Cat's Cradle

or Making Peace

Sir Marley, Hurler of Fur-balls

I don't actually dislike cats; I'm just not a cat person.   Without seeing the need to have a cat of my own, I often enjoy being around other people's.   But there are limits, and when I have cleaned up enough of my neighbor's cat's fur-balls—and other unsavory things—I tend to get a little irritated.

The most famed hurler of fur-balls in the neighborhood is one Sir Marley.   I first made his acquaintance shortly after I'd planted my garden.   I had come across the signs of his passing, shall we say, but never met him in person until one June day after the plants had begun to settle in but before the pests took hold, when the garden was really looking rather fine.   I had been prepared to set Luther after him if I ever saw him (don't worry—Luther was 12 at the time, incredibly sweet, and not much of a threat).   Instead, I found this irritating cat sitting in the middle of the path, looking around at the new trees, slowly blinking his eyes—and purring loudly and happily.   He was purring at the garden I had made.

My heart melted.

Sir Marley, Melter of Hearts

Well, I thought, if he was going to approve of my garden so much, that was worth a fur-ball or two.   And perhaps discovering the occasional half-eaten cricket in my favorite chair.   And having the bird bath tipped over every now and then.   And finding a terra cotta pot or so broken.   And sometimes having to clean up a bunch of bloody pigeon feathers.   Mind you, I didn't particularly like Sir Marley.   He was always dirty, and even though he always sought out my attention, he didn't actually seem to know how to be petted;  I've long since gotten fed up with the "come hither/stay back" types.   Even so, I was more than willing to make houseroom for a fellow garden lover.

It was only when Sir Marley began to kill my ground cover by napping on it that I began to get peeved again.   When he started harassing Mr. Jackson (who expressed his ire by sitting and blinking) I began tossing pebbles at him.   (A couple of points:   1) I have never yet in my life hit anything that I aimed at and so consider throwing things to be a non-violent form of protest;   and 2) I was as much concerned for Sir Marley as for Mr. Jackson, since even a tiny taste of toad can make cats dangerously ill.)   (And a third point by the way:   my garden is really not as formal as the last point makes it sound—most of us are on a first-name basis.)   But when I discovered that my trees were being used as scratching posts and the beds torn up as litter boxes, it was all out war.   I got out the heavy artillery in the form of little plastic doodads filled with garlic oil that was strong enough to pretty well deter me, too.   (The organic gardener's idea of playing hardball.)

Sir Marley, Harasser of Toads

I wasn't reacting only to the damage to my plants but also to a sense of betrayal.   When I thought that Sir Marley enjoyed my garden, that he valued it, maybe even loved it in his own feline way, I was more than willing to live and let live.   But if you love something, you do not set out to destroy it.   Ignorant or accidental destruction is one thing, but to willfully befoul a place of beauty—I had thought that was only a human trait.   To discover it was also feline tarnished my soul a little and made me that much more determined to make Sir Marley unwelcome.

This would perhaps be a good time to mention that another neighbor of mine has three cats, which moved in when he married a year ago.   (That is, his wife moved in and brought three cats with her.)   I've only seen one of them outside before—Pinto, a large white cat with large black spots.   He perches on top of the cinder block walls between our houses, and sags impressively to either side.   I have never actually known him to move;  he just sits and looks regal.   (Well, his face looks regal.)   My neighbors spend quite a bit of time in Mexico, and they take their cats with them when they go.   One day it occurred to me that the problems with tree scratching and litter boxing had arrived, oh gosh, at the same time that Pinto had and—go figure—seemed to fade when he went traveling.   It dawned on me:   just because Pinto does not move in my presence does not mean that he never moves at all...

Ah.   A little miscarriage of justice, it appears.  Sir Marley may have been guilty of birdbath tipping, terra cotta pot breaking, pigeon feather strewing, and the not quite eating of crickets, but he had never purposefully desecrated my garden.   Of course, it didn't make any practical difference—they do not yet make repellants specific to one cat in any case.   But it's the principle of the thing.

Sir Marley, Enjoyer of Gardens

The other day I almost literally stumbled across Sir Marley lying on the garden path.   (Note to self:   Trim oregano.)   He was hidden on the side I can't quite see from the patio, and when I found him he looked relaxed and happy.   He must have sensed a change in my attitude, because after months of warily avoiding me, he came to say hello.

Since then I've decided not to replace the garlic oil repellant.   I've put water out where Sir Marley can get to it, and he hasn't been tipping over my bird bath.   I've put the empty terra cotta pots away, and it's amazing how they don't get broken any more.   Sir Marley still doesn't quite know how to be petted.   The crickets—well, it's best just not to look too closely.   The pigeon feathers aren't appealing, but really, who cares about a pigeon or two?

Sir Marley, Forgiver of Wrongs

Sir Marley enjoys my garden, and we are at peace.

Mi jardín es su jardín

or
Share and Share Alike

I expected gardening to be about plants; I didn’t expect it to be quite so much about morality.  Carol Gilligan’s In a Different Voice describes morality as the struggle to balance the needs of the self against the needs of others.  A variant on the idea of loving your neighbor as yourself, it brings the occasional (frequent?) tension between the two into the foreground in a way that I find rather a relief.

I had originally planned my garden as something approaching a potager, with native fruiting bushes and Mediterranean herbs in a semi-formal design, and vegetables grown in containers.  I live in a new, urban infill development which, when I moved in, was still surrounded by vacant, weed-infested land.  I was the first of my neighbors to plant anything, and that first summer, every leaf-roller, aphid, potato leaf-hopper, flea beetle, and cabbage moth in the neighborhood descended gleefully on my fledgling garden.  My infant trees were leafless by July, every tomato had withered with curly top virus, and the vegetable greens were all eaten away to the midrib.  Only the native plants and herbs survived.  (You can pretty well bet that any plant native to New Mexico does not need a lot of coddling.)

I read more widely about organic forms of pest control and, at my sister’s recommendation, came across Sally Jean Cunningham’s Great Garden Companions.  Cunningham suggests creating a welcoming environment for garden beneficials by including habitat plants, introducing water at ground and (human) waist height, and interspersing nectar-rich flowering plants among your edibles.  This attracts beneficial insects (and other wildlife like toads and birds), which will then keep the pests down to manageable proportions.

Since then, I've tried to apply Cunningham's principles, which are partly about attracting, but essentially about sharing.  The bird and bugbaths are always filled.  The portion of my garden given to flowers and habitat plants has grown, and the part devoted to edibles has shrunk.  I grow vegetables primarily in a 2’ x 4’ “micro-garden” (the main planting area is about 15' x 15'), and while I still have fruit bushes and herbs, the rest of the garden is “beneficial” planting.  The air hums with honeybees and bumblebees.  Mr. Jackson overwinters in my potted mint.  Finches maintain a running commentary from the tree branches.  And I have seen hoverflies, orb weavers, lace wings, praying mantises, lady beetles, and parasitic wasps enjoying the flowers, the water, and the aphids.  The pests are minor irritations rather than plagues (though the leaf hoppers still get to my tomatoes every year, confound them!).

In “sacrificing” growing space to foster an ecosystem, the ecosystem has given back to me.  In giving more of my garden over to nurturing the urban wildlife, the part I have reserved for myself has flourished.  My harvests have increased (and the headaches have decreased) as I have learned to balance my own needs against the needs of the creatures in my environment—even the pests among them.

Is this morality?  Enlightened self-interest?  Good karma?

Or is it just the way things are supposed to work?

In Which Mr. Jackson Is Enlightened

or I Love It When You Bug Me

A while ago I wrote about an unexpected thing that happened when I provided the gift of water to the small creatures in my garden. Lately I've discovered a gift I provided to Mr. Jackson (aka Mr. Toad) without meaning to. I'm warning you, however—this is a small happening, small even by the standards of someone with a blog called "Microcosm." The explanation-to-event ratio is waaaay out of proportion, but I'd love it if you could bear with me through this one.

Our story begins with the sad fact of waterbugs. These are large, outdoor cockroaches that like to come indoors at night primarily looking for water, though they also enjoy air conditioning, and they won't turn down a dish of dog food or an interesting trash can. (And a trash can under the kitchen sink near the water—OMG, OMG, OMG.) They don't seem to want to move in, though I'm sure they would if I made the place inviting enough; I've watched them march straight out the door (well, under the door) at the crack of dawn on more than one occasion. I was almost surprised that they didn't punch a tiny time clock on their way out.

I don't like them. Even though to the objective eye they are actually kind of a nice coppery shade of brown and seem quite cheeky and rather gregarious, mine is not an objective eye. The mess they make when you squish them is too...textured. I do my best to deter them each summer by making sure that the trash can never is interesting, putting all food garbage in the freezer until trash day, sprinkling diatomaceous earth around entryways, etc.   None of it really works.  Apparently, hope springs eternal, even for cockroaches. Maybe even especially for cockroaches. That is to say, waterbugs.

My latest strategy is to leave the kitchen light on from dusk until bedtime. It's not the "greenest" of solutions, but it does seem to work. The light shines out through the glass panels on the kitchen door and deters the waterbugs from entering. They may still come in after I've turned the light off and gone to bed, but I don't see them, and that's the main thing.

While light may deter some insects, of course, it also attracts others. Re-enter Mr. Jackson. On more than one evening, I have found him sitting on the path outside the kitchen door, with beams of light falling all around him. (And lo, how like a warty angel did he appear unto me.) He has been feasting on the insects hovering around the door—and possibly devouring some waterbugs into the bargain.

It never ever occurred to me that in turning on a light, I could feed a toad. (Note to the patient reader: that was the event.)

Why do I find this so beautiful? I'm not entirely sure. It tickles my funny bone, yes, but that's not quite it. Perhaps it's the serendipity, or maybe the efficiency of it—nature letting no gifts go to waste.  But I suspect it's more the awe of discovering how small actions have unforeseen consequences. It's kind of like "The Butterfly Effect" (the idea that a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil could set off a tornado in Texas), only smaller, and with a hypothetical butterfly that actually knows that it caused a storm.

In fact, the more I write about it, the more certain I am that that's what I love about this little eventlet. We so seldom see the effects of our more-or-less random acts:  the small steps we take that reverberate across a larger plane. To see those reverberations in action—and to know that they're accidentally feeding a fat, happy toad—is a rare and wondrous thing. That knowledge is also comforting.  Since becoming ill with CFS, my life often feels horribly restricted, and the reminder that even small actions can have far-reaching consequences gives me hope. And of course, the adventurer in me is inspired to act even more. Because who knows what might happen?

Take a step, and set the world in motion.

Anything can happen.

Toad Hall

or

A Place for Everything,

and Everything in A Place

What I love about toads is the way they ignore me. They're useful bug-eaters, of course, and I appreciate that. But I love the way they go about their business as if--well, as if I didn't particularly matter to them.

My garden has a toad--a chubby, unflappable, cool cat of a toad--that has made itself at home in a potted mint plant. In my ongoing quest to encourage murder and mayhem in the garden (but only the good kind of murder and mayhem), I've tried to create a toad-friendly habitat. I've provided a "bug bath," a shallow dish filled with pebbles and water at ground level; and I've created toad houses from broken pots and cinder blocks, hoping that the shaded hollows would appeal to a cold-blooded creature during the heat of the day. And instead of these cool, private shelters, "Mr. Jackson" prefers the potted mint that sits in the sunshine on the patio. Every morning while I sip my tea, I watch him hop over from some other part of the garden and clamber awkwardly into the pot. I harvest the mint regularly; he blinks at me. I water it daily; he blinks at me. I occasionally whap him with the hose by accident; he blinks really quickly at me.

It's not even a pretty pot.

In its own mild way, the situation radiates a whole "the best laid plans" thing that I regard with wry amusement. (I'm reminded of how I originally designed my garden around Luther's habits. He always used one area as his privy, so I made a clear pathway to it and left it unplanted. He never went there again. That area is still an odd, empty space that nothing seems to fill properly.) In another way, it's eloquent of the best spirit of gift-giving--that a gift, once given, takes on a new life, new meanings, in the hands of the recipient.

The real gift in this case was water--as good as gold in a region that gets eight inches annual rainfall, and much more interesting to a toad in any case. The "bug bath" is what drew him and what encourages him to stay. One morning when I had forgotten to refill it, I found him looking at it (blinkingly) and watched him stretch out a foot to the basin and rest his chin on one of the dry pebbles. He stayed that way until I had filled the dish with water (he didn't bother to move), and after a good soak he went merrily about his business (which was to climb into the mint pot).

Of course, the water wasn't a real gift if I was hoping to get something out of giving it--a toad at my beck and call, ready to eat ants and flies on demand. I did get a toad, yes, but beck and call? Not noticeably. And I find his complete obliviousness to the choices I had pre-made for him so beautiful that it almost takes my breath away. The sense of interaction--of creative give-and-take with an alien species--fills me with delight, and that is far more wonderful than the smug satisfaction I would have felt had he moved into those concrete blocks. Above all, I can't help wondering now what he will do next, and what pleasure I might have in responding to his new choice.