DEEP IN THE SOLACE OF NO SQUIRRELS

Spent a weekend day off wrangling with a more fully considered re-do of the two 20x4m nets I put up around the garden a few months ago, having during that earlier process come to more deeply understand the grasping nature and embrasive ambitions of finely meshed nets intended for monkeys and suchlike, into which category I unfortunately fall, especially when it gets windy like yesterday and the nets really like me and all my tools and boots and fingers and buttons and nose and teeth and hair, and for a few times there it was a distinct possibility that some passerby might have responded to dim muffled cries and found me wrapped up in my work and immobilized like a brigand simian should be, but I managed to beat the big wrap, since I'm still fast for my age. Given my lifestyle, in a decade or so I'll probably have to give up netting.

On a brighter note, I heard from Ronni Bennett a few days ago that she was having trouble with squirrels devouring her plants. In some ways, squirrels can be worse than monkeys, since the cute little puffytails can not only climb, they can chew through just about anything, like an attic wall, say, and would make short work of my new netting.

There's an old Japanese saying I just made up, that goes "Amidst a plague of monkeys, one envies a plague of squirrels." It might have had a shot at being an actual old saying, if squirrels were ever a topic here in Japan, but they aren't. It's just me rambling on the internet. I've never seen a squirrel around here, and I doubt if they'd get along with the monkeys any better than I do. Thus, in my unending state of abject monkification, I sneak some solace from the fact of Ronni Bennett and her squirrels. I thank the goodness of nature that I have no squirrels, as a gardener I delight in the fact. I am also glad that Ronni has no monkeys. We must find consolation and delight where we can amidst the horns of our dilemmas.

I look upon my netted garden and there are no cute little bushytails gnawing their way through my new hung nets! I smile.

THE NETTY BEAST

So as per the ongoing Cube Noir affair, I went to big farm store and headed for the section where they had all the various kinds of nets farmers use around here to keep away every animal that wants their onions or whatever, and of course was looking in my case specifically for monkey nets. There were lots of dog nets, bird nets, deer nets, pig nets, politician nets, financier nets, you name it, but only one kind showed cartoon monkeys cartoon-freaking-out at the mere touch of the cartoonily miraculous product and I said that's for me. The label said 20 x 4 meters, so I got two of them.

Interesting thing about nets, especially large, fine nets, like I found out mine was when I unpacked it: they love buttons, hatbrims, fingers, collars, heels, toes, tools, whatever you have on, and they can be unexpectedly frisky, plus they're fast - especially if there's a wind - and threaten to capture you right there in your own garden. Another interesting net characteristic is their shapeshifting capabilities. For example, a 20 x 4 meter net can easily acquire a length of 40 or even 50 meters!

Which I was most pleased to discover, as I stretched my new net so conveniently and easily (apart from the playful button grabbing) around my 8 x 7-meter perimeter, moving the ladder a meter or two at a time (nets also love ladders to no end) until at last I stepped down and sought to fasten the bottom of my net to the ground, when I realized that it was now about 50 x 1. So I put myself in reverse and undid the whoooooole thing (with button and ladderplay), then sat at a safe distance from the seething netty beast and pondered the actuality of the situation.

I realized as darkness fell that there are certain instances, such as when putting up a large garden net for the first time in your life, in which forethought is a vain undertaking.

2b cont'd...