It’s a busy time in my garden.
On Easter Sunday a couple of Mallard ducks spent the whole day swimming and lounging by the pool. I saw the male one poop into the pool. Should I chase them away? Are they the visitors from the wild side that we cherish and invite? Or are they the annoying intruders that pollute our little man made paradise?
Three bunnies chased each other all day long, making my two indoor cats completely crazy. They eat the grass and poop all over the lawn. Again, what are they? The welcome guests or the irritating destroyers?
We saved a lizard that fell into the water. I gave him a back massage while he was drying on my palm, awkwardly directing his eyes towards me. Was he trying to see who had saved him (her?)?
In one of the three nests four tiny heads appeared yesterday. Mother and Father were bringing worms all day long. Mother is big and brown, Father is small and red. It’s their third time around in the same location. And the location they chose is ingenious. No predator can reach it. The nest has been there, all year, waiting for them. It’s under the roof, on an old unused electric numerator. Clever.
While the world is looking more and more like a crazy bar after midnight where everyone is getting ready to punch the other guy’s face (Colin Quinn: The Short History of the World), my garden is like a refuge, a hidden calm harbor, an unreal place of beauty and piece. (Although, I’m sure, that’s a naïve look from the outside. The “inside” investigation would, most certainly, uncover loads of life and death struggles, a lot of blood and broken necks and scattered feathers.)
We put an electric wire around our vegetable garden to prevent our friends the chipmunks from devouring the last leaf on every plant, as they usually do. The wire zaps them and should, in theory, scare them off. In practice, they – of course – found a way around it. They sneak in, under the wire, like Catherine Zeta Jones in that movie with Sean Connery. Their little bodies may be slightly less attractive, but their minds are as alert as the minds of those brilliant criminals (or heroes? – I admit that the only thing I remember from that movie was the ultra seductive way in which the female character moves through the deadly net).
And while the disasters are happening on every corner of the world, I’m sitting here, surrounded by beauty, visited by my friends of various different species, thinking my own thoughts. I feel slightly guilty, but not enough to take any other action except writing these words and watering my plants. The tomatoes are growing. And I’m ok.