Gardening – Page 2 – Science teacher

November 3, 2020January 23, 2022

Happiness I: Parable of the hired hand

I am one of the happiest adults I know. Grumpy, true, but anyone paying attention to the world around us should be barking mad at times.

I also realize that I have been graced with the pedigree that allows me to swim through this cultural sea oblivious to the flotsam.

To talk of one’s happiness is bad enough, to advise others on how to achieve it infuriating–feel free to stop reading right here. Still, if one teaches children in a public school (and I do), and believes “the pursuit of happiness” is a civic duty (for democracies cannot thrive if we pursue merely money and pleasure), well, that’s reason enough for this post.

Back in my doctor days when I occasionally hung out with the upper middle class sort, I was invited to a pool party by one of my attending physician supervisors. Not going was not really an option, so on a rare day off my clan piled into an ancient Ford LTD station wagon and headed to the gilded hills.

Her home was beautiful, the pool large and inviting, and she had several beautiful gardens. I was far more interested in the plants than the pool, and while chatting, she made it clear she had a gardener. (Why anyone would have a gardener escapes me, but I listened politely while looking for an escape.)

She became wistful “My gardener seems so happy–must be nice to be so simple not to have to worry about things.”

She was envious of her gardener’s life (or at least the one she imagined he lived), the same gardener who likely could not afford to bring his children to his employer’s pediatric practice.

I thought of suggesting to her that she might want to get her hands into the dirt herself, mammals that we are, but that was not her point, of course.

She simply did not have the time.
She is still practicing medicine, and I am not.

So what is the lesson for my lambs? “Pursue your dreams” is impossible for most humans their age–their dreams are the dreams of their parents, and they know little else.

Kneading bread is a manual labor of love.

But they know this much–the person in front of them day after day prefers teaching over medicine. And he seems happy–not because he became a teacher, but because he loves what he does.

You are not a “job title” or a “profession” or “unemployed.” You are, for hours a day, whatever you are doing during those hours. That’s how it works, at least among the mortal.

But she did have a wonderful garden.

April 17, 2020January 8, 2022

Planting peas in a pandemic

The rich dirt still gives the way it usually does–a slight resistance before the earth yields to my finger, poking a hole into the garden ground again. I’ve done it thousands and thousands of times, and each time brings me joy.

We eat from the garden–last night it was frozen tomatoes and fresh basil. (The basil is under lights in the basement, sitting in pots filled with dirt from the garden, which will be returned to the garden.)

Decent dirt has a heady aroma, difficult to describe if you do not pay attention to dirt, but a smell any gardener will tell you is enough to get us on our knees. Soil is complex, it is alive, and it is grace.

We are in trouble, partly because of a virus too new for us to handle, mostly because we’ve forgotten we come from the garden. The story of Adam and Eve (and it is, of course, an old story, told by humans about humans) is a cautionary tale for our times.

We fool ourselves into thinking we can control the garden–our “economy” is based on consumption, on lifeless dirt fertilized with synthetic chemicals produced in a furnace in a process invented by the same man who developed chlorine gas for warfare.

Heaven is found not in the empty sky but in the teeming loam under our feet. If we remembered where we come from, we would not be dumping milk down the drain and crushing tons of beans for mulch as suddenly destitute families face hunger and empty shelves.

A couple of days ago the peas I dropped into the holes my fingers poked into the ground (I did nothing more than that) broke through the earth. The leaves are headed heavenward, but so are the roots. The earth, the air, the rain, and the light will coalesce to form more peas.

I can eat the peas, I can sell them, I can let them fall to waste, but what I cannot do is make them. I pray a lot in the garden, sometimes out of desperation on a bad day, but in recognition of grace on the good days.

And bad days are rare in the garden.

January 26, 2020January 8, 2022

Be God, Bee God

If God is only in a few of us, God is in none of us.
If God is in some of us, God is in all of us.

Honey bee on our rosemary plant in late January 2020.

I saw a couple of honey bees in the rosemary yesterday. I heard them before I saw them.

It had rained hard just an hour earlier, and the rosemary flowers were soaked, making it difficult for the bees to gather much nectar. One looked particularly frustrated.

Their bee bodies were sleek, not covered with the pollen found on them in the summer. Not much blooming in January–rosemary, a few dandelions, not much else.

Still, the bees were out, and I was out, and I was curious about them, and one was (mildly) curious about me until she realized I was not a threat. Then she went back to work.

If God is in some of us, God is in all of us.
And if God is in all of us, God is in the bees as well.

This is only sacrilegious if you anthropomorphize God. (It may be sacrilegious to anthropomorphize bees, too, but I do not know enough about religion, or God, or bees to say with much authority.)

If you go outside, even in January, you will be surprised.

The shells of clams I have raked, cooked, and eaten. December 2019

On the way home from school on Friday, I saw a woman about my age look a little hesitant as I passed her. I said hello and walked on, but got stopped by a couple of my former students, and we chatted about robots (an upcoming robot competition), music (one had a gig that night at a local fund raiser), and whatever else was going on in their lives at the moment. Kids lead a lot more interesting lives than many adults I know.

The woman watched me chat, then, figuring I was safe, asked me if I knew where the Church on the Green was. I pointed it out–it was right across he street–then we got to chatting. Strangers on the street lead a lot more interesting lives than we know unless we ask.

She was looking for a food pantry that had Alimentum, a special formula for babies that are allergic to milk. It’s hard to find Alimentum in food pantries, and even harder at stores if you lack cash. She had just gotten custody of her great grand-daughter, had an appointment for WIC in three weeks, but in the meantime she needed to find Alimentum.

I embarrassed her by offering what little cash I was carrying, but after some back and forth I convinced her take it. She made it clear to me that she was not homeless and was not looking for anything from me.

I knew as much. I know a little bit about Alimentum from my years as a pediatrician, and a lot more about how we care for children in this land, a lesson I learned well practicing medicine.

A rosemary in January will share nectar with another species, but if you lack cash or credit, your human baby may well go hungry until she is “in the system.”