New Mexico Mercury

The daylight hours are getting short, and all consumer goods from hot dogs to Honda Accords now come with pumpkin spice flavoring. But not everything this time of year need be tainted by such doom and gloom.

For instance, autumn is also the season when plants die. In their stead, they leave behind delicious plant babies for us humans to eat. Home gardeners today share in a long-running tradition with humankind’s original farmers. The experience is precisely the same, except that, to our pioneering forebears on the “Oregon Trail” computer game, failure meant dysentery and to us, it means eating peanut butter with a spoon. At least THEY got to hunt an excess of buffalo.

Yet despite forgoing all the fun parts of the frontier lifestyle, I, selfless writer that I am, sacrificed an entire summer evening and part of a weekend in order to bring you Foolproof Tips for raising and butchering your own little vegetable orphans.

First and foremost, you must know that unattended squash plants will engulf an entire yard and possibly the neighbor’s cat. This is true even if you don’t actually plant squash! You might reasonably assume these unexpected sprouts are marijuana, and thus you let them grow until it is far too late for Mr. Farklebottoms. But you unwittingly do your crops a favor and discover

Foolproof Tip #1: Never declare defeat, even when your garden breaks rank.

At first unwanted, a ground cover of squash protects both your crops and, most importantly, you. Those squash leaves are broad enough to conceal spiders the size of supreme pizzas. No way would you ever stick your hand in there!

The surprise squash allows you to let Nature run its course, until such time as you rent a Caterpillar machine to uproot it all.

The brazen amateur farmer might declare Mission Accomplished at this point. However, you still have enemies to contend with, and they will teach you

Foolproof Tip #2: At the first sign of chipmunks, declare defeat.

Quicker than you can throw rocks at them, these pitiless pillagers will devour every one of your crops down to stumps—except, of course, the squash.

It is true that, as a modern farmer, your anti-rodent arsenal is formidable. You have opposing thumbs, chemical technology, bird netting, and a three-inch vertical leap. But chipmunks have speed. They have sharp teeth. And they don’t scream and jump on chairs when you sneak up on them. This leads you to

Foolproof Tip #3: Just let go. You’re not in control of nature, so appreciate its ruthless beauty and accept gardening for what it really is: a valid reason to drink beer outside.

Besides, you could always have it worse. Instead of a chipmunk problem, you could have a grizzly bear problem.

Today, 1,850 musky, rippled grizzly bears tear up the continental United States. Another fifty-five thousand or so roam Canada and Alaska.

Some of us—let’s call ourselves “people who value our limbs”—are quite content with the grizzly bear status quo. But an actual group, which I read about in a newspaper so it must be real, is petitioning the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to EXPAND the grizzly bear recovery plan. These people want to move grizzlies to New Mexico, Colorado, California, Arizona, and—in a menacing blow to the international tourist industry—Utah.

Why bother? I’m thinking grizzly bears must be happy right where they are. They are tough critters, nearly as ferocious as the hungry chipmunks who have no problem colonizing your garden. If the grizzlies really wanted the Grand Canyon, they could just, like, take it. I for one wouldn’t stand in their way.

Other people are, to put it tactfully, crazier than I am. “Grizzly bears were here fiiiiiiiirst,” whine groups like the above-mentioned—as if that’s some sort of defense valid in a court of law higher than first grade. Saber-toothed tigers and wooly mammoths were here even earlier, but you don’t see nearly as many people clamoring for their reintroduction. And the chipmunks beat me here, but that doesn’t give them the right to ruin my rutabagas!

I must be honest, though. The more I skim articles about grizzly bears, the more I think of them just like teenagers, only sweeter smelling. They want to eat. They want to roam. And they will fight me if I ask them to turn down their music.

At the end of the day, both teenagers and grizzly bears are living creatures with a striking resemblance to human beings. The thought softens my heart enough to imagine that, someday, all of earth’s uncouth creatures (except the chipmunks) will learn to live in harmony with humans.

If that dream is too lofty for you, then stick to reality by following my Foolproof Tips. They will ensure bounty all winter long. I for one will be serving plenty of squash with my peanut butter.

(Photo by Alan Levine)