WANTED!

On the bulletin board in my mental post office I have a huge WANTED! poster with a couple dozen monkey mafia mug shots on it, you can jail any one of them if you can find them (they blend right in); they’re all on the lam from one Brady job or another.

I don’t yet have a wanted poster up for bears, which surprises me, from what I’ve been hearing about bears not far from here, but bears aren’t a bother to me, at least not yet, so there isn’t a bear poster. There is room for one, but I’m generally content with bear preferences for acorns, grubs and berries.

I don’t have a poster up for wild pigs either, which surprises me even more, because I’ve seen them go after the rice in these parts and everything else in other parts of the world, even uprooting lawns in some places to get earthworms, but I don’t have a lawn; maybe that’s why the porkers don’t bother me. Yet they don’t want free fresh potatoes, tomatoes, squashes, cucumbers? Not that I’m offering, but it is another of the natural puzzles that seem to be burgeoning everywhere these days. Let the dear bristly creatures enjoy their acorns and wild yams or whatever.

Still, it seems somehow unnatural, and worries the greenness in me. I’m pretty green when it comes to most things, especially being Irish and all. Regarding plants and creatures I say live and let live, except again for the local monkeys. That’s where I turn from green to red. Most folks who don’t live around here and get their vegs at the supermarket LOVE monkeys, those dear furry creatures on tv and in the zoo, so cute and suitably distant there in the magazine or on the net in the hot spring, aren’t they adorable they’re so human!

I have no rabbits as pests either, though rabbits have always in my mind been notorious, gardenwise, ever since Peter. I’ve seen one or two of the hoppies around here in 15 years, so they are in the vicinity, but they seem to be very old-time Japanesey and prefer their original native diet, though the younger rabbits might start going for the easy food available in my garden, you never know when it comes to animals-- they evolve.

But I always trusted the deer...sniff, sniff...Santa has deer... At least, once I’d put up my garden fence to protect among other things my spinach and green onions, after which the deer just went around munching wild herbs and acorns, but then I spotted the Baron himself, the symbol of noble integrity with his crown of antlers, lowering his regal head to filch my shiitake, scarfing them like a king in a pastry kitchen.

Today, in response to severe nocturnal nibbling of some new shiitake buds by ruminant teeth and I don’t mean cows, as I was moving some of my older shiitake logs inside the garden fence and rigging a pro tem net on poles over the bigger, newer logs, I was mentally designing my DEER WANTED poster, I have the mental mugshot of the noble countenance posing before being booked, one hoof holding up the little black personal data plaque, full-face and profile, looking so innocent - Don’t smile please, look straight into the camera...

I wouldn’t press charges, you understand, I don’t want the Baron to actually go to jail, maybe just some sort of mushroom restraining order. The monkeys you can throw the book at, though that has no effect, I’ve tried. Rocks don’t work either, for the long term. I know they were all here first, but I was here second and I had a loan from a bank. If that’s not legitimate I don’t now what is.

IT'S A BAD YEAR FOR YOU NAME IT

Seems like this is a bad year for just about everything, at least for the wildies around here, though many of the civilizedies aren't doing all that well either. I was out looking for free wild food this morning in the form of mukago, which are ready at around this time of year, but it seems like the yamaimo offspring have suffered the same fate as acorns. In my searches I found a final total of might as well be zero, barely a few pitiable tiny pea-sized things hanging forlorn on the long yamaimo vines tracing through the bamboo and forest-edge undergrowth.

In good years I easily score handfuls of the minipotatoes from among the wild yamaimo leaves as I go along the roads and wade into the bamboo. Even if I'm not thinking of mukago I am reminded by those lush pennants of bright yellow heart-shaped leaves vining up and across the bamboo and low bushes, draping themselves from one plant tip to another, eventually creating a yamaimo leaf canopy that gets most of the sun and rain and in autumn yields the best crop, those on the tall bamboo stalks silhouetting their tasty wealth against the sky: air tubers that can reach the size of a large macadamia nut.

It's all academic at this point, though, cause this year, even in the best of my secret places there were lots of golden leaves but no treasure to throw into the pot before the rice cooks. They were even scarcer than acorns, which both the bears and the wild pigs like, but the mukago are a special treat for the latter, because after strong winds the minitubers fall to the ground among the bamboo warrens where the pigs nose about and bears do not go; this year, though, there is rampant mukago notness on top of severe acorn notness, so among the gruffly marauding bears there will be some grumpy widely foraging pigs out there, as though either group needed competition...

In the same vein, took a morning walk to visit the pond yesterday, and on the way passed the old wild persimmon tree whose autumn branches every year appear about to break from the weight of the fruit, so I always feel duty-bound to grab a few pocketfuls - especially before the monkeys get them - but this year there were only a half dozen or so persimmons on the whole tree; I've never seen a wild tree looking so unfulfilled at the peak of its career.

Then over at the pond I saw on the sloping bank countless places where a number of wild pigs had nosed up the soil in search of earthworms and any other natural slow food they could find, but from the immense number of nosings I'd judge that the wild porkers must have had to hustle to finish all that work before dawn, so it appears they didn't have much success, and unlike me they don't have a well-stocked winter pantry, so this may be quite a hungry winter for the local wildies.

Both of those hungry parties are welcome to my chestnuts and compost pile, as long as they dine at night. Casual dress, no fighting, and stay away from those onions.

SORRY, WE'RE ALL OUT OF UNPATENTED HAM...

How about some fresh Monsanto bacon with those Monsanto eggs?
Part 1 of 5
(2, 3, 4, 5)

Folks who eat these probably don't mind...

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(w/thanks to Martin Frid)

World Summit on GMO-Free Diversity in Bonn (Germany), 12-16 May 2008:

"We, the participants of the 3rd Conference of GMO-Free Regions in Europe invite the farmers, gardeners and consumers of the world to celebrate the diversity of our seed and food and cultures and their freedom from GMOs, patents and corporate control... We call upon organisations, communities and institutions from around the world to join us in organising this event and to contribute to its program. Let us join forces for the freedom of seed and reproduction and the freedom from GMOs and patents on life. Let us also make our message be heard [by] the representatives of governments as well [all] the people of the world."

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