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A couple of stories picked from the garden
1.
Farm
girl moves to town And
learns about nature from a front row seat By
Lucy Branson Vienna My
husband and I were sitting on our front porch in Vienna one evening when
we noticed a rabbit about 15 feet away, pulling grass to fill its mouth
to capacity. It went to a flower box about 25 feet away, which was
filled with snapdragons. The rabbit dug a hole in one corner under a
plant and put the grass inside the hole. After making several trips to
do this, it went on about its business, not going near the box again. About
four days later, I walked to the car, passing the flower box, not seeing
the rabbit was there. She jumped out in front of me, giving birth to a
baby. She had another one quickly. My husband managed to catch the two
babies, which, by the way, could run pretty fast. He put them in the
flower box nest. The
next morning, right at daylight, we saw the mother sitting on her back
legs while the babies were nursing. When they finished, she put them
down in the nest, and with her front feet covered the hole completely.
About 11 a.m. she came back, patted on the nest with her front feet and
sat down. Five little heads popped out and began to nurse. The process
was repeated right before dark. The mother was never seen around
anywhere except at feeding time. In
about 10 to 12 days, she patted the nest and those babies jumped about a
foot high out of that box and scattered through the flower bed. She
pretty well kept track of them and stayed in the flower bed, but in a
few days we could see only two little ones. They grew fast and were
quick on their feet, but we never knew how many or if any of them
survived to adulthood. The
flowers in the box never wilted or died and the babies didn’t drown in
the rain. The
next spring she or another made her nest in a tall flower basket at
least 1˝ feet off the ground on the other side of the porch. What
amazed me was she never touched or stayed with her babies at all, but
now almost any time I walk out in the yard I can see at least four
rabbits in the two vacant, mowed lots next to ours. In all the years we lived on the farm, I thought baby rabbits were born in a brush pile and their mom would be confined to caring for them for days. You know what they say: You’re never too old to learn.
2.
“Colonial”
onions in the Ozarks By
Bob Doerr Rolla About
26 years ago we spent a spring day at Colonial Williamsburg. I noticed
a certain onion in each of the gardens. At the end of our day, I asked
at the desk what they were. The information gal replied that she did not
know, that the horticulture staff was gone for the day, but that I should
leave a note and my address. That I did. In
late summer of that year, I received a shoe box full of onion bulbs,
with the instructions to set them in September, harvest as needed, and
leave 20 percent to form top bulbs to be set the following September. I have been doing that ever since; my winter onions are descended from those at Colonial Williamsburg. Early
this year, I came upon an envelope of seeds, labeled all to briefly, in my own handwriting, "Cushaw". As I was then sowing cole seeds for indoor starting, I sowed a few of the cushaw seeds to determine viability. Each produced a strong seedling, so I saved one plant and set it out at the appropriate time. When the fruits ripened, I cut the solid neck of one into 3/4-inch slices. These I placed on a plate, added a spoonful of dark brown sugar to each and microwaved them for 15 minutes. They were delicious. I ate the whole neck! In former years, I had pure white cushaws. These were reportedly developed in Germany. (I know, the curcurbits originated in the Americas.) They ran large and had very thick crooked necks. But one year I lost the seeds. One fall, in the early 1950s, one of my co-workers brought two big white cushaws to work, one hooked over each of his shoulders. I asked what they were and if they were for sale. I bought one and we became 'hooked' on cushaws. More recently we have switched (for pies) to sweet potatoes. However, my wife could not resist the 'bowl' of the big cushaw that I recently harvested and processed it for pie. I have seen white cushaws at roadside stands between Jefferson City and Columbia, at Waverly and Wellington. |