AS TO THE DRIVEWAY

Our good friend Sogyu came by the other day to talk about our driveway, we want to have a new driveway, nothing fancy mind you, just one that doesn't develop potholes every year and that can be shoveled in winter - given that we live on such a slope - and so that Echo can drive right up close to the house in the winter and fully open the car door, yet not slide down the mountain.

Sogyu built the stone wall in front of our house several years ago and did a great job, so there he was on a chilly evening ready to talk driveway, and in one of my usual seeming non-sequiturs I asked him about his monkey problems way out where he lives in the countryside over on the other beyond of these mountains, where all those monkeys must be ogling his garden day and night, and he said he didn't have a monkey problem, a statement that rendered me speechless as he went on to say that he did have a deer problem though, they had put up high nets around the 2 or 3 thousand soybean plants they'd planted last year, but then while they were away for a time the deer had chewed through the netting (large opening!) and then through all the soy plants, a total loss.

I was still speechless though so I didn't think to ask what kind of netting they had used. Reason I asked about monkeys - as if you don't know by now - I've put some netting on hoops over my rows in the garden, as a prototype test against monkeys mainly-- the wild pigs haven't bothered me much yet, but now that I have potatoes (cue theremin riff)...

I know that the deer come through every night and would gladly eat just about everything I have planted, as they have in my prenet past, but I can tell they seem especially to desire the tender leaves of delicious boston lettuce, the delicate fronds of luscious rainbow chard and the toothsome bunches of savory spinach, because every morning when I come out to check and harvest for lunch I see where the deer have fervently tried to push their hooves through the net, or maybe it's their noses, deer fervency can be pretty intense.

I picture them straining for all those illicitly free green preciouses-- just inches-- mere inches-- away from yearning teeth-- and falling short. The vision warms my heart with delight as I tighten the nets once more. These are tough, multifiber plastic nets, with no sign (so far) of deer teeth attempting to chew through them. Sogyu, being a nice guy, must be using tasty cotton nets... Though I still don’t know if these nets of mine will withstand the wiles of monkeys, who have oodles of godgiven time and hunger to outsmart me...

As to what's happening with the driveway, I have no idea. When Sogyu comes again this weekend, I'll be sure to ask him why in the world he has no monkey problems.