{"id":748,"date":"2010-03-24T12:50:57","date_gmt":"2010-03-24T19:50:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/?p=748"},"modified":"2010-04-07T10:33:39","modified_gmt":"2010-04-07T17:33:39","slug":"seeds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/?p=748","title":{"rendered":"Seeds"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I bet you’re wondering if I ever finished that fence.\u00a0 Guessing whether I gave up and threw all my tools into the pond with a flurry of curses or if I’m hopelessly trapped in blackberry canes and a roll of barbed wire.\u00a0 Trying to figure out if I got tired of complaining or just finally got it done.\u00a0 Let me give you a few hints:<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0 I never give up.\u00a0 I just console myself with chocolate and move on.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0 The kids would’ve notified the authorities if I didn’t return from the woods in time for dinner or when their stomach pains become unbearable from eating all the snacks in the pantry, every box of sugar cereal, the treats in the cookie jar, and all the ice cream.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0 I never get tired of complaining.\u00a0 When my friends and family won’t listen anymore I just, well….now you know why I started this blog.<\/p>\n

So I did<\/span> finish the fence.\u00a0 But the completion wasn’t even the best part.\u00a0 No, the fence story had a really happy ending.\u00a0 I know that’s not very vogue right now.\u00a0 For some reason Hollywood thinks America is looking for endings that include tragedy, misery, and uncertainty.\u00a0 Jeez, Hollywood, I could just read the newspaper for that!\u00a0 Around here we prefer happily ever after with a bit of “all’s well that ends well” thrown in for good measure.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>It started when I found that patch of daffodils growing wild in the far back corner of the property.\u00a0 They were hiding, no doubt, from the free range hens that don’t eat daffodils so much as torture them—stripping their glossy green leaves and trampling their bright yellow heads.\u00a0 But here were some wily survivors that I might never have seen if I wasn’t out rambling through the woods with my wire cutters and poultry staples.\u00a0 There were 5 or 6 clumps of these spring harbingers so perhaps they were spreading, quiet and determined, tucked in the leaf debris.\u00a0 A reminder that we never struggle alone in this life, some of us just toil a little louder than others (no comments from the peanut gallery, please).<\/p>\n

And then there was that astounding, eye-opening moment when I realized I was getting rained on.\u00a0 Not an ordinary rain.\u00a0 No, this sprinkle started with the whisper of a fall and the softest pat of a landing.\u00a0 At first, I kept stopping work at that slight sound and looking behind myself through the trees.\u00a0 No chicken tip toeing up, hoping for scraps.\u00a0 No pony giving away his approach with the soft swish of his tail.\u00a0 After awhile I checked the tree trunks and limbs for the source of the gentle sound.\u00a0 No squirrel moving deftly through the canopy.\u00a0 No bird flitting gently from branch to branch.\u00a0\u00a0 And then it happened right before my eyes.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>A pine cone dropped from its perch and nestled snugly in the leaves and needles below.\u00a0 In a minute or so, another fell to the forest floor.\u00a0 And another.\u00a0 Without the slightest breeze, the pine trees were gradually shedding the winter’s store of pine cones.\u00a0 The sound was almost imperceptible among the birdsong–hard to say if you actually heard it or just felt the air momentarily displaced by the fall.\u00a0 For a moment I panicked.\u00a0 What was wrong with the pine trees that they were dropping their pine cones?<\/p>\n

Then I remembered something I used to know.\u00a0 Back when I spent my time studying the life cycle of frogs, how a caterpillar becomes a butterfly, and labeling the parts of a plant.\u00a0 When getting to use glue sticks was a good day and a broken pencil tip was an awful one.\u00a0 You know, the important things we all learned before we spent our days studying amortization tables for our mortgage and trying to understand the Earned income Tax Credit.\u00a0 Remember?\u00a0 Pine cones are\u00a0 just a vessel for seeds<\/span>.\u00a0 And spring is the time for sowing seeds.<\/p>\n

See, that’s what farming does for you.\u00a0 It takes your blood, sweat, and tears and, in return, gives you a touch of God’s hand on your shoulder.\u00a0 Like a hidden cache of daffodils.\u00a0 Or a rain shower of pine cones.\u00a0 It’s all right there.\u00a0 Waiting for someone out there to see it.\u00a0 Even if that someone is just a farmer, tediously using cage clips to attach chicken wire to field fencing.<\/p>\n

But it gets better.<\/p>\n

On the way up to the house, a pine cone in my hand and a daffodil tucked behind my ear, I passed my neighbor.\u00a0 He pointed to the top strand of barbed wire, running along the field fencing.<\/p>\n

“Why’d you make that wire so crooked?”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I turned back, incredulous, to stare at my handiwork.\u00a0 Huh.\u00a0 It was definitely crooked.\u00a0 In some places it lay gently on the field fencing.\u00a0 In others it hovered 6 inches above.\u00a0 In some sections the barbed wire went from above to below and back up again.<\/p>\n

I paused for a moment.\u00a0 Then I took a deep breath in order to explain how hard it was to pull the wire tight and how it curled up on itself when you were working and how the 4 year old was terrible at holding the wire steady while I hammered the staples in even though I only accidentally hammered his hand that one time, but then I stopped.<\/p>\n

“It’s a trick that messes with the visual acuity of any animals trying to get over the fence,” I said seriously.<\/p>\n

He squinted at me.\u00a0 “Really?”<\/p>\n

“Yes.\u00a0 An asymmetrical strand with disproportionate placing negatively affects their spatial orientation.”<\/p>\n

When he looked at me blankly, I gave a professional farmer shrug as if translating technical jargon to civilians was just part of the job.\u00a0 “You know what I mean, they’re not sure where the line is, so they don’t try to jump over.”<\/p>\n

“Really?”\u00a0 He asked again.\u00a0 I nodded sagely, and adjusted my wire clippers and bolt cutters in my tool belt to emphasize my expertise.<\/p>\n

He smiled at me.<\/p>\n

“Well, thanks for that tip.\u00a0 I’m gonna use that on my garden this year.\u00a0 Maybe put a zig zag line of fishing line between the posts.”<\/p>\n

“Or flagging tape,” I suggested.\u00a0 “The bright orange kind.\u00a0 Color adds another ocular dimension.”<\/p>\n

“Right, right”, he agreed.\u00a0 “Orange flagging tape zig zagging over the garden fence.\u00a0 I bet that’ll keep ’em out.\u00a0 I can’t wait to get started on the garden this year.”<\/p>\n

Oh, and I can’t wait to see it.\u00a0 That’ ll make my fence look like it was put up by Frank Lloyd Wright.\u00a0 And if that’s not happily ever after, then what is?<\/p>\n

\u00a9 Stevie Taylor 2010. All Rights Reserved.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I bet you’re wondering if I ever finished that fence.\u00a0 Guessing whether I gave up and threw all my tools into the pond with a flurry of curses or if I’m hopelessly trapped in blackberry canes and a roll of barbed wire.\u00a0 Trying to figure out if I got tired of complaining or just finally […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8,43],"class_list":["post-748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-chickens","tag-fence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=748"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":851,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748\/revisions\/851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}