The news from When Pigs Fly Farm 2.0

Beans grow funny.

You see, in my ordered little universe, you plant a seed. The seed sets a root going down and a shoot goes up. Shoot makes landfall, feels sunlight. sweet breezes, the gentle rain and grows. At least, that's the story they tell us in kindergarten.

[Note: In reality, here in Bermtopia there has been very little sunlight, several days of gale force winds and a number of gully-washer days of rain.  But that is neither here nor there as it relates to beans.]

Anyway. As aforementioned. Beans grow funny.

Quite vexed that my first planting of beans didn't take, I carefully re-created my mounds and dutifully re-planted bean seeds around the first of my two bamboo teepees.

Four or five days later, however, I became turbo vexed. I stopped by WPFF only to discover my beans scattered willy-nilly around the teepee.

I blamed Farmer Jim's squirrel, figuring he (the squirrel, not FJ) had, once and for all, tired of pillaging garlic (which actually looks quite grand now) and was now on to exploring new culinary worlds, ie, my beans.

Either that or it was the large flying raptor that creamed the Go-Kart a couple of weeks ago. You just never know here in Bermtopia.

Nevertheless, we city agrarians are made of sterner stuff. We farmer on in the face of adversity. Therefore, I simply sighed and went about poking the beans back into the soil.

Only. to. return. several. days. later. to. discover. the. beans. had. been. ravaged. again. Repeat sigh. Repeat poking beans back into the ground.

Round three: On my next visit to The Farm, you guessed it. Beans everywhere. My virtually nonexistent empirical nature kicked in at this point and I began to observe and deduce. It didn't take long. The beans were sprouting all right.


Except they push their bean seeds up out of the ground in the process of sprouting. Who knew?

In essence, by pushing the beans back into the ground, I had effectively denied my beans their God-given right to grow. Please keep this on the down-low. I'm pretty sure there's some group out there that would come picket The Farm if they knew.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have met the enemy. And it is me.

There is a learning curve to this urban farming thing.

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Farmer Jim has made a new addition to the farm!

No. It's not a cell phone tower. The Eiffel Tower. Nor a Great Pyramid of Giza.

It's Farmer Jim's new fancy watering system. Works like a charm.

It's a dandy, isn't it? And very shiny. We like shiny new things.

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And finally, first lettuce harvest and a glimpse into the secret lives of peas. Hoping a touch of green finds you somewhere this week. It is glorious.