WHY I STAY OUT OF GARDENS

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It was also my job to fend off the crows. We had droves of these foul-mouthed, menacing birds. They sat in trees that bordered the garden, plotting vile maneuvers. They swooped down on the garden and carried away provender. I threw stones at them. This, of course, was ridiculous, so I built a scarecrow and stuck it in the garden between rows of potatoes. They perched on the rickety shoulders of the scarecrow and laughed at me. They were hysterical; so was I. Then I tried something different.

The big red barn had a hayloft with a sliding door that looked out on the scene. I armed myself with a book and a .22 caliber single-shot rifle and assumed a prone position behind that door. I waited and I read. The book was usually Two Little Savages by Ernest Thompson Seton, a masterpiece. Whenever I spotted a stationary crow I took careful aim, fired—and missed.

OK, you try to hit a crow with a single-shot .22 from 200 feet distant. There was one consolation: the sound of the shot scattered the target and his loathsome buddies for a few minutes. But I never did defeat them. I suspect they ate more golden bantam than my mother did.

As I look back, I see myself as the Bushwillie groundskeeper. Our front lawn was beautiful, with three majestic maple trees all in a row and a view of Pico Peak. There was a slight knoll on the way up to the main entrance, and that knoll was the habitat of many yellow jackets, also known, in extremis, as Vespidae Vespula vulgaris. What a cute name! Not all yellow jackets make their home underground, but these did, and they emerged from small holes in the daytime and buzzed around and routinely minded their own business. But they bothered visitors, and I was instructed in how to get rid of them. I was to pour boiling water down the holes, a kind of medieval stratagem, it seems to me now.

I poured boiling water down the holes. This did not disable the yellow jackets. Instead, it upset them. They roared out of the ground shouting, "We're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore," and they attacked me. They stung me in the back of the neck, which hurt just as much as being bitten in the stomach. I did not appreciate this, just as they did not appreciate boiling water. So I stopped. I told my father it wasn't worth it—not at five cents an hour.

Gardens have caused me more than a little anxiety ever since.

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