You Grow Girl™

Yo!~

I knew when we moved here that being about 200 feet from the Kennedy ExpressWay, our veggies, berries and herbs would contain a bit more than the usual amounts of pollutants, so we've had the soil tested a couple of times.
The soil needs nitrogen, it seems.

The yard lay fallow for a number of years before we got here, so I also expected to have odd things sprout up. One hopeful volunteer was a wild grapevine, but after three years of trying its' best, the grapes were tiny and few, so we replaced it with a Concord that is making its' way over the trellis at great speed.

Aliens were not among the things I thought our gardens would produce, but there they are...masquerading as terrestrial plants and insects.

I refuse to believe that a rational Mother Nature could come up with something edible that would look like okra (vegetables that refuse to recognize gravity) and it's just blasphemy to eat something as beautiful as chard, both growing gorgeously in the part of the garden used by my Buddys Paul & Somara.

Being quite a fan of chocolate, my personal deities saw fit at one point to steer my best buddy to a nursery in Wisconsin that was selling chocolate mint a few years ago. Something that's so tailored to my tastes could mean that the Powers That Be are pleased with my horticultural labors...on the other hand, maybe the Funk Masters on George Clinton's Mothership decided to reward me.

It's not only the plant Aliens I'm worrying about. The insect world has also been chewing on a bit too much of the XpressWay fallout-covered herbage.
Common Orb Spiders my Aunt Fanny!

Evening falls and the Arachnids take over. Bob went out to move the sprinkler one evening and walked into a web that stretched at least 10 ft. across the side yard.
About a week ago, a Woman walking to her car after leaving the bar around the corner shredded an 8 ft. web that had been built from the Chinese Elm in the parkway, across the sidewalk to the front fence.

Her screech was one right out of LooneyTunes and I ran out to help her brush the web off, but she was nearly a block away with her scream dopplering nicely by the time I got out the door. I could smell the alcohol fumes and watched as the spider picked itself up from the walk and started in from the beginning, muttering about inconsiderate Alien giants mucking around with other beings' homes.

Not to be outdone, another branch of the Kingdom of the Spiders rejects the large web and goes straight for my terror gland by its' body size. Agiope spiders can get to an amazing size once they know they have a sucker like me to keep them amused. They hide in the ivy and under plum & birch trees' leaves by day and wait for the evening breeze to waft them entirely across an open space where they've scoped out the paths to my favorite places.

Across the pool, from the arbor uprights on either side of the swing or dangling happily from the front porch awning to both sides of the stairs, there they are. I refuse to believe that it's not premeditated on their part.

Despite the assurance of my Buddy Kathy's song "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark", I just don't go out there at night anymore.

The last proof of Aliens present in the 'hood is the Invisible Stalker that regularly fishes all the ponds for blocks around. It's gotta be a fair-sized beast, because the papyrus in my pond gets up-rooted and my buddy Somara's pond rocks get re-arranged.

A couple of gardens back in our horticultural history, Bob & I found a few feathers from a goose who glided in one happy morning and ate the bodies of each and every goldfish in the small pond under a lovely magnolia tree, leaving the heads neatly at the pond edge. Fair enough, birds get hungry, too.
The Invisible Stalker, however, rarely takes a bite, but leaves the entire fish to mummify on the tops of airconditioners and on the sun-warmed concrete. These are much harder to decipher than crop circles.

Even Bob doesn't have an answer to this one.

p.s. Cathy's latest CD: www.cathybraaten.com