systems

Thursday. I planted the lovely little Red Chokeberry bush.

Saturday. I went to see how it was doing. There were no small white flowers, no delicate green leaves; just bare branches. The deer had dined!

All day I mourned the loss of this pretty little plant with its bird friendly berries. I struggled with whether I should replace it. Might it grow back? What would I need to do to keep the deer away?

Sunday. I began to think that this was a gentle wake up call. It was a reminder that I’m part of a bigger system, and not totally in control. There’s other life, with other priorities. A garden is not only about aesthetics, it’s also about lunch.

I had to decide what to do. Do I fence in the shrub? Buy something more deer resistant? Spray noxious concoctions to discourage the deer eating. Do I walk away and grow flowers? Somehow I think it is important for me to accept the fact that deer roam the city streets. We’ve not found a way to coexist with the wild life that inhabits our cites. Is this natural? Well, at the moment it just is.

I don’t want to do battle. I don’t want everything I grow to be fenced in.
So, I’m planting a Molly Schroeder Viburnum, less tasty to deer. This new shrub will remind me I’m not alone on the planet. It’ll be a humble reminder that I’m part of something bigger and that my desires aren’t the only ones that count.

Monday. I’m posting this. It’s one of many lessons I’m getting about the systems we are a part of. I don’t want this post to be a diatribe about too many deer in our cities. It’s really a love poem to the complexity of life.

We take for granted the benefit nature bestows on us. Six months after a tornado hit Moscow, Ohio, one woman remembers:

She “used to be able to walk from her home for five blocks down toward the river and be under trees nearly the whole time. Not anymore… now she knows why she has always loved Moscow’s trees … There is the shade, of course. But now she says the wind feels different. It is harder when it sweeps up from the river. And she can hear the barges that carry coal to the William H. Zimmer Power Station on the north edge of town.”*

So here’s to greater appreciation of those everyday things, like the trees we take for granted or get annoyed at when they shed leaves or nuts: the “things” we will truly miss when they are gone.

*The Enquirer, Sunday, Sept. 2, 2012 p. B6.

The branches were bare!

In the shelter of a tree…