinds up in the kitchen, only to find two little, teen aged, or toddler-ish squirrels, digging like mad at the soft hole I'd made and filled with organic soil, to plant my nice little melon plant into. My little melon plant was caught on the back foot of this asshole squirrel, who seemed to be digging just for the sheer pleasure of feeling the soft dirt in his toes. It was insane. I knocked on the window, and he looked up, and then ran about 6 inches back up the tree and looked some more at me. I finally went outside to inspect the damage with sleep still in my eyes. They'd ripped out all my little plants. I was kicking myself for not winding chicken wire around them, as I had with my swan necked gourds, after I'd found a similar situation the day before that. This morning I went flying out there again, when I pulled the blinds to find one of them actually IN my new square foot bed, digging the newly sprouting nasturtiums. When I went out there, everyone, rabbits and squirrels stayed in place and looked up at me as if I were their mother coming to scold them for their reckless behavior. I could almost see one rabbit say to another, out of the corner of his mouth, "see, I told you to quit it". I rushed the squirrels and hissed through my teeth "get outta here you bastards!!!! Stay out of my gardens, and leave my plants and flowers alone!!!" and they in turn scrambled up the tree, but only half way, pausing to stare at me as if I'd lost my mind. As if to mutter "stupid human. Stupid grown up human!".

I came back inside to deal with the coffee and spy on them some more. Meanwhile the rabbits go back to their munching and loping about the yard, interspersed with mad dashing chase games. I turned just in time to see a very young teen aged (at best, maybe pre-adolescent) rabbit start off to chase an older one. The older rabbit was behind my square foot bed, and the youngest one in front of it, and he bounded toward the larger, older rabbit and was thrown backward into the lawn by the chicken wire fence I have around the garden! Score one for the fence! It works. (I guess I have to put one more up. Ugly things!) When I went to look back for the squirrels, I spy one racing at a break neck pace toward a young rabbit who just sat there, still as could be, until the squirrel was about two inches from his face, and he pulled his head back in disgust and slowly turned and scampered away.

Now I'm sitting here watching the squirrel and rabbit actually  play with each other and it's hysterical!!! The squirrel lunges at the rabbits who leap straight into the air, and then the squirrel taunts some more and they chase a little...too cute! Funnier still is watching the adult rabbit sit outside the lettuce and peas patch, munching on violets and clover, staring lustfully at the better produce that is just out of reach, completely oblivious to the babies and their games, just behind her.

Babies!! They're all the same. Making messes, never cleaning up after themselves, beating on each other, racing and rozzing around like they don't have a care in the world. Now if I can keep these babies away from MY babies (my baby plants) we'll get along just fine. I might have to have a talk with their mothers!!

It seems that the longer we live here, on this city plot, (what are they? 1/4 acre at best?) and the more I plant and the less I poison the earth, the more wild life we get. I'm deathly allergic to bees, wasps, yellow jackets, hornets, and the like, and I have a hive of big, fat bumble bees under my steps. Have for years. They occasionally float in and out of the spot underneath the Japanese ground cover, sometimes while I'm sitting on the stoop people spraying for insects, we didn't have as many bees. Less bees, means less food, or possibly no food. We've seen a coyote keeping the rabbit population down, a family of raccoons have rambled through, the resident fox, I've seen many more birds, humming birds, orioles, cardinals, little finch....

So, while it's frustrating to have these babies to contend with, and other wildlife interfering with my garden plans, I'd rather have it this way, fighting fruitlessly against nature, as fair and square as I can. Either way it goes, Mother Nature will always win, but it's fun to struggle just a little.