Growing Wild

There has been a growing trend in permaculture called "food forests," where you plant a bunch of native edible plants (and plants that shelter essential wildlife to keep the edible plants healthy) in layered ways that increase productivity and protect each other from extremes in weather as climate change ramps up. There was a study in Japan that produced the Miyazaki Method for planning a food forest. It seems now that, while this is extremely effective in the temperate parts of Japan and ecosystems similar to the one the test was done in, this may not be universally true, especially in places that don't naturally sustain forests.

Still, I think the concept can be expanded to produce things like "food scrublands," "food prairies," "food marshes," etc. The biggest hurdle in my opinion is that many colonial settlers are unfamiliar with the native food that grows or once grew in their area, making the idea of a native food ecosystem daunting to those who hold the power to actually implement these ideas.

And this is why some of my carefully curated wildflower and nasturtium patch is not doing so well. The Groundhog babies have big appetites. I like seeing what they eat and what not, it helps with planning for future seasons. They do not touch peonies or catnip. I like that they eat Burdock, and I am also happy I buried the fence around my veggie garden, even though these guys even climb trees. They make me laugh, so there's that. (I know the angle is not perfect for their size, this is an experimental setup.)

This is a parasite that usually causes about 3000 cases of illness per year in the USA, Michigan currently has reported about 2900 (the confusion about “Michigan outbreak” is because Michigan is the first that caught an uptick in cases and has been very proactive about trying to trace them). Last official update from Massachusetts was 18 cases here centered in Greater Boston. The CDC recommends NOT assuming there are no sources of the parasite in your state even if no cases have been reported.

It isn’t an unknown illness but it is an unusual quantity of cases, and the fact that they haven’t been able to pin down the source after weeks of tracking is what makes it particularly concerning this year (harder to contain).

When I first found some triops by accident, back in 2010, they absolutely blew my mind. The next time I found a few, in 2018, I was excited to see them but they seemed less alien because I knew what they were. And since they lived in puddles quite close to home, I knew where to find them.

Triops eggs can dry up and lie dormant for extended periods, which allows them to live in the desert. They need good rain to hatch, and it takes two or three weeks for them to grow to adulthood. Their lifespan is 60-90 days in good conditions, but of course conditions don't always cooperate.

This year we had a nice monsoon, with steady rain starting in late June. I saw the first triops in Palominas at the beginning of August, and found this bunch a week or so later. I have never seen them laying eggs before, but that was clearly what they were doing as they made little dips in the mud by swishing their shrimp tails.

When I went looking for them at the end of the month, with a friend who was excited to see some triops, there were still good puddles but not a triops (or even a tadpole) to be found. At least I know they had a chance to lay eggs.

Y'all, I've managed to grow some peppers!

INCORRECT!!!!!

Gardening is always exciting! Every gardener i know gets HYPED AF whenever someone gets into gardening and gets to enjoy those first fruits! That "I did this!!!" feeling never goes away, you just get bolder and more confident in the kinds and amounts of things you attempt to grow! Once you get the gardening bug, it never goes away. You WILL find yourself feeling an actual physical craving for the smell of putting mix and green things and digging into the ground sometime later winter.

Seeing a deer fawn in an otherwise safe location and taking it to an animal rescue? You just kidnapped it and now it's likely to die from the stress of capture.

Feeding a feral cat colony without even working to TNR or capture and retame the kittens? You're encouraging a larger population of cats living a very hard life, while making them even more efficient at hunting song birds.

Feeding my goats pastries even though I've told you not to? You could seriously mess up their digestive system and I asked you not to! Now no one gets to see the goats because of you.

Feeding birds white bread and white rice? Please do not. It does not have the protein and other nutrients they need, and you can cause wing deformations if you keep it up.