Swallowtails attack!
My general philosophy toward gardening is to grow more than I need. This puts the odds in my favor of having enough to eat, sell and share — with humans and the animal life of the farm. (Sometimes the list also includes enough to compensate for disease, though that’s a subject for a different post.)
A couple of nights ago, for example, I found swallowtail caterpillars devouring every last frond of fennel. We sold most of the big bulbs, and all that remained were small heads that we might harvest for ourselves, later. That was the plan. The swallowtails may force me to reconsider. I could hear the sound of ripping and tearing and chewing near the plants because so many of them dined at once.
I’ve been through this before: they love dill and parsley, too. Thus the goal is to plant enough that I won’t be tempted to pick off caterpillars that will someday transform into pollinating butterflies in the garden.
We also encountered the critter factor with our first corn harvest. Deer and raccoons nibbled on the outer rows, but left me with the inner rows. Rabbits are now going through the tomatoes in Goldilocks fashion, eating one bite out of each tomato they find close enough to the ground. Some must be a little too green, others a little too red, and the best ones just right. We have 200 plants, so perhaps there’s enough to for everyone. I may dig the remaining fennel bulbs and add them to the damaged tomatoes for sauce today.
August 18, 2009 at 11:49 pm
You guys don’t know how much I’ve been missing you all and the farm these days. I know your blog is supposed to be all for scholarly writing purposes (!), but for me, it’s a way to remember there’s something else out there than this damn city. I was in St Louis last week and I was this close (= 2 seconds) from not getting on the plane for the trip back and instead, driving on over for the weekend. I would have if I could have. Thought of you guys the other night when I made pesto – I imagine you’re going to have a boatload of basil for just such purposes. Say hey to Jess!
ps. Pesonally, I *like* stories about Scoop
August 19, 2009 at 8:59 pm
Miss you as well. Hope you get away from The Big City and all your travels to see us soon!
August 18, 2009 at 11:56 pm
Thought number one: send them over to finish off our lovage. It’s too bitter for us to eat anymore, and I hear they like it.
Thought number two: check out the reading list the Anonymae posted at my blog (post titled “Blog Lit?”) The Blooker Prize?? Go for it, Jen!
Thought number three: This is classic blog stuff. Dots and doings. Which is fine. But is it fine art? As in Master of? Or any different than a gardening primer or newspaper column? At least you’re not posting pictures of body parts, a la Justin Hall.
Here’s my favorite part: “I could hear the sound of ripping and tearing and chewing near the plants because so many of them dined at once.” Yeah. Now *that’s* the unexpected – the concrete image that you wouldn’t necessarily get in your average gardening/farming blog. Like the mating slugs in my backyard, that time. Who woulda thunk?
You *have* read _Pilgrim at Tinker Creek_, right? Lately?
AND: Anything from Essay Press! Do you know their work? See esp. _Letters from Abu Ghraib_ – emails, not blog posts, but close enough. Also Kristen Prevallet’s _I, Afterlife: An Essay in Mourning Time_. This will give you a sense of where the form is headed nowadays.
August 19, 2009 at 11:15 am
What a great list from your “anonymae” readers!
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=5978975285518561941&postID=3497245833628042494&pli=1
I’m familiar with several of their suggestions, though by no means the majority of them. I’ve most recently read Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma, though now I need to check out his blog. I’ve read Animal, Miracle, Vegetable twice and think of it often. Kingsolver’s approach was an essay a month, with culinary and science background added by her daughter and her husband. In fact, when I originally proposed this project in more of an essay form, I realized I would be mimicking the same kind of approach.
As for the classic blog stuff, as you say: It’s a matter of making time for the deeper posts, of taking the time to think and examine the world as closely as I would in essays – finding the quiet spot in my mind apart from daily demands. Brevity hangs over that. I need to balance that against writing too long. Guidance I read years ago said that a blog post shouldn’t go over 300 words or so, because of the way people read online. But that was for a strictly information/business blog context, not one aiming for art. I realize that betrays that I think I need to write long prose in order to be artful (poetry noted). I don’t, but as a longtime essay writer, I’m working on how to get there.
August 19, 2009 at 12:10 am
Here’s an exercise for you: do a post WITHOUT a picture.
August 19, 2009 at 4:01 pm
I don’t know that posts need to be long. I rarely do more than skim long blog posts, unless they’re on a topic of particular interest.
In fact, shortness could be put to creative use. Even a “to be continued” ending. Sometimes I just post a quotation without comment. Or a sentence. In fact that gives me an idea: a poem composed of blog posts – one per line. Hmm. Then see how it reads backwards. I think Magee did one section of My Angie Dickinson per post.
It might also be interesting to go back through the posts you’ve done so far, to see if you see any thematic patterns or other motifs.
August 19, 2009 at 4:02 pm
Oh – and honest to god, read some of Pilgrim. Just open it randomly, and read a few pages.
August 19, 2009 at 4:02 pm
And Pollan’s essay “Why Mow?”
March 29, 2010 at 11:21 am
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