Gardens Driven

by

Dale Angel

I have been accused of being obsessive. Me! I’m sensible…I think?

In my opinion one of the most beautiful of God’s gifts is a compost pile. It quietly invites all kinds of beneficial life that are producers. Do you know how hard it is to find producers? And they work in harmony. Lower uneducated forms of life do better at this than we do, and add creating something like a divine product that is welcome to all circles, including the very highest of society. When it is very good, like good wine, people will stand in line to get some. It’s Gardens Driven. When my family wants to come and clean up my yard, a family affair, we disagree. It’s not trash. It’s like a pregnancy, building a future life. So it’s not always in pristine beauty. Who is? The future will reveal all the potential hopes. I know, I carry every leaf and twig to it. My family says it’s almost a religious experience to watch me feed it, carry it water and food scraps. I’m obsessive. Nothing leaves my kitchen without a hope. Coffee grounds and orange peels have a useful future life. I know it’s not beauty to every eye at this time. Give it time to flower.

Why can’t I just buy a sack of fertilizer and sprinkle it and remove the eye sore?

Because the last enriched sack of their prescribed precious compost killed my Coconut Thyme in a few hours! It’s not openly discussed but in garden circles and Universities the new herbicides/pesticides are contaminated with some new unheard of by-product that kills plant life and the earth on contact for up to two years. It’s almost like a new weapon the powers that be are covertly trying to figure out how it works. Could it be an Agent Orange product leaking? I promised to hide it, but where?

I guess I could quit the worm bin. It is cranky during the heat and it is getting hotter. They are such uncomplaining little creatures and ask for so little and are so generous. I suppose I could pile it in that corner. I like worms, to throw them out of their house is as bad as throwing people out of their homes. It’s cruel. I can’t watch a compost pile being desecrated, piling it in the garbage can and carried away leaving a clean raked area. I have friends who don’t allow a stray leaf to land in their yard, it makes me unsettled. They indicate my yard would be as beautiful as their yard if I’d clean up the mess. Bring me the smelling salts! I may be sicker than I think, is obsessiveness kin to Alzheimer’s?

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