My Corn “Harvest”

"How rarely Reason guides the stubborn Choice,
Rules the bold Hand, or prompts the suppliant Voice,
How Nations sink, by darling Schemes oppres'd,
When Vengeance listens to the Fool's Request."
Samuel Johnson, The Vanity of Human Wishes:

What the hell? The corn in the Veggie Garden was almost ripe on Tuesday, July 8. Working nearby on Saturday, July 12, I stopped by the Veggie Garden and found the corn had all been “harvested” by some pest. Yesterday, on July 15, I took these pictures, and salvaged exactly three ears that had remained untouched. We’re working on a design for a decent fence to keep rabbits and possibly gophers out. But this may have been done by birds. Just how far must we go to enjoy the fruits of our labors and prevent other creatures from stealing it from us?

This is shaping up to be a tough year. The rains never came – a fool’s request. Everything outside is burning up like brimstone in hellfire. It’s taken a few years, but I have learned from the Water Conservation Garden about what constitutes a sustainable garden in my climate, as it continues to revert to the ancient deserts and dry sea-beds that were here before us. From my volunteer work, I learned about how living green is more than trendy, it’s survival. I learned that I can live here in harmony with nature if I just keep simplifying, slowing down, and discarding the vanity that I can’t seem to outgrow no matter how old I get. But my corn, dammit! They took my corn!

Because of the contiguous border towns of Tijuana, Baja California on the Mexican side; and San Diego, California on the US side, each year my city is visited by more people from other countries than any other city in the world. I’m outside the City Limits, but within the County of San Diego. There is enough water available within our region to support a population of 10,000, and about 1.5 million people live here. The ecosystem is changing too. As our failed corn harvest illustrates, the other creatures who live among us are trying to figure out how to live sustainably and adapt to the changing times just like I am.

While we spray our kitchen gardens with poison and wait patiently for the fires to ignite in celebration of autumn, we fill our swimming pools and ponds, we use more water on our yards each year than the amount of annual rainfall in Portland, Oregon. We nod in wise concurrence when told to conserve water, with no hint from the Bold hand of our public officials that water will be rationed within the year. Let no darling conservation schemes oppress us! Let no reason cloud our unsustainably stubborn choices! And let Vengeance leave my corn alone!

The Mums are Coming

“Enlarge my life with multitude of days,
In health, in sickness, thus the suppliant prays;
Hides from himself his state, and shuns to know,
That life protracted is protracted woe.
Time hovers o'er, impatient to destroy,
And shuts up all the passages of joy:
In vain their gifts the bounteous seasons pour,
The fruit autumnal, and the vernal flow'r…”

Year chases year, decay pursues decay,
Still drops some joy from with'ring life away;
New forms arise, and diff'rent views engage,
Superfluous lags the vet'ran on the stage,
- Samuel Johnson, "The Vanity of Human Wishes" (253-260) (303-306)

This may be the best year for my chrysanthemums. A few years ago, I stopped ordering the fancy show kind each spring, like the fat white snowball I’ve always wanted to cultivate. Instead, I went for the cushion mums that bloom their brains out in quantity if not quality of bloom. Those are the kind now on sale in your local supermarket, the kind planted on the White House lawn behind the podium where Bush spoke yesterday about the “suffering” of Armenians in Turkey “that began in 1915.” Isn’t the passive voice amazing? Their suffering apparently sprang up without any cause, their genocide merely an unfortunate fluke of fate. I think Johnson would approve.

Now I’ve got plenty of each kind, and since I’ve rooted random cuttings, I no longer know most of their names. Many of my mums are planted in pots. But this year, because I’ve carefully enriched my soil with home made compost, I’ve begun to plant some of them in the ground.

Johnson says humans wish for fame or fortune, for beauty or knowledge, all in vain. The things we accumulate – from global power to collectible dolls – amount to so much compost.

Which would be the kind of bummer Samuel Johnson described in his poem, except for one thing. My mums drop some joy before withering away, like these early ones in a magnetic vase, reflecting their own light on a stainless refrigerator door. And they’re coming soon.