Thursday, June 28, 2012

Hunter-Gatherers

or Salvage

Or gleaning:  making use of what others have left behind.  As a child I once read a Christmas story in which a family goes into the woods to cut a tree for the holiday.  When they get it home they realize that it's too tall to fit in their house, so they chop off the top and discard it outside in the snow. A family of bears wanders by, finds the tree top, and is overjoyed, because it will make a perfect Christmas tree.  They take it back to their cave, but once there they find that it's too tall. They cut off the top and throw it out into the snow, where it's found by a badger. And so the story continues, with smaller and smaller animals finding the tree top, taking it home, and cutting off the top again until just a tiny piece is left to be found by some mice. That little tip is just the right size to be a Christmas tree in their little mouse-hole, and there the story ends.

'Kerala Red' amaranth, 'Blackie' sweet potato vine, and a lonely carrot

I've been reminded of that story this week as I've been moseying around the garden, stopping at one sand cherry bush or another to see if the fruit has ripened, picking a handful of cherries to eat, tossing the pits idly away.  The recent heat has been hard on many of the plants, but others, like the cherries, have really begun to come into their own.  The warm season grasses are stretching luxuriously, and the vegetables in the micro-garden have put on a spurt of growth and bloom.  The sweet potato vine is suddenly a vine and not a collection of sad leaves; the tomatillos are a good six inches taller than they were last week.  The amaranth, heat-lover that it is, has exploded into blossom and begun to set seed.

These are amaranth plants that self-seeded last year, so they had an early start in the spring.  I'm glad to see them going to seed this soon; they've been useful to the birds.  I've been filling the finch feeders less assiduously this year—enough that the Lesser Goldfinches keep me on their route and stop in now and then, but not so much that they come to rely on the feeders like they did last year, or to expect valet parking.  They've been browsing a little more around the rest of the garden, and have lighted with particular enthusiasm on the amaranth.  Each inflorescence produces hundreds of tiny seeds, and as the birds grab at the flower spikes, many of the seeds scatter on the patio in front of the raised garden.

'Orange Giant' and 'Kerala Red' amaranth

Those seeds have been a windfall for the large ants, who swarm around them, gather them up and hurry back to their nest in the big urn of agastache.  They have have also been a windfall for the small ants, which come along later to glean whatever the bigger ones have left behind; they carry these odds and ends back to their own nests beneath the pavers in the path.  It's as if the food chain is operating in reverse, with the larger animals providing food for the smaller ones; it's certainly an example of nature's efficiency at work, letting nothing go to waste.  In any case, the ants are keeping the patio nice and tidy.

I was enjoying watching this process of gathering and salvaging among ever-smaller forms of life when I was startled by a sight that made me laugh:  a stream of sand cherry pits proceeding up the side of the urn, the large ants working in pairs to haul them into their nest.  There really is no such thing as garbage in a garden, so I may as well stop feeling lazy for tossing the pits back into the garden when I snack instead of throwing them properly away.  I'm glad to know that, even without the finch feeders, and however accidentally, I'm still doing my share to feed the wildlife.

I wonder if the ants don't have the tiny tip of a Christmas tree somewhere inside that urn.

20 comments:

  1. Marvelous! especially reading it here, in Tel Aviv. Life is about eating (consuming, learning) and feeding (nurturing, teaching, as you do in these blogs) others, too. -R

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    1. Ronit, I love what you say about eating and feeding. Hope you're enjoying the "cool," pleasant weather in Tel Aviv--better than your alternative...

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  2. that last sentence - is the traditional angel on top of each Christmas tree!

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  3. What a wonderful post Stacy that brought a smile and a chuckle...my ants have been busy in one raised bed....I wonder if they are taking the remnants of the peas I throw away after eating them right off the vine...they are hard to find in my garden well hidden unless you know their signs. I have a feeling your ants do have that Christmas tree :)

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    1. Thanks, Donna. Your ants probably keep an eagle eye on you to see what you might be discarding... Peas, though! I'm envious--our season for fresh peas is long since over, alas.

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  4. How fine to think of all those creatures finding a home and a use for everything - even while we humans intervene and do our best to mess things up.

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    1. Jill, the other creatures are so very thrifty--but then, they depend on all the odds and ends for survival. I'm far from defending the wastefulness we humans indulge in so destructively, but it's nice not to have to spend every waking hour looking for food...

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  5. Pretty bright indeed. Thanks for stopping by the wildfire post. greggo.

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    1. Thanks, Greggo--amaranth is incredibly vibrant.

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  6. Weren't you bemoaning the mess that your ants were making recently? (I think it was the ants). Glad they're now being useful. And tidy. I was sorry you précised the Christmas Tree Story. I was very much enjoying it and want to know who made use of the tip between the badgers and the mice. I shan't sleep properly otherwise. The last photo is amazing - have you just dipped some grass heads in some poster paint. Ahh. I suspected as much. Dave

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    1. I was indeed bemoaning the mess, Dave, but the ants seem to have abandoned their nest by the patio and moved entirely into the urn. I can't imagine why they would do that--they have to work sooooo hard against gravity to get their food up the side of the urn, and I flood it with water every day. Maybe they got fed up with me sweeping at them.

      Just looked up the story to see if I could find out who did come between the badgers and the mice, and boy, was my memory astray. No badgers at all, and no family in the woods. Tsk. But Mr. Willowby's Christmas Tree does look quite charming nonetheless.

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  7. I haven't noticed such a chain of events in my garden. Cats dig up some seedlings, slugs eat the others. That's about it.

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    1. It's all about ants, b-a-g. I'd be happy to loan you some.

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  8. Your post made me smile, I have similar chain of events in my garden, just different animals, birds and insects. The squirrels are very active at the moment, we are competing every day to get to the ripe strawberries first, I win sometimes....funny, they never touch the unripe ones....

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    1. Thanks, Helene. As irritating as squirrels can be, no one can say that they are not creatures of taste and discernment... Good luck racing them to the strawberries!

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  9. My Amaranth self-seeded too, despite the fact that I harvested tons of seed from it last year. It's coming up all over my mom's garden. At first she struggled to pull it up, keeping it away from her beans. But she either gave up or was charmed by it's wonderful color. So now it's a bean-amaranth mixed bed.

    You sweet potato vine is lovely! I may have to look into growing one of those...

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    1. Beans and amaranth would be beautiful together! The amaranth could give pole-type beans a nice support to grow on, too--like corn in the Three Sisters. If something's going to muscle in on your mom's garden, it may as well make itself useful, too...

      I love the sweet potato vine and take cuttings from it every year to keep it going through the winter. It's my favorite ornamental edible, I think, even though the texture is a little odd. Always good to see you re-emerge, Mud!

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  10. Love the Amaranth. I tried growing it from seed one year but wasn't very successful. I should try again!

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    1. Karen, amaranth is one of my tried-and-trues--a real workhorse. It's definitely worth trying again!

      (Do you notice, though, that things that are really easy in Seattle just aren't here, and vice versa? It's almost like we have completely different climates or something...)

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