As God Is My Witness, I'll Never Go Hungry Again

Monday posts are the hardest.
Maybe it's because I'm still grieving the loss of the weekend. Or because it's only 30 degrees, windy and cloudy right now. I just don't have it in me to attempt humor. Yet it also seems wrong, on a Monday, to subject others to some of the darkly serious thoughts plaguing me this weekend.
Topics. Let's see...
The advice to "do the thing you love" vs. the hurt when that thing is no longer an option? No.
Would I advise my daughter to break from her career some day to raise kids, given what's happened? Uh...let's don't go there today.
Comical ways to cut our budget? Try me later, when it seems funny.

So instead, today's topic will be the activity that truly defines both optimists and saps--the vegetable garden.
We've had some form of vegetable garden since our second year in Kansas City--twenty-four years in all. This surely puts us somewhere in the top tier of both optimists and saps. Because to grow vegetables in this area takes either a blind belief in positive outcomes or naivete on a scale that is touching and yet sad.
Having moved here from the garden of Eden (Iowa) I was something of a garden snob.I remember thinking on the drive down: Look at the limestone ledges. Look at the pasture land. Surely that's not a good sign. And what's with all this hot wind?
Yet we went ahead anyway, first with a small plot at our rental house, then a community garden, then a garden on a neighbor's land and finally (!) our own plot at our own house. All my Iowa instincts proved correct, too. Over the years we've experienced the following:
Drought so bad the soil turned beige and tomatoes remained spindly through July.
Flooding that soured the soil until the rain spigot turned off in July and the garden became hard as the tennis courts at Wimbledon.
Mass infestation of spider mites and some yellow and black bug I never could identify.
Theft of garden produce from mysterious invaders. Deer? Squirrels? Raccoons? Neighbors?
Freak late freezes that wiped out every bit of early planting we did.

We start again every spring, just the same. And from all indications, more people are interested in vegetable gardens this year than in at least the past 20. Participation is up in gardening "schools" put on by the extension office. The Obamas started a garden at the White House.
Why? Why go through all that, year after heartbreaking year, when food is readily available for the buying?
There are obvious answers. The economy keeps grocery prices high while people are out of work. Customers are fed up with endless recalls for salmonella, e Coli, etc. They want to cut down on their carbon footprint.
But I think it all boils down to one overriding reason: Control. You keep your thermostat at 65 during the day in winter and 60 at night and it does not get you ahead. The rates go up anyway. You work unpaid overtime and you do not get ahead. You get laid off. You make what you think are sound investments for retirement, like grandma told you, and they turn out to be a scam. You read all the labels on the package and they turn out to be a lie.
Drought. Flood. Insects. At least you have a fighting chance against those.

I went out and looked at our garden today. Don Harman predicts a hard freeze tonight (well, at least it's not a catastrophic solar event). The potatoes are not up yet, but I could see signs of peas and onion tops, tentatively poking at the topsoil. The cherry buds are still tight fisted, but the apples are further along.The over-wintered garlic...well, that's a risk you take.
I found myself wanting to yell at them, "Stay under. Don't be an optimist. Keep your heads down until this all blows over. Just hang in a little while longer."
Because maybe this will be the last hard freeze. Then again, maybe it won't.

Every so often, you'll hear someone scornfully refer to the "dead tree" version of the newspaper. You don't necessarily have to waste that newsprint, though. Here's a way to take the newspaper and feel less guilty about the "dead trees."