So last week a woodchuck got in to my garden and to say the least I was furious. Here this thing was raiding my winter squash, the portion of my produce that was doing better than everything else, my biggest source of garden pride. My dog Max had him cornered and I went after the thing with a shovel, the next thing I know it rushes Max and almost gets away. Max takes a few nips at him, the woodchuck hisses back and turns tail and runs back under my shed. Sheer and utter anger, unabashed frustration and raw emotions are all I had. I spent the night mad and frustrated destined to kill the woodchuck. So then I was faced with the
dilemma do I fume and do nothing or take some action. The next morning I decided to go out and make a change to the garden, I put down chicken wire at the bottom of the fence so the woodchuck could not go under. This is where the lesson began. I sat back for a second and realized that all of the anger I had inside was really at myself. I had known that we had a woodchuck issue in years past,
after all what self respecting animal would not want to eat our
vegetables, free easy lunch with no chemical additives. I realized that the frustration was with myself, for not taking action earlier and putting in the extra fence like I knew I should. I knew the anger was because I had not prepped the rest of the garden with good compost, I had taken half measures and expected a bountiful harvest every where. To paraphrase Covey, I had expected to cram for the exam with out studying all term, to reap the harvest with out taking the time to tend to my crop. So I concentrated on my breathing, put in the fence and even added some nice lattice to give the squash a place to trellis and to add some more recycled beauty to my garden. (perhaps my wonderful
wifey will take a picture of my
handy work for me and I can paste in it here, she takes amazing photos). So from this practice of my Yoga in the day to day has been born
Woodchuck Farms. An organic farm, dairy and aviary (planning or future expansion here). Where we take a proactive approach concentrating on prevention,
preparation and preservation to produce high quality food that is nutritional and worth eating.