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Letters From North America |
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“Spring has sprung, the grass has riz, I wonder where the posies is?” This is that time of the year again. Get out the old hoes and shovels and start weeding and cleaning up those flowerbeds. Now, the first thing that you have to realize is that nothing you will plant will survive into next year. So, just get that idea out of your mind. There is no such thing as a perennial. In fact, if you look this word up in the dictionary, you’ll see a picture of a weed. That’s about the only thing that returns year after year. This is just a marketing tool thought up by those clever folks at the local nurseries, grocery stores and lumberyards. How do you think they can afford to build those big huge buildings? Not off the profits from your bread and milk purchases, no sir. It’s from those plant sales. Now bear with me for a moment. This coming weekend, most of us will do what? That’s right, drive to some place that sells flowers, bushes and such. It’s a beautiful day. The birds are out, the bees are buzzing and we’re off to the store to see what kind of new things are waiting to be brought home and planted in our yards. Now, look at this and see if I’m not right. You know that Christmas trees are cut way before December 25th, right? I think they start cutting and shipping them out about Labor Day, if I’m not mistaken. We all know that Christmas trees are cut and shipped to us from some place up North, where it’s cold enough to grow Christmas trees, right? So, why would it be any different for the plants we look at and buy in the spring? It’s just another part of the selling cycle. They grow these things in big factories in some desolate part of the world that has no climatic conditions anywhere close to what we have where we live. You know how this works. You walk into the local store, and what’s going on? Why, everything, I mean everything is in bloom at the same time. Beautiful flowers, budding plants, a veritable paradise. Now, you load up the old wagon, get several armloads of other stuff and head home with the best of intentions. By the time you unload, it’s dark so you say to yourself…”Self, I think I’ll plant all of this stuff in the morning.” The next morning, you get up, drink your coffee, and hit the beds by 9am…..but what happened? That’s right, all of the blooms have fallen off, the shrubs have drooped, the bushes have shriveled up and look like they are about to die. All you did was put these things in your vehicle and drive so many miles and unload them. You’d think they would be grateful that they are going to a good home, but no. My question is this…how does the place that sells this stuff know that you and I are going to arrive at the time that we do and make these plants look so good? I mean this is about as bad as the fruits and vegetables that you buy at the grocery store. You can walk in and buy a bunch of bananas, take them from a stack 15 feet tall, not a bruise, not a dark spot on them. Drive 10 miles, unload them and I’ll bet you they have black marks all over them and even start to have those little bugs flying around them in about 10 or 15 minutes after you’ve unloaded the car. How do they know they’ve been moved from the grocery store? Does something happen to them when they are moved off the premises? Maybe those electronic doors that let you in, generates some kind of impulse to make the plants and stuff start to speed up the aging process, just hope it doesn’t have any effect on us humans. I look bad enough as it is. But then again, maybe a little radiation or whatever isn’t all-bad for you. I have noticed that since I started shopping at the hardware store, I am getting a little buff looking. In fact, even some parts of my hair is getting darker. Having said all of that, I’ll close this out by telling you that there doesn’t seem to be anything we can do about this fact. I don’t want to grow my own fruits and vegetables. I really don’t mind replanting new flowers every year. I just wish they’d call them annuals, semi-annuals, or even temporaries and be done with it. |
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