Arghh!

You missed something today. Debra became livid. Livid!

No, not at Tom. Not this time. heh.

No, at our neighbor, the one whose property line is only around ten feet away from my garden. Why was I so mad? Because today he had his lawn sprayed with chemicals. Pesticides. Without warning us. And only feet away from my garden!

I am an organic gardener. I'm trying to run an organic farm.

Oh, I was so mad. I saw that lawn care truck pull into their driveway ("Fifty percent less pesticides" was painted on the truck. Bah! Give me a break.), and I ran out the door, telling Tom to come and help me. I grabbed a bucket then ran to the garden and hurriedly picked some tomatoes, squash and broccoli. Then, as the kid on the Motorized Contraption of Death zoomed around, I got tarps out of the barn and had Tom help me spread them over my garden plants. Over some of them. There weren't enough tarps for the whole thing.

I was just so mad, mad at our neighbor (who helps me mow our lawn--which made me feel guilty). Mad at this whole stupid, clueless world which doesn't realize how pesticides are destroying our planet --and the human race. Mad at their right to do so. And just mad at the lies we've been told. 

And sad. Sad that these pesticides could possibly be part of the reason our neighbor's wife just last month had a tumor removed from her heart.

Now I understood why some people want, like, twenty or more acres to live on. They want to be as far away as possible from what they cannot control. I so wanted to move to the center of twenty acres at that moment.

We did have to have the Bee Guy come weeks ago and spray two nests of yellow jackets/hornets under our siding. We hated to. But otherwise, they would have tunneled into the house. The Bee Guy shared a horrible story with us. (Dog lovers might want to skip to the next paragraph.) His neighbors had their lawn sprayed and his (Bee Guy's) German Shepherd (who went everywhere with him. The family dog.) was barking so the lawn guys sprayed him. The dog got sick almost immediately and slowly died. I am still recovering from that horrid true story.)

Tom said, "There's one more tarp, do you want to spread it over this section?", but I was crying by then and told him, no. He said compassionately, "Oh, don't cry. It will be all right." But I just shook my head and stomped into the house.

Fortunately our neighbor was no where to be found. I would have bitten his head off.

But alas, I sat down on the couch and flipped on the tv and guess what Dr. Phil was about? Feuding neighbors (very childish, foolish ones). How it just doesn't pay--and can escalate into endless wars.

I calmed down. I told myself, "Think! There must be an answer, something besides moving away next year. (I could just see myself explaining to prospective buyers, "We're moving because our neighbors spray their lawn with Death.") Too, staying angry can be even more unhealthy than the pesticides, themselves, since held-onto anger is like poison.

Then I came up with a plan, one which Tom says would be extremely hard, but in my current wild mood, I didn't care:

Next year I will move my garden way out to the meadow. It's the farthest place I know of from spray-happy morons who are--cluelessly, ok!--killing us all, including the rabbits and birds and toads which frolic here. If I must lug tons of soil and water out there alone, so be it.

When we moved here, I so wanted to create an Earth-friendly eco-system on our 4 acres. Today I felt helpless to do that, hence my frustration, tears, and feelings of doom for our planet.

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"Let not the sun go down on your anger..."

(Yeah, yeah, yeah. heh.)  シ


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Please, please do not leave me comments saying, "Pesticides are as safe as fluffy white marshmallows. Relax."

Please don't go there...


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