Raccoons and Possums alternate under our shed. Recently I viewed a video where “they” tagged neighborhood raccoons and “they” surprisingly found that raccoons range only four square blocks. In the wild they range four square miles. What is up here? Tells me that there is abundant food. Could it be that we dwellers in the landscape are feeding the coons and possums of the world with the 70% of our food (a fact- 70% of all we prepare and eat little of is discarded) that we distribute to the wild animal grid? Not to speak of squirrel, cat, dog (feral and domestic), mouse, rabbit, bird, and then the hawks that swing by are eating all of the above, and on and on within the food web?
So, are we at the top or bottom of the web, the chain of so-called being? Are the animalcules of soil, porch, wall, kitchen and compost bin (where are all of these, by the way?) above or below in the hierarchy we think we rule? Us burly pharaohs of commerce? Us responsible, caring individuals feeding the coons and possums we want to exterminate for “getting into our garbage”? Garbage=food? Food=garbage?
The shed: every time we open the doors the roaches scurry about, junebugs flutter into faces, mice wind up their rear haunches and blast off like rockets launched from a battleship. Who captains that? “Admiral sir, what about all these here mice?” Hungry, small, eat their weight in food everyday, rapid metabolism, mouse is real. Got to set traps. Use cheese. Got to keep them out of our trash bin, our kitchen. Trash bin=kitchen? Kitchen =trash bin? What is up here?
You will notice that we have a chicken shack in the backyard. Took two years and 643 meetings to get the local livestock ordinance overturned in what is primarily a town of 50,000 (when the students are in session at the university) and in a town that is primarily surrounded by farms and forests within the 23 downstate Illinois counties. Herds of deer, foxes, multifarious animals make their homes in town. A few chickens in the backyard are quite the dilemma. Ten, one hundred and fifty pound dogs per household is not (code).
The local paper printed a letter to the editor in the midst of all this haggling, written by a local gentleman who did not even live within town limits. It went something like this: was upset that anyone (this Mr Weiseman guy) would want to have chickens in town. “If Mr Weiseman wants to have chickens I will parade my hogs through Carbondale with lipstick on.” Worried about chicken excrement and all the luscious things that go along with that. Did not mention all the roundup, oil, gasoline, dog excrement, cat pee, and countless other unsavory fluids and such. Chicken poop: compost it! Anyway, would have loved to see hogs with lipstick on parading through town. What a sight!
Yes, we have water collection off the roof. Yes, we dug swales. Yes, we have hugelkultur beds, etc, etc, etc…
But, you know, all in all, plants take center stage here. Plants: obsessed with them since childhood. Used to wonder at the breaking spring buds on the sycamore tree in front of our house in New Jersey. Could not explain it: why it happened every year and could count on the fact that it would happen every year.
So, let’s step back and take a look at the house, all 1400 square feet of it in a yard, 53′ by 150′, or 7250 sq ft. Now, let’s step away from the yard and begin our journey through the neighborhood for an infinite harvest. We need do nothing here, no planting, no tending, no zeitgeist flip out freak out nervous breakdown bug eating all “our” food type of derangement. This neighborhood is the farm. To reap what we have not sown…
