Pickles

I have a new favorite vegetable plant (technically it’s a fruit). It’s a pickle cucumber. A pickle cucumber, as you might have guessed, is a cucumber plant that produces pickle-sized cucumbers. Was that a Homer Simpson statement?

Now I’m not a great fan of cucumbers per se but I like pickles, and Meredith makes bread and butter pickles, dill pickles and sweet pickles, all of which I like.

As far as I can recall, this is the first time I’ve grown cucumbers. Meredith says I planted pickle cucumbers many years ago when we were first married but who the hell can remember that far back? That’s one advantage to having a leaky memory like mine. My life is continually full of new surprises even when I experienced them before.

There are two pretty simple reasons that pickle cucumbers have made it to my list of favorite vegetables: they grow well here and they produce abundantly. I have an eight foot row of cucumber plants, and each plant produces a half a dozen or so blooms a day. It takes only two or three days for a blossom to produce a pickle-sized cucumber. When these plants hit their swing in a few days I’m going to be up to my ass in cucumbers.

They grow so quickly that I have to harvest the plants every day, and it’s becoming a daily morning adventure. For those of you who are unfamiliar with how a cucumber plant grows, it’s a vining plant with large leaves. That makes hunting for cucumbers a challenge since the cucumbers hide under the leaves. Every morning I go down to my garden and crawl around in the cucumber patch looking for the day’s yield of pickles. Inevitably I miss one or two, and by the next day they are almost too big to use. Picking cucumbers may not sound like fun to you, but it’s a lot healthier than waking with a hangover and crawling around hunting for your keys.

I’m growing some other garden plants for the first time (as far as I can remember). They are winter squash, pumpkins and peanuts. I can’t say much about the peanuts other than the fact the seeds have produced small plants, and they are growing. I have to wait until the plants die at the end of the season to see if I get any peanuts.

Squash and pumpkin plants are impressively large, and their vines tend to spread in all directions. With their large leaves, they are the type of plant that makes a garden look like the real thing. Pumpkin plants are simply squash plants on steroids. Each pumpkin plant is three times the size of a squash plant.

My squash and pumpkins are doing very well. I already have quite a few baby acorn and crookneck squash ripening under the vines, and there are plenty of big yellow blooms on the plants.

It has become clear that I did not give the squash and pumpkin plants as much space in the garden as I should have. The squash plants are starting to grow into the corn and sweet potatoes, and the pumpkin plants want to take over their end of the garden. Every day I go down and redirect vines away from the neighboring vegetables but I think it’s a losing battle.

By the time this year’s garden is done I’ll have a pretty good idea of what vegetables grow well here and how much of each type of vegetable I should grow. Once I get the proportions right that should free up extra space in the garden in future years for my experiments. There are a number of vegetables that I would like to try to grow if only for the hell of it.

Now some of you are going to read this post and say, “What the hell? He’s writing about cucumbers, squash and pumpkins?” But that illustrates a point about being retired and living in a rural area like Fannin County. When you’re retired you have the time to savor the small things which is a good thing since life in country is leisurely and generally consists of small things. You’ve got to admit that watching the vegetable garden grow is better than watching the grass grow and at least marginally more interesting.

Besides, what are you complaining about? You’re the one who chose to read a blog written by a retired lawyer who moved to the sticks. What did you expect—a Bigfoot sighting or UFO abduction every week? Rural America is not exactly a hotbed of activity, and Fannin County is no exception. This is a place where family reunions are page two news and the sports page covers the middle school basketball team.

If you’re looking to read about constant excitement, danger and adventure go find a blog written by someone who retired and moved to inner city Chicago, Detroit or Baltimore. Oh, wait. People don’t do that, do they? I think there’s a significant point buried in all this, but I’ll let you figure it out.

Well, that’s it from Old MacYacavone. I think I’ll go pick some pickles and then give serious thought to taking a nap.

I Win the War...Kind Of

Don't be obsessed with your desires Danny. The Zen philosopher, Basho, once wrote, 'A flute with no holes, is not a flute. A donut with no hole, is a Danish.' He was a funny guy. …

I'm going to give you a little advice. There's a force in the universe that makes things happen. And all you have to do is get in touch with it, stop thinking, let things happen, and be the ball.

                                       ~Ty Webb from the movie Caddyshack

I am happy to report that Mr. Mole appears to have departed the garden. I don’t know if it left because of my efforts or on its own accord. It occurs to me that moles may be like those wandering eccentric comets that come close to the earth and then head out into space on weird orbits that may or may not bring them back to our vicinity some unspecified time in the future. I mean it must be hard to know where you’re going when you’re tunneling through the earth—kind of like a person walking around with his head up his ass.

At some point in the war against Mr. Mole I started wearing my boony hat whenever I went to the garden. I was inspired by the character of Carl in Caddyshack:

 License to kill gophers by the government of the United Nations. Man, free to kill gophers at will. To kill, you must know your enemy, and in this case my enemy is a varmint. And a varmint will never quit - ever. They're like the Viet Cong - Varmint Cong. So you have to fall back on superior intelligence and superior firepower. And that's all she wrote.

Obviously, I don’t know if the mole is dead or alive. I put the mole trap out, placed poison pellets in a couple of the mole runs and used two solar powered devices that periodically emit a chittering sound that is supposed to imitate a mole distress sound. I suspect these devices are better at snaring suckers like me than frightening off moles. Even though the mole is gone for now I’ve kept them in the garden. I find the sound of a distressed mole oddly comforting which suggests either I do not have mole in my background or that I’m a sadistic S.O.B. when it comes to small furry animals with paddle feet.

A few days after I put the trap out I discovered it had been triggered but I couldn’t find a punctured mole underneath it. To resurrect a Vietnam War era phrase I was looking for body count. Fighting a mole is a lot like fighting against a guerilla war—it’s sometimes difficult to tell how effective your efforts are. I’d like to believe that I wounded the mole, and it crawled away to die a horribly painful death but then I also like to think that I am the most interesting man in the world.

I lost track of the location of the poison pellets. If this blog should suddenly stop come harvest time and my obituary reads that I died of poisoning you will know that the mole won in the end. I’m not sure whether that would be categorized as irony, comedy or tragedy.

I’d be happy if the mole left simply because it got tired of me stepping on all its tunnels. At least then I would know that my efforts to defeat Mr. Mole were a relevant factor. The truth is that my efforts probably had nothing to do with the mole’s departure. Once again nature demonstrates how futile and insignificant man is in the scheme of things.

Being retired gives you the time to draw lessons like that from relatively minor life experiences. I was about to say that the reason for that is because relatively minor life experiences is about all you can hope for after retirement but that’s not true. What is true is that you have more time to cogitate when you’re not spending most of your time working or worrying about work. So I end with these words of wisdom from Caddyshack:

Remember Danny - Two wrongs don't make a right, but three rights make a left.

Some Pictures From the Garden in Mid-June

It's a Jungle Out There

One of the many reasons I moved to rural North Georgia was to get closer to nature and the natural order of things; you know, commune with the birds and the bees, feel the soil between my toes, walk in fields of tall grass and sleep under the trees in the forest. Like so many of my generation I was brought up to believe that nature was benign and gentile and that we are one with nature and nature is our friend.

Two years later my view has changed. Nature is not benign; it is out to get you. It does not want you there. It wants you to move back to wherever you came from and leave it alone. The woods, fields, flora and fauna that seem so pleasant and tranquil are not friendly at all. Much of the time it seems like everything in nature wants to bite you or sting you, make you scratch and itch, injure you, destroy your garden, infest your house and generally make life in the country inconvenient and uncomfortable. It truly is a jungle out there.

What sparked this revelation is my recent encounter with chiggers. Let me set the scene: Imagine standing in a field of tall grass gently waving in the soft warm breeze of an early summer afternoon. In your mind you picture the unfettered freedom of the boundless prairie. You are the noble savage who has crossed the land bridge from Asia to conquer a new continent. You stand tall and proud in a new and untouched land.

While you’re having this Walter Mitty moment, nature is taking the opportunity to sic hordes of chiggers on you to convince you never again to stray from your scenic overlook and actually experience nature first hand.

If you don’t know, chiggers are insects, spiders actually. You can’t see them since the adults measure less than 1/60th of an inch, and the larvae, who are the ones that bite you, are less than 1/150th of an inch in size. You don’t feel their bite because your body does not react until two or three hours later.

Chiggers inflict a mean, vicious, nasty and irritating bite, and their method of attack is like something out of a science fiction horror story. Don’t take my word for it. Here’s what several internet sources have to say:

Only the larvae bite humans. They tend to choose warm, moist areas of the body. Chiggers have claws that help them grab onto skin. The chigger then attaches its mouth to the skin and injects saliva. The saliva contains an enzyme that breaks skin cells down to liquid form.

Or this:

Chiggers insert their feeding structures into the skin and inject enzymes that cause destruction of host tissue. Hardening of the surrounding skin results in the formation of a feeding tube called a stylostome. Chigger larvae then feed upon the destroyed tissue. …

(I don’t know about you, but the warm, moist areas of my body are the parts that I’m particularly fond of. And there’s also something that particularly repulsive about the idea of larvae feeding on you.)

The most problematic symptom of chigger bites is the intense itching and desire to scratch. Often, the bites appear in clusters and can form a rash. …

Most bites occur around the ankles, the crotch and groin areas, behind the knees, and in the armpits. Barriers to migration on the skin such as belts may be one reason that chigger bites also commonly occur at the waist or at other areas where their migration is prevented by compression from clothing.

But here’s my all-time favorite:

Chigger bites on the penis can cause severe itching, swelling, and painful urination.

That statement alone is enough to convince ninety percent of the male population to never leave suburbia.

In my case, I suffered at least 15 chigger bites. Thankfully, they stayed away from Willie and the Twins. The bites itched maddeningly. If I scratched them, they only itched worse. Anti-itch lotions and sprays were only marginally effective and then only for a short while. Even large doses of alcohol applied orally did not help. After a few drinks I forgot that I was not supposed to scratch where it itched and that just made matters worse.

The bites finally went away after a week or so. I have learned my lesson. I do not go into the high grass of my fields without liberally soaking my socks, waist, wrists, upper arms and neckline in bug spray. It’s a pain in the ass but it avoids an itch in the ass (or elsewhere).

The experience got me to thinking about nature, and that’s when I had the revelation that nature would rather be left alone. Think about it. On any given day in the summer in North Georgia you might encounter any of the following if you wander into the woods and fields: mosquitoes, wasps, hornets, yellow jackets, chiggers, ticks, red ants, biting gnats, black widows, brown recluses, poison ivy, poison oak, poison sumac, brambles, briars, thorns, scorpions, rattlesnakes, and copperheads. The odds are that you will encounter at least one of these.

Now this doesn’t mean that I want to leave my country home or that I no longer appreciate the natural environment that surrounds me. But it does mean that I have a different and more realistic perspective on the relationship between man and nature. It really is a jungle out there. Darwin had it right. Every plant, animal and insect in the natural world spends each day clawing and fighting for survival so I better be prepared to accept nature on its terms.

Well, the sun is dawning, and I have hay to rake. That means I’m going into the fields. Honey, where’s the bug spray? Did Fed Ex deliver my new Haz-Mat suit yet?

I Attend a Marine Corps Graduation and Avoid Crying Like a baby

Meredith, Jake and I returned a few days ago from attending Mike’s graduation from Marine boot camp at Parris Island, S.C. Mike is now a Marine, and I’m as proud of him as a father can be. Oorah and Semper Fi.

Now would not be a good time for anyone to question the honor, duty and sacrifice of our servicemen and women in my presence. I’d like to have ten minutes alone with Michael Moore  behind the woodshed. If you’re offended by that non-intellectual approach to differences of opinion too bad and please kiss my ass.

I was concerned about how I would handle my emotions on the trip. I can get emotional about things, particularly when it comes to the military and my family. Put the two together, and I’m in trouble. I genuinely feared that I would lose complete control and dissolve into a blubbering, loudly sobbing idiot at some point during the three days. I managed to maintain better control than I anticipated but I confess I spent a lot of time wiping the corners of my eyes, clearing my throat and trying not to sound choked up. But so did many of the other parents, family and friends who attended the graduation so I don’t feel like a total wuss.

It was comforting to be back on a military base again. I am an Army brat, and I grew up on military bases. The sight of painted curbs, buildings with numbers and signs and the absence of any speck of trash had a familiar feel.

The Marines organized the experience well. The first day on base we went to briefings for parents. I’ll say this about the Marine Corps—it doesn’t sugar coat things. It was made clear that the Marines view themselves as America’s premier fighting force with the emphasis on fighting. There was no bullshit about the Marines being a big humanitarian relief organization. In their words, they are the “tip of the spear” and “the first to fight.”

We were warned to be prepared for a change in our son’s behavior. No longer is he a “slimy civilian” (their words). Now he’s a Marine and expected to comport himself accordingly. For example, while in uniform Marines do not put their hands in their pocket, chew gum, whistle, smoke while walking, embrace or hold hands, hold an umbrella (not even as an escort), wear a cell phone that is visible, walk while talking on a cell phone or texting or wear ear phones. I might also add that they do not walk on the grass or cross the street at other than a designated crosswalk while on base.

We were told that we might be able to catch a glimpse of our “new Marine” that first day if we watched the recruit company practice for the graduation ceremony on the parade deck. (Marines walk on decks regardless of whether the deck is a parade field or the floor of a building.) We saw Mike, but it wasn’t easy. All recruits look pretty much the same—same uniform, same hat pulled down over their eyes until the brim is two fingers above the bridge of their nose, same shaved heads.

The second day we were joined by very close friends from Clearwater who came to see Mike graduate. The new Marines were given a short liberty from 10:00 a.m. to 2:45 p.m. following a brief ceremony in the indoor training facility. The new Marines marched into the building in formation. The training company consisted of six platoons totaling about 280 recruits. Seeing them march in company formation was impressive and yet another opportunity for me to clear my throat and try to wipe my eyes inconspicuously. 

Parents, family and friends descended on the new Marines like locusts when the company sergeant released the company for liberty. Mike hugged us all, and we hugged back. There was more throat clearing and eye wiping on my part.

We headed to the on-base Subway where Mike proceeded to demolish two foot-long subs in very short order. During the 13 week boot camp recruits are given three meals a day. They can eat all they want as long as they can do it in 20 minutes (and sometimes less). Combine that sort of food discipline with the all-day high energy activities that recruits undergo, and you get some hungry boys.

We then walked around the base while Mike related some of his experiences. Here’s a clue if you ever take a walk with young Marine just ending boot camp—don’t. He has just finished 13 weeks of intense physical training where he ran or walked everywhere. He is in superb condition. He is not affected by heat, humidity or distance. You on the other hand have spent the last 13 years sitting on your ass. Mike suggested we walk to the MCX (Marine Corp Exchange) which is the base department store. I thought we were walking around the corner. A half a mile later, I discretely asked him if we were getting close and whether there was a base taxi service.

The Marines have their own terminology and jargon, and they are fond of acronyms. Not only are floors decks, but doors are hatches, windows are portholes, posts are stanchions and walls are bulkheads. The Marine emblem is the eagle, globe and anchor. To a Marine it’s an EGA. The acronyms go on and on. Mike started telling us about his boot camp experiences, and I couldn’t understand half of what he was saying. I kept having to interrupt him to ask translate.

Then there was his voice. He had just spent the last 13 weeks screaming so he sounded like Froggy. We’re told that his drill instructor croak will go away after a few days.

The third day was the graduation ceremony. That morning we attended the flag raising ceremony. The Parris Island Marine Band played martial tunes and marches. More eye wiping and throat clearing on my part. There’s something about The Stars and Stripes Forever that gets me every time. Maybe it's the piccolos. As for the graduation ceremony itself I don’t need to say anything more than it ended after the troops marched in review as the Marine Band played. It was a good thing I was thoroughly practiced in eye wiping and throat clearing by that time.

Mike is home for a few days before he goes to his next training. I’ll say it again: I’m so proud of Mike. Oorah.

Man vs. Mole

As I reported last week, my garden has been attacked by a mole, and I am doing everything I can to eliminate him. (It may be a her, but for the sake of convenience…) The rules of engagement are simple: Mr. Mole must die or move elsewhere before he destroys the garden.

Some of you may think that’s harsh and cruel. You may have a milk moustache. You may believe in the harmony of man and nature, the symbiosis of all living organisms, the circle of life and hakuna matata. You may think that man and mole should live together in unity and peace. Not me. That crap sounds great when you’re sitting on your prayer rug in a lotus position chanting some mantra for world peace, but not when you’re trying to save your garden.

I have been doing a lot of research into moles. It’s called getting to know your enemy. A mole can destroy an entire vegetable garden in a short time. They like to eat grubs, bugs and earthworms with the occasional bulb or tuber thrown in. As they burrow through the soil in search of their dinner they destroy the roots of plants and vegetables.

They have a high metabolism and a ravenous appetite. Much like Rosie O’Donnell, a mole must eat close to its weight in food a day to survive. The average mole weighs 3 to 6 ounces. I have no idea what the average grub or earthworm weighs, but I’m pretty certain it takes a lot of them to total 3 to 6 ounces. That may account for the prodigious amount of tunneling that a mole can do in one day.

The mole in my garden seems particularly energetic when it comes to tunneling. He can tunnel more than 200 feet a day in search of food and that number only includes the tunnels I can detect. He’s a crafty little bugger. He prefers the soft soil of the rows to the harder soil of the pathways between them. He will tunnel straight up one row, cross over, and tunnel back down the next one. It’s like my garden is a mole supermarket.

The bottom line is that it is not possible for man and mole to live together in harmony in a garden. Mr. Mole does not have a COEXIST sticker on the back of his Prius. His reads: Go for the grubs and let nothing else matter. That makes my choice simple. I can have either a garden or a cafeteria for Mr. Mole, but not both. I choose the garden and that means Mr. Mole must go…dead or alive.

From what I have read, it’s almost a fair fight. It appears that getting rid of a mole is as hard as getting rid of dead Democratic voters on the Cook County voting rolls. If you search the internet you will find any number of suggestions on how to get rid of moles. Every fifth website tells you that none of the methods work.

One website suggests the shovel and hammer method for getting rid of a mole. The basic idea is to take two shovels and a hammer and stand very quietly in likely mole territory until a mole burrows by at which point you use one shovel to stop its forward progress, the second shovel to keep it from retreating and the hammer to bludgeon it to death. Seriously?

Who has the time or the patience to wait for a mole to stroll by? What if you have a large garden like mine? I could spend nine hours waiting for Mr. Mole at the north end of the garden while he’s destroying the south end. Whoever thought up this method obviously watched too many Road Runner cartoons as a child. I’m surprised he or she didn’t specify that the shovels and hammers have to be purchased from the Acme Shovel and Hammer Company. I’m convinced the website is a Sierra Club ruse to ensure that not one mole is ever harmed.

Almost every method of getting rid of moles requires you to determine which of the mole’s many tunnels are active, i.e., the ones that the mole still uses, and then set traps or poisons along the mole’s intended path. That may be possible if you have the tracking skills of an Apache warrior or are clairvoyant. But I’m not Tonto or the Amazing Kreskin. I have trouble finding the bread aisle in a supermarket.

One kit comes with tiny red flags on little sticks that you are supposed to push into the top of a tunnel. If the stick has moved when you come back the next day that means the mole is still using the tunnel. That sounds to me like an idea straight out of the Elmer Fudd handbook. I sure hope the U.S. Border Patrol uses more sophisticated methods on the Mexican border.

I bought a mole trap. It’s basically an upside down punji stick. You set it, place it over an active tunnel, and when a mole triggers it a long and very sharp steel spike plunges into the tunnel impaling it. To be honest, I’m a little frightened to set the trap, much less place it in the garden. I have visions of the thing flying into the air like a bouncing Betty mine and imbedding itself in my leg when it’s triggered. I’ve already been to the emergency room after sticking my finger into a running lawnmower. If I showed up again with a mole trap stuck in my leg, I’m pretty sure I’d be voted dumb ass of the year in Fannin County.

So the battle of man versus mole continues. So far Mr. Mole is winning. Remind me again about the advantages of having opposing thumbs, a large brain and the ability to communicate and have abstract thoughts. I need a little pep talk right now.