Talk Dirt to Me
Of Opium and Hagfish
Plants furnish humans with all the calories we need either directly or indirectly. We also harvest chemicals from plants to harm others, inebriate us, or keep us awake. An excellent example is the poison ouabain from the Acokanthera shrub. African hunters have long...False Consciousness
I’m having personnel problems. Before I go any further I should point out that I am certainly pro-labor. I don’t wish to align myself with walmart (sic), but my least favorite chicken has effectively gone on strike. Broody has once again decided to brood....Zipper
In our house these days little cat feet don’t bring in the fog as Carl Sandburg suggested. They jump around scaring the other much more dignified cat. They incite games of chase with the indigent boarders. We have taken on a kitten because life had become a...Floating Signfiers
I’m sure that Christmas was a favorite holiday when I was a child. Before the bitter years of high school, Christmas promised joy. During college and my years of bachlerhood Christmas became “the holidays”; a period of little or no work and much...Chestnuts and Dying
One of the most ancient traits distinguishing humans from other animals is that we bury our dead. We’ve done this for a long time, perhaps more than a hundred thousand years. We can never know exactly why our ancestors choose to honor their dead in this...Secret Spinach
Freshly fallen snow covers the earth indiscriminately. So does a patina of filth in a poorly cleaned home. The patina has more of a negative connotation for some reason. Most of us like to think of snow as a lovely warm blanket covering the earth. Oh how comfy and...Quinzee
Quinzee Amongst the under 10 male set in my neighborhood the computer game Minecraft is a big hit at the moment. It follows in the wake of Wizard 101, last month’s his. The game’s conceit, at least as I understand it, is intriguing. You are suddenly in a...Squashing bugs
By the time this article makes it into the pages of The Advocate temperatures will once again have returned to the new normal for January – that is to say not quite cold. At the time of writing though, it is just a bit chilly out . Each morning the chickens...Transitions
Water is an “unusual” substance. Not “unusual” like a thoughtful Republican, or living Dinosaur. Unusual in that it has properties that most other kinds of matter don’t have. The most obvious example is that when water freezes it becomes...Pie Bender
The boss is on something of a pie bender. She’s made an apple pie and a fantastic blueberry pie in the last few weeks. Apparently the eldest boarder mentioned something about liking pie and this set her off. He doesn’t like very many foods. But pie,...Next Year: cancun
“The girls and I have been talking and I think we have a bit of a situation. Whatever this white cold stuff in the run is, it’s not in the least bit entertaining. It’s time to talk about going somewhere a bit warmer until this cold spell passes....A Walk
A few years back one of my neighbors gave Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv. I don’t think she was worried about me or my boarders; it’s more likely she was trying to rile me up. I can make quite a spectacle of myself when I get upset. Just ask my...Buyers
We are a people who buy for the world. The Chinese, as a nation, are savers and makers, so their economy needs suckers, I mean consumers, to buy stuff: we fit the bill. Our purchased items stand in for us. Our cars, our houses, and our electronic devices all in some...Seedjitzu
A colleague of mine took some students out to the Montague Plains for a ramble recently. To demonstrate seed dispersal he picked up a pine cone and shook the seeds into his hand. Instead of seeds, he got a handful of springtails. As he tells the story, he didn’t...Nature will out
In a first go at making it in academia I tried graduate school in English. At the time, the mid-nineties, my colleagues liked to embed art in the historical moment along with other texts. The author acted as some sort of filtering conduit for the historical moment....Solar powered kitty
Last month an expert on FoxNews explained why Germany can get so much of its energy from today’s sun, whereas we in the Insatiable States have to get our energy from the sun of millions of years ago. It turns out that it’s always sunny in Germany, just as...Carpe Pascham
Children and some adults love holidays. Curmudgeons like myself find them tiresome. They come a bit too frequently to really count as special occasions; they’re also unmoored from the traditions and cultures that once made holidays meaningful. They are all, of...Control
When we read about the Catholic Church these days, it’s in connection with pedophilia. The whole switch-a-pope thing was trumped up to give them some positive press. Back in the middle ages, though, the Church was at the top of its game. That’s not to say...Onion Update
This year I started my onions at about the same time as last year: in early March, but this spring has been cooler than last. Last year, I put onions in the ground right around the first of April, and harvested lots of big onions that kept us through the winter....Pile 'o hoes
The starlings have begun nesting in the maple tree next door and some robins have hatched up the street, so that’s as springy as I need: time to plant peas. With the exception of the short rows I planted in honor of Easter, peas are the first seeds I sow. If his...Control Redux
Upon looking into last week’s letters at the urging of my esteemed editor, I was excited to read that I had provoked an emotion in one of my readers. Anger, of course wasn’t the emotion I was hoping to provoke, but it will have to do. Unfortunately, I...May Day
I dawdled this morning. I was “working” at home (grading papers), so there was no rush to bike to work. Despite the cool spring I wrote of a few weeks ago, the air and soil have warmed up quite nicely now. I had closed up my cold frame last night because...Grubs
All energy enters the food system through plants. They are the “primary producers.” Everything else depends on their work either directly or indirectly. Cows eat grass and we eat cows. The biomass, that is the total mass of individuals, tends to decrease...Radical Root Radix
Our former commander in chief enjoyed a well-worn phrase more than most. Sometimes he slipped up with his wording: “fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.” I’m thinking he didn’t mean to...Symbiosis and signification
Claude Levi-Strauss used “floating signifier” to refer to terms with meaning only in a given cultural context. Derrida of course would argue that all words are floating signifiers. I’m not sure what he means. “Symbiosis” is one such...Peaches on Apple Trees
One of the great aspects of working in a biology lab is the diversity of lab personnel. I have shared bench space with colleagues from Brazil, Korea, China, Taiwan, Mexico, Australia, South Africa, the Netherlands, Germany, Japan, India, Pakistan, Bulgaria,...Good Science, Bad Science and Not Science
As I’ve written before in this space, weeds are just plants where we don’t want them. A well-mannered garden plant can become a weed merely by growing in the wrong part of the garden. I shouldn’t complain too much as I enjoy weeding. Therapeutic or...Crushing Beetles
Last winter my wife caught me looking at plant porn. The catalogs are beautiful of course, but it’s the garden design books that really get me excited. It’s true that they encourage an unhealthy fantasy version of what one’s garden will look like....Harry! Adelgids!
In many temperate biological communities trees are the dominant organisms in terms of biomass. That is to say, trees are really big and around here most land should be covered by trees. Trees are also producers. Unlike animals, the so-called 47%, trees produce their...Species
Carolus Linnaeus, an eighteenth century Swedish botanist, promulgated the “binomial” naming system that egg heads use to distinguish species. Linnaeus didn’t dream the system up, but he popularized it through page-turners that he cranked out...Peas Please
The first fruit I harvest each year is usually some sort of edible-pod pea. Lettuce, spinach, chard, and radishes come in earlier, but those are vegetables. Snow peas and sugar snap peas have real star-power in our food. Snow-peas stir fried with rice, onions, eggs,...Beans and cocktails
At some point in the distant future I will be able to sit on a beach and read a book. Right now a day at the beach is more like extreme child-care: if the children aren’t endangering their lives or the lives of others why bother going? In that far distant future...Weeds and the dog days
July breaks the spirit of many gardeners. We fill the garden with seeds and seedlings in late May and June and wait enthusiastically for the first signs of life. In June we harvest greens and early vegetables. The beginning of July usually means fruits: peas, beans,...Sustainability and sharks
At the end of June I spent a few days on the south coast of Rhode Island. Those of you who might be tempted to look at a map would be forgiven for thinking that Rhode Island is in fact just a coast and not a very long one at that. The southern and northern bits are...Bees
After a week away my already ailing raspberries have been overtopped by bindweed. I’ve only seen a few flowers and it hasn’t set seed yet, but the roots and plants are bad enough. I have set out early a few mornings this week to rid the patch of the...Tabula Rasa
I’ve never been a good speller. My mother says it’s because I’m lazy and deceitful. Maybe she was talking about something else. I bring this up today because I initially misspelled tabula rasa as tabla rasa. Instead of Latin for “blank...Jimsonweed
In an undoubtedly futile effort to instill a love of reading in the boarders we read to them every night. We are not slavishly devoted to the canon, so have read a Calvin and Hobbes anthology… more than once. Currently the eldest and I are enjoying the Series...Sitting on the dock and siphoning.
This was before my time, but I’m told that my mother’s family spent a part of the summer on a salt water inlet in Rudailand. Oddly, my mother was an avid water skier and trusted her father to drag her about the water skittering around blind corners. These...Fertilization blues
Until last year I avoided growing corn. I can buy it at nearly any farm for next to nothing and even though it’s not quite as fresh as garden corn, it tastes better than the week old stuff (if you’re lucky) at the big grocery stores. But last year I...Volunteer Tomatoes
Seed catalogs sell a lot of F1 hybrids: crosses between two inbred lines. Inbreeding sounds pretty icky (I hope), but in garden plants we don’t really worry about it. Inbred lines are kept genetically isolated: they’re not allowed to have funny business...In fair Verona where we lay our scence
Young Juliet foolishly threw her lot in with a Montague, Romeo, saying “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet.” She dismissed his last name because Romeo was a hunk. She’d barely had a conversation...Learning to love leeks
A colleague at work spent part of a beautiful afternoon last week helping his 12 year old grand-niece find 30 tree leaves from an assigned list. The project, at least as I saw it, had no particular pedagogic purpose; though they did take a lovely walk. Some of the...Butt-drupes
Standing like sentries on either side of our decrepit porch are two semi-maintained holly bushes. These, like all of the remaining foundation plantings predate our ownership of the house. I tend not to get attached to shrubbery. I guess I’d promote that as a...Soybeans and stomach aches
This year is the first time I’ve seen field soybeans growing in the valley. I don’t mean to say that this is the first time it’s been done as I’m sure it’s not, but I happened to notice a few fields growing in Hadley. Of course I’ve...Winter is Coming
My soup beans have been drying in the garage since mid-September. The boss senses things like this from a distance. Though she doesn’t go into the garage much she has a sixth, or seventh, sense for disorder. Once she’d effectively, if temporarily, subdued...Dinosaurs molting
I have seven Buff Orpington chickens that look essentially identical. Tiny, who has always been a character, sticks out because she’s small and has a few black tail feathers. Despite her size, Tiny has what passes for charisma in a chicken. Until I reinforced...Metabolism
As I mentioned a few weeks ago, we now have a wood stove to help induce narcoleptic states in the adult human and feline residents. We used it for the first time a few weeks ago when the evening temperature hinted at a cold night. The household hangers-on gathered...Yummy
In my blinkered view of the world, the word “yummy” often refers to foods that are probably not all that yummy. I usually hear “yummy” snuggled right up next to something I’m not supposed to like. Yummy brussels sprouts, or yummy light...Wasted Effort
I snuck some beets into pizza sauce. Hidden under toppings and cheese they slipped under the beetdar. A week later I served the same sauce as topping for pasta and the eldest indigene caught on: “this is blood red and sweet.” He set down his fork; this...Rock Brussels
After the first freeze Brussels sprouts turn even more delicious. Not so much that just anybody will eat them. I’m glad they don’t, because the boss and I can tear through what six or seven plants produce with no trouble whatsoever. Brussels sprouts are...Chicken rustling
The Canterbury Tales includes a few stories that reward the careful reader. They’re hardly “ROFL” type laughing, but by the time you’ve waded through the new vocabulary, figured out how to pronounce the Middle English and looked up a few of the...Peanut shells
At work I often sit at a desk for too many hours (more than one). Despite this lethargy, I use up food and by the afternoon I tend to get peckish. Recently I’ve been bringing salted peanuts in the shell. They really taste better than the pre-shelled ones and...Possum
Most evidence suggests that cats “domesticated” themselves. Sometime after humans began farming we began storing grain. The first applicants for post-agricultural domestication were probably rodents, but they didn’t offer a very good deal: “you...Leaves are hip
Fire up your favorite internet search “engine” and poke in the word “oak.” Try the same thing with “oak tree.” This morning I did this exercise and was surprised at the difference. In Google, “Oak tree” yields...Cloacal Kiss
Aquatic critters usually produce jelly like eggs. Think frog spawn. A principle adaptation that allowed tetrapods to live on land was the amniotic egg. Tetrapods are the four footed vertebrate animals: platypuses, dogs, birds and even according to some definitions...Tear into some lettuce
Garrison Keillor famously claimed that July and August are the only times people in Lake Wobegon lock their cars at church; this keeps the other parishioners from sneaking bags of zucchini into their backseats. Voracious stem borers keep this from happening to me. I...Still Haven't Saved the World
We’ve had our first good snow or two, but a warm spell has left only a snowy patchwork. Two days before Christmas it rained all day so I opened up the hoop-hut to let some water in. For dinner I pulled a few carrots and radishes (we supplemented these meager...Duckling
I went to high school in Athens Greece because my parents lived there and they were unable to lose me during the move. We lived on a quiet street near some open fields and scrub (Greece is full of scrub), but mostly the area was suburban. Domestic animals are not...Fire!
According to an article in the October 28 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS – pronounce as you see fit) by Van Le et al, primates appear to be hardwired to react quickly to snakes. Macaque monkeys raised without exposure to snakes have...E-Edition
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