June: Gardens are busy at their own work

Since I have arranged most of my small farm for my own benefit and convenience, it is not an entirely natural environment.  Only a small portion remains in a wild state.  Though partially tamed, this plot remains a microcosm of all the activities of five biological kingdoms: bacteria, algae, fungi, animals, and plants.  Here the entire cycle of birth, growth, and death occurs on a daily basis.  Seeds sprout into new plants.  Plants create and store food.  Birds, bees, butterflies, and bacteria, along with trees and flowering plants, reproduce new generations of themselves.

There is as much energy expended here in decomposition as there is in growth.  In early stages, bacteria participate, but fungi lead the decay campaign.  Over a ton of fungi inhabit an acre of good soil.  Other microbes, then worms, continue the break-down process as they return spent bodies to the soil.

 I place a chair in my field of annuals to encourage myself to just sit.  I rarely do.  Instead of stopping to look, listen, and appreciate, I pass through on my way to complete yet another chore.  All my own busyness distracts me from looking and listening more closely.

But even if I don’t take the time to see and hear it, a whole world of passionate activity stretches before me.  An entire theater throbs with life.  A pair of catbirds here enact a romance as tender as that of Romeo and Juliet.  A female mantis enacts a dark and brooding tragedy as she terminates her mate’s life.  He has outlived his usefulness. In the pergola, spiders rule. 

Members of the Plant Kingdom more more subtle, their performance hidden from sight, but I get the impression there is a rock concert occurring at full blast.  Low throbbing notes of base guitars and drums accompany greedy, seeking roots as they plunge deep into the soil, while up top, it’s a different musical style.  Languorous vines, supple and svelt, stretch to tango music as they enjoy the caress of sunlight and rain.  

Music and drama continue day and night. Chirps, hums, whistles, murmurs, cheeps, rustles, tweets.  I wake at 3am because of the ruckus.  The usual mockingbird is yet to start the dawn chorus.  These night noises are different.  There is no single distinct voice but a hundred different tones in a night choir of chirps and hums.  It's more like the purr of a refrigerator or the drone of a distant highway. 

Life and work goes on as I turn back to sleep.  In the morning, I do my usual garden tour with a spray bottle and bug bucket.  It strikes me that, as the racket amps up at night, so do eating activities.  Those pleasant sounds come from hungry mouths that put my flowers in peril.