No Need to Water

Native Americans used to eat redbud flowers

Everything is starting to bud, and my internal hunter-gatherer is at war with my inner farmer. Look at all the things that grow by themselves, it says. Why on earth would you water a plant in a pot? How is that even profitable?

Tastes like chives

For instance, there is this plant that is springing up everywhere in my unmown grass that tastes just like chives. Maybe it is chives. What do I know? If I had taken the trouble to grow a garden, and I had planted chives, I would have been very proud of myself for producing food by my own labor. But... what do we need labor for, when it grows on its own? Any time I want to add chives for a salad or to a sandwich, all I have to do is go and pick some. Why water?

That's what Bow is thinking, too, most probably. He thinks I am a fool for trying to water our seeds.

I have ten acres. Properly managed, they could support a lot of people. There are hungry people out there who might benefit from the yield of this land. What right do Bow and I have to keep them out? President Monroe thought that "the earth was given to mankind to support the greatest number of which it is capable." I don't believe that, though. There's got to be a place on this planet for hunter-gatherers, human and non-human.

For instance, yesterday I encountered a cat hunting in my pasture. It ran away as soon as it saw me. You might think I am supporting no one by leaving my fields all fallow. But there are mice living on my land, and there are snakes and hawks and even an occasional cat that live on those mice. Where would they go if I devoted all my land to feeding the greatest number of which it is capable?

Bow asked to go outside this morning, after the rains died down to a drizzle. He declined to step into the flooded pen, but he gave me a push to get me going. Brownie was waiting for me by the planter. It was soaked. Definitely no need to water it today!

Planting the Seeds

Bow can be very cooperative sometimes. Yesterday he was prepared to take a nap, and I thought he looked very cute, so I came and took his picture.

But the picture did not seem clear enough, so I moved in closer. "Don't move," I told Bow. "I'm taking your picture." He didn't move a muscle!

This cooperation is not something I can count on, though. It's only when he feels like being cooperative that he does as I ask.

This morning I decided to start a small experiment in gardening. I have been admiring my friend Julia's container gardening for several years now, but I do not have a green thumb, nor time to devote to gardening away from Bow. But what if Bow could help?

I apologize for the quality of these videos shot with my cell phone. I am not good at multitasking, and when I handed the camera to Bow to film what I was doing, it did not really turn out the way I wanted. So you will some unsightly footage of my finger and and some dark spots where Bow was holding the camera. But this is how it went.

Once he was done planting, Bow was really done. He handed me the watering can and asked to go back inside, where he took a long nap after all that work.

Bow handing me the watering can as if to say "We're done here."

Picking up the seeds

This morning I served Bow a new type of grapes for breakfast. The Town & Country supermarket had them displayed so nicely and priced so reasonably, that  I couldn't resist, even though I know new things are risky. New things are risky, because Bow doesn't always like new things. He might refuse to eat them. After all, we all remember the incident a while back with the Concord grapes. It took me forever to convince him to eat them, on account of the seeds.

Today's new grapes were not Concord grapes, but they did have seeds. They are red grapes, but larger than usual. I think maybe some people call them "globe grapes". I served Bow, had my own breakfast, and then went to work on my CreateSpace blog, not paying much attention to Bow, who was still eating on the other side of the glass.
He was eating very loudly, with smacking sounds, but as long as he was happy, I was happy. (Sword was still asleep, as it is a weekend, and we had a late night.)

When I came in to take away the metal colander in which I served the grapes to Bow, Bow started busily picking up seeds from the floor and putting them into the colander. I didn't have to tell him! I might not even have noticed the seeds on the floor, because there were only a few of them. The majority of the seeds were already neatly piled up with the stems inside the colander. When he had finished picking up the seeds, Bow picked up the colander by its two handles and gave it to me.

"Thank you, Bow!" I said. He is such a help.