Stealth Gardening

A secret: From last year onward, I'm not supposed to plant vegetables or herbs. The landlord wants to keep his 100 acres totally natural. So this year the poison ivy grows wild, and my tomatoes and basil are in containers. But I'm darned if crops from last year aren't resurrecting and growing exactly where they please:

-echinaceas
-turnips and garlic in the compost pile
-parsley
-dill, in the same place I tore it up last fall
-lavender, ditto
-fennel, ditto
-arugula (very, very tall this year)

And I have all of this without dirtying my hands, absolutely free! What luck! Thanks, Mr. Landlord!

Why Rabbits are Divine

1. They appear and vanish as if by magic.

2. They are everywhere and nowhere.

3. Their homes are unknown and unseen.

4. Their nation abides by a vow of silence.

5. They do no deliberate wrong.

6. They are watchful and wise.

7. In every culture they symbolize virtues and good fortune: fertility, wealth, luck, gentleness, rebirth, athleticism, generosity, cleverness.

8. Their softness and beauty disarms even the hardest heart, and warms the coldest, and rejuvenates the oldest.

9. They inspire delight and thus confer blessings on wherever they appear.

10. A rabbit’s presence makes us kind toward one another.

We make images of rabbits and give them to our children without knowing why. We create and tell countless stories about wonderful rabbits. I believe that these are acts of worship, because deep down we know that rabbits -- bunnies, coneys, bunbuns -- are divine.