Sunday, February 24, 2013

Note to self, hunger will be your downfall.

When nasturtium in raised beds
protected the cucumber plants from
insects and birds
too eager to taste summer,
they failed with slugs.
Slugs, longer than fingers, fatter than toes, ate everything on their path to
colonize each boxed harvest. How did they crawl all the
way up to the top of the box?
What makes one species take over the world?
Insatiable appetite. 

5 comments:

  1. Such poetic thoughts for such an unpleasant attack.

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  2. and what will out own appetite reap for us? and what box have we crawled to the top of? implications far beyond gardening in this one...smiles.

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  3. When we spent our first summers in France, the next door farmer's ducks would pay us a visit early every morning and we would hear them beneath our window as they smashed the shells of the slugs to smithereens before slurping down the tasty treats inside. A very satisfying snack for them and a very satisfying result for us!

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  4. i am confounded by our ignorance and greed. confounded. (truly. i sit and shake my head not not NOT understanding.)

    wendell berry's native hill is killing me with its unerring clarity.

    xo
    erin

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  5. i've been fighting the squirrels for years who devour my tomatoes, but i can't stop them. the more i fought them the more i felt the rising anxiousness in myself. somewhere in there i had to come to terms with the fact that their appetite for life is no different from any other creature, and that appetite in and of itself is not negative.

    (but i miss my tomatoes :))

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