Maggie sent me an e-mail last week with “small disasters” typed in the Subject line. (For those unfamiliar with Maggie, first off, that is unfortunate in itself, and second, she helps out on the farm in countless ways.) Her e-mail started with, “Isn’t life full of them?”
Why yes, YES INDEED life is full of them! While Maggie was explaining a strange development that arose to blockade another project of hers, countless, COUNTLESS examples arose in my mind regarding the farm. In fact, I had intended to write about a particular “small disaster”, actually at least two of them, before she sent me the e-mail. What a perfect title for this entry!
Ah, small disasters, is there ever a lack of them? Answer…NO. But let us keep the focus to the farming year of 2010. There has surely been no lack of such unwanted situations experienced within the first four months so far.
Let’s see, I can start with mechanical equipment. Not one of the machines that assist in the farming process operated normally to start the year. At the end of last year, they all worked fine, but this is 2010, perhaps the year of “small disasters”. Okay, I am being overly dramatic. EVERY year is full of “small disasters”.
But to continue, there has been no shortage of “small disasters”, no pun intended, ranging from continuously failing irrigation equipment (see previous entry on “The Age of Junk”), all mechanical equipment not operating properly, deer fence drooping like jeans on teenagers these days, crop failure of garlic of all things, and… those ubiquitous disasters that result from the natural denizens of the farm.
When I was young, very young, the cartoons were eagerly awaited on Saturday mornings, especially Bugs Bunny. Back in those days, I had relatively no experience with “real” bunnies, only the fictitious smart mouthed one known as “Bugs”. And then there was a portly fellow with a speech defect who was continually hunting “Bugs”, but to no avail. Alas, now thirty something years later, I find myself in the shoes of the hunter, Elmer Fudd. But allow me to explain.
About a few weeks ago, I dwove my twuck into Field 8. As I pawked the vehicle, I wooked ovew to my wight and saw one of those wascically wabbits. So I got out of my twuck and appwoached the wittle cwitter. (Speaking like Elmer is more difficult than expected, so I will desist.)
Recently, the grass surrounding the field had been mowed, and the medium sized rabbit rested in the middle of the field with a hefty mouthful of dried out cut grass, chewing on the vegetation like a gigantic wad of bubblegum, but that may be a bad example. More accurately, it would be similar to a human with a handful of hay about a foot long in its mouth, that is, too large to possibly devour. It sat mildly in the grass eyeing my movements, seemingly unperturbed and very content on chewing its over-sized mouthful of… dinner, I guess.
My intention upon exiting the truck, was to approach the rabbit so that the vegetable crops would be on my right and the rabbit and the deer fence boundary on the left. With that approach, the rabbit, once spooked, would most likely sprint to the area of fence through which it entered. So, I walked slowly, cautiously, and the rabbit, keeping one eye constantly upon my movements, continued to chew on that large wad of grass. I actually got to within about eight feet of the rabbit, which is not common, but nonetheless, once that eight foot distance was breached, the rabbit sprinted off to a hole it had chewed into the bottom of the deer fence, all the while still holding that gigantic wad of grass in its mouth. I found the entry point!
There was little celebration over finding the breach. You see, there is nothing, such as chicken wire, wrapped around the bottom of the fence to keep rabbits or other small vermin out. The entry point was meaningless. That rabbit could enter anywhere it wanted along the approximate thousand feet of deer fencing. After all, the name is “deer” fencing and not rabbit fencing. But I have witnessed the problem. The solution is to install chicken wire. But where am I going to find time to install that? Ugh.
Small disasters. Yes, rabbits are definitely on that list, repeatedly. I once used to say that rabbits don’t eat much, but when they remain in, say, a field of vegetables meant for human consumption for weeks and months at a time, they can devour quite a lot! So, somehow, I need to find a means of preventing that small disaster from continuing to venture into the vegetables. As that thought was on my mind the other day, I was walking along a row of shell peas, when something very small darted into the red beets. What the…? I quickly ran to the spot of beets, which resulted in more scurrying, but at that point, the culprit was realized. It was a baby rabbit! Egad! An even smaller disaster!