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But that’s “One Day”. Not now. Right now I live in a rowhouse in the city and I have a small back yard. The fig tree figs like mad every year, but that and a lot of mint are the only things I have that are really growing. Everything else dies. Partly because of the rats.
And this is where things get funny. I’d LIKE to live on a farm, so Mother Nature or the god of Irony or whatever has decided to send wildlife to my door. Cats I’m used to. My whole life stray cats have turned up at kitchen doors. Some of them ended up adopted into the family. Others just wandered off after a snack and a petting. So cats in the neighborhood aren’t a surprise.
Bees, on the other hand…
For about a week there was a honey bee that decided it really liked the back porch. Specifically one of the cat beds that was out there. The bee would get into the kitchen once in a while and hover around the kitchen lights. Once the lights were off it would just wander lazily back out onto the porch. If you shooed him off the porch (usually by carrying the cat bed out into the yard) he’d come back a little later. Then one day he didn’t come back. A dead bee was eventually found in the kitchen sink, so the working theory is that Bruce (like “Incredible Hulk” Bruce because he was a large bee and no one wanted to make him angry) drowned while… I don’t know. Taking a bath?
Before we could mourn the loss of the bee we realized that a family of birds had built a nest under the outside of the porch roof. I suppose that would be “the eaves” but it’s really not very eave-y at all. Anyhow, they built a nest and are raising a family there. The chicks have gone from the “peep loudly all the time” stage to the “making actual bird sounds when the parents bring food” already. They’ll be out of the nest before we know it. Sniffle. They do grow up so fast.
Meanwhile, we had a bustle in the hedgerow. Well. What it actually was, was a scuffle in a garbage can. A mouse had apparently fallen in and couldn’t get out. So I tipped him back into the yard and he ran off — right down the holes in our yard that the rats and mice (and possibly woodchucks) have dug. A few days later, when the Partner-in-Crime was hanging out laundry he felt like he was being watched. The mouse was checking him out. We are now gods in their beady little eyes! Gods!
“Cropwise” I’m doing just as well. There’s bittersweet vine all over the front of the house. It’s completely encased the rosebush (which is already blooming) and is attempting to open the front door. Maybe tomorrow I’ll take a picture of that. Its pretty creepy. The dusty millers are large and strong and I think they might already be budding. The boxwood shrub is massive. The grass is already too high and it was just cut about two weeks ago.
In the back yard, most of the dirt has been taken over by mint. The “teacup” rosebush is looming large. I’ve got this ground cover plant that’s living up to its name. And the fig tree that a friend took a chainsaw to (on purpose! He didn’t just show up and mow things down) is back bigger and stronger and figgy-er than ever. And again… the grass is already too high.
So I’ve decided that the farm idea is totally doable because I am apparently some sort of garden god.
Now who wants to give me a lot of money so I can buy a farm (not buy the farm, however).





