Catch of the Day

Yesterday was Death Day out at the farm, at least for some of us. First thing in the morning Patch nailed a crow with his pellet gun, and when he went to retrieve the body, he discovered the remains of the vile pocket gopher that's been plaguing our immediate surrounds. Apparently Roxanne (resident pussy-cat) had been busy in the night. It's not easy to shoot a crow, or snag a pocket gopher. These are worthy accomplishments, to be sure.

I'm not the woman I once was, I tell you. I have a frozen crow in my freezer. I coo in admiration over the uneaten half of a largish rodent. Life, and death, look different when you're trying to grow/raise your own food.

There was a massage therapist I saw once, and I thought perhaps we'd have something in common, since she lived on an acreage and said she gardened. She then proceeded to tell me that she considered her garden an intentional stopover for the pestiferous deer that overburden themselves as well as everyone else, in the interest of coexistence and "non-violence". Huh.

I'm hoping for good things. I don't know what that'll look like, but I don't want social chaos and destruction. I want peace. But I need a certain astringency to that peace, a healthy Wood element influence, a recognition of what's real and what's not. Peace is gardens, and clotheslines, and chickens. (And acupuncture! Couldn't let that one go!) Peace isn't deer decimating the countryside to support their overpopulation, and "gardeners" enabling them, and buying their own salad from the grocery store instead.

Mostly I'm just talking. I dig a little, plant a little, order some chicks, try to do a little more than I'm doing now. I have this hope that if we all do just a little more than we did last summer, and up that again next year, and the year after that, maybe that'll be enough to regain some stability. But I've got such a long, long way to go....

Oh well. Gotta start somewhere. At least my Astonishing Kitty got that damned pocket-gopher!