Gardens are five star restaurants for hungry creatures. Deer, raccoons, armadillos, rabbits, birds, woodchucks, squirrels, chipmunks, mice and rats, foxes, possums, skunks, and in some places, wild hogs, all want their share. If left alone, they will take it.
Varmints are canny, sly, relentless and brazen, possessing senses and instincts far superior to our own. Intellect is no match for them. Fences don't stop them, save for perhaps the deer. Repellents are worthless. Live traps may seem like a humane solution, but they're not. Animals turned loose in unfamiliar territory often perish because they don't know where to find food or water or shelter, and must contend not only with predators, but with those of their own kind who drive them off.
In the garden, every species has its own modus operandi. Raccoons break fruit canes to reach the berries. They are excellent climbers and can strip a peach or pear tree in one night. Armadillos love to dig in soft, moist garden dirt, exposing plant roots so they wilt and die. Cotton rats tunnel under the soil, eating roots as they go; rabbits eat the tops, woodchucks eat everything. Squirrels pick green tomatoes, take one bite and move on to the next one.
So - we are left with guns and traps. All summer long the crack of the gun is an integral part of the nighttime symphony, adding a staccato note to the drone of cicadas, the rasping katydids and hooting owls and the soaring soprano coyotes. Needless to say, hours of sleep are lost. It is mostly raccoons and armadillos that fall under the gun, and an occasional woodchuck, rabbit or squirrel that won't be deterred any other way. Mice and rats are trapped if they infiltrate the hoop house. Foxes we do not kill, even though they can and do sneak under the fence and nab your favorite hen (it's always your favorite) in broad daylight, right under your nose, leaving only a pile of feathers and outrage that poor Sadie had to die in such a dreadful way. Foxes will also eat fallen fruit, but they do a good job of keeping the rodent population in check, so we leave them alone.
It doesn't feel right, all this killing. But what are the alternatives? We can get in our cars and drive to the supermarket, peruse the aisles of brightly colored produce, so perfect and blemish free, so benign, so good for us, and not think about what went into growing it. We can virtuously buy meat alternatives in attractive plastic containers, made mainly of wheat, corn and soy grown on vast tracts of land maintained by huge diesel machines that kill and maim thousands of ground nesting birds and animals, often spraying chemicals that sicken everything including the farm workers. There are vegan cookies and breads and ice cream; highly processed treats made from the ubiquitous corn, soy, oats, wheat, vegetable oils and sugar in its various forms. If you eat eggs, there are eggs from "free-range, contented hens fed a 100% vegetarian diet". What? Do they instruct their chickens to not eat any insects, reptiles or rodents while they are free-ranging?
I took a road trip not long ago from Missouri to Ohio and was shocked to see nothing but field after field of corn and soybeans. Almost no pastures with grazing cows, or hay fields, or farm ponds with red wing blackbirds perched in the cattails. Is this healthy?
Diversity equals health, we are told. Nutrition experts advocate eating at least 40 different plant foods per week, avoiding antibiotics unless absolutely necessary, not using antibacterial soaps so that our microbime - the type and amount of microbes inhabiting every part of our body - is as diverse as possible. This gives us a healthy, robust immune system.
Can we not see the earth as having its own microbiome, made up of humans, plants, animals and minerals, all adding to the health and well being of its inhabitants? The same holds true for a farm. I know of some vegans who believe we should do away with all domesticated animals, and this makes me sad, because it illustrates how divorced we've become from nature.
A farm takes cooperation and sacrifice from all that dwell there. The sun and the stars pour down their sacrificial light, which is taken up by the plants, who sacrifice themselves to the animals and to us. The animals, in turn, give us sustenance and manure for compost which feeds the plants. We humans are the intermediaries between the inspirations streaming down to us from the starry heavens and the teaming life force rising from below. Through the sweat of our brow and our creative ideas we harmonize (or try to) all the raw materials: soil, water, air, light, minerals, plants and animals into a farm that breathes and fluctuates with the rhythms of nature. Our labor and our thoughts, which we send back upwards, are nourishment for the heavenly world, making the circle of sacrifice complete.
It's easy to lose sight of all this holy interplay when it's 98 degrees with no rain in sight, the armadillos are wreaking havoc in the blueberry patch and must be dealt with, everything needs weeding and mowing and watering, you're achy and tired to the bone and wondering what possessed you to pursue gardening as a livelihood.
But then there are misty mornings, or mellow afternoons, when the wood thrush flutes his liquid notes through the trees, the rooster is clucking excitedly over a worm he has found, the steers are grazing contentedly in the pasture, and you, with your hands in the good brown earth, the sun on your back and the scented, sentient air in your lungs, feel the rightness of what you are doing. For a moment the inner loneliness that is the lot of all human beings melts away and you are enveloped in the Oneness, surrounded by the infinite love that is the heartbeat of creation.
Being a vegetarian is a noble thing. It's never noble to kill, but one hopes that by providing quality food to hungry people, the killing is justified. Truthfully, we are all destroyers of life in one way or another. We can remove ourselves as far as possible from the unpleasantness, but someone has to pull the trigger. We need to remember that, and respect and honor each other's choices.
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