THE FIVE PLUM PIPS

By Wednesday the ripening plums had hung there long enough. I was surprised to have gotten away with it thus far this year, given the quantity of fragrant plums and the precise plum awareness of monkeys in years past, when simians all around had "Brady Plums Ready" clearly marked in their organizers. So even though it was raining hard I got the ladder and harvested all the plums that were even slightly ripe, put them in a big basket by the window in the living room to finish ripening. I left the half dozen or so still fully green ones on the tree, to get on Saturday.

On Thursday and Friday I worked in the big city, coming back after dark, so it wasn't until Saturday morning that I went out on the deck to check the green plums and saw a row of well-chewed plum pits arranged along the deck railing and no plums left on the tree. Later, when I went out into the garden, I found that the potato patch had been dug up, and one patch of baby carrots had been plucked and eaten. Oddly enough, though, it was all done very neatly.

In the potato patch it looked as though the perp, more than seeking potatoes, had enjoyed the sensation of digging in the dirt and pulling up the plants, which were not tossed monkily everywhere, but merely laid down neatly at the edge of the patch, with many of the potatoes left showing in the dirt, only a couple of the small ones eaten; there were none with big bites taken out and then just tossed aside anywhere as per monkey behavioral norms. The baby carrots as well had been neatly pulled up, one by one (not in handfuls!), they'd been neatly bitten off and neatly laid out on the ground with all the carrot leaves in one direction, making a nicely arranged pile, quite convenient for me to gather and carry to the compost heap.

The ready-to-eat turnips right next to the potatoes were completely untouched (not ripped up and tossed around just for the hell of it, like at a monkey garden party)-- as were the ready green beans, though the perp had apparently napped atop a couple of the plants. He had sampled but one little green tomato, not tossing every single tomato everywhere as if angry at their unreadiness and then pulling up the plants for the simian inyerface anarchy of it all. The tomatoes were otherwise untouched.

In fact, the perp had done a lot of potato digging work for me; it took but a few moments to harvest the remainder (98%!) (and the biggest!) of the potatoes; in light of this, it's beginning to appear as though the polite perp might in fact have waited for me to harvest the distinctly ripe and fragrant plums, which had hung there for some days(!), and had then eaten the few unripe ones remaining, leaving the pits for me to find... Littlefoot, you are a strange one... So fastidious, with a bit of integrity, even somewhat honest... We could use a few like you on Wall Street... Anyway, better there than here... With my tomatoes and pumpkins now emerging, it's time to implement Plan T...

BOBBY CARROTSEED

I can't believe I'm driving home with hundreds of carrot seeds in my workshirt pocket, I just bought them, and have already planted potatoes, spinach, chard, garlic and plan to plant onions-- onions! in a couple of weeks, can you believe it? No, I'm not crazy, nor am I starting a monkey charity - get the hairy marauders on a path by which they can improve their lives? Not! It's no use trying to redeem those onion pirates, those carrot cadgers, no matter how fundamental you are - no, I have a more realistic kind of faith: faith in fences.

It's that new high antimonkey (and deer and wild pig) fence that's gonna go up around my garden as soon as my shoulder heals, it's changed my view of world fertility, my attitude toward seeds, my hopes for a more amenable and vegetable future - a fresh lettuce, tomato and onion sandwich of the spirit, with potato chips and cucumber pickle on the side and strawberries for dessert - and as the day draws closer I feel like a kid again, I can do anything I want, I'm a superman of seed, I can plant just about anything, I can plant watermelons this summer if I want to, and then I can actually have the watermelons!

I can plant zucchini! And cucumbers and tomatoes too! And pumpkins and squashes, eggplant, green peppers, spring onions, purple onions, green beans, snow peas and and and: I dance in my mind through the garden with my hands in the air, seeds falling from my fingers! No longer will I have to censor my garden menu as I look wistfully at the seed rack filled with a rainbow of seed packets at the farm store while monkeyless urbanoids blithely select any vegetable they want; I am vegetably free, I realize as I drive home with the sun on my cheeks and the wind in my hair, singing "Call Any Vegetable," visions of roots and leaves and fruits in my eyes, my pockets full of seeds that I'm going to put in the ground all over the landscape, everywhere is a garden, just call me Bobby Carrotseed!

SIMPLE VEGETARIAN RECIPES


Thinly Sliced Tomatoes

Ingredients: tomatoes
Slice thinly.
Stare at slices until satisfied.

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Onions comme ça

Ingredients: onions
Do whatever you want,
they're your onions.

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Fresh Green Beans

Ingredients: green beans, fresh.
Serve while fresh.
Discard immediately.

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Carrots aux Terre

Ingredients: carrots
Pull carrots from ground;
eat with dirt still on.

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Green Peppers In Situ

Ingredients: green peppers
Kneel on ground;
eat peppers from plant.

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Okra a la Gravité

Ingredients: okra plant
Lie on ground beneath plant
until desired okra pod falls into open mouth.
Change position for additional servings.

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Corn on the Cob

Ingredients: corn; cobs
Just make sure the corn stays on the cob.
Nothing more is required of you.

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Aubergines a la Idée Fixe

Ingredients: none
Think of nothing but eggplants.

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Zucchini sans souci

Ingredients: none
Don't even think about it.

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