Wild plums (and other fruit), slugs, appreciation and the heart's desire

I really like the word appreciation.

It's got this neat built-in deeper meaning to it that just tickles me pink. For not only does appreciating something mean understanding its value, the dictionary also tells us that "appreciate", used as a verb, means to grow.

So in a way, when we appreciate something it grows in value.

I find that there's a difference in .. er .. tone between when I am feeling grateful and when I am appreciating. They're both positive, of course. But grateful implies (to me) a sort of selfishness .. not the right word, I'll try again .. grateful implies that this thing or event benefits me. Appreciation opens me up to see the value in that thing or event in the larger sense.



It's more expansive.

I know this is just semantics and sure, we can be cynical and say I'm twisting words to mean what I want them to mean. But why not do so?

Why not look for the deeper meaning in the words we use?

Why not assign - or create - a deeper meaning to the words we use?

When I am more appreciative than grateful, my perception of the depth (and breadth and height) of the world around me expands.

blink and you'd miss them

Like this: I was really, really grateful to (finally!) find some wild plums recently, after so many of our usual wild plum picking spots yielded nothing in this weird year of flooding in the spring followed by a dry summer. I love wild plums, I love plum jelly; I love making it, eating it and giving jars of it away.





I appreciate having found them because it made me look more closely how it could be that while most plum trees dropped their fruit before it matured this year, these particular trees produced an abundance of perfect fruit. I'm learning more about the needs and behaviours of wild plum trees .. which not only ensures more plum jelly in my future, it expands my awareness of the environment in which wild plums thrive.

and yet there they are
(click to embiggen)

This semantic creativity can be applied to how we see our relationships with people, too. When we're grateful to have a certain someone in our lives it's most often because - ahem - they are behaving towards us in the way we want them to. When we instead appreciate that person's existence, we can see them more for who they are, not just how they make us feel.

See what I mean?

Now if only I could learn to appreciate slugs.

No, really! I want to. I want to understand what it is that the massive numbers of slugs that have recently appeared in my garden could possibly being doing for the greater good of the little ecosystem out there. I know how they make me feel - I believe the word is irate, ha! I also know that I'm a relatively minor player in the grand, ever changing scheme of things out there, so the best I can do is roll with this.

I think I'm getting the message. The slugs are hanging out in the one last section of the garden where I've been (trying to!) assert control. The whole rest of the garden is pretty much wild now, it does as it pleases, plants come up where they decide to self-seed or spread by runner and I just walk around saying "wow!", appreciating the beauty and value of all of it. In that one (slug) bed, maybe 10' by 10', I've got kale and Good King Henry (an olde worlde version of spinach), which the slugs are having a field day with. I tried to plant some late carrots and beets - those were devoured by the slugs as they sprouted. They've decimated the wild violets nearby, too. But of course the slugs are going to congregate there, it's where all the good slug food is!

sigh.

Maybe that's where I should put the frog pond I've always thought we should have but told myself we didn't have room for. In truth, we do have room for a frog pond, what we don't have room for is tender leafy greens.

I've long had this internal battle wherein I call myself a gardener but I feel like the word is a bit of a misnomer (and that's putting it mildly). I don't enjoy gardening in the traditional sense. Because gardening, in the traditional sense, involves more of an attitude of "us vs. them" than I am comfortable with. Constant battles against "pests", ie plants and critters that - when it comes down to it - have every right to live; cursing and killing so I can grow plants that don't even belong there? It's just not my bag!

So .. fuck it. For now, the slugs can have whatever they want. I'm really, really tired of emptying out bowls of slugs drowned in beer (yuk!) (YUK!).

In a few short weeks days the frost will send them scooting off to where ever it is that they spend the cold months. Soon the skunks that spend the winter denned up in our yard will arrive and probably have themselves a little feast of slug as a bed time snack (you're welcome, skunks), possibly making a right mess digging them up, too (don't care). In spring along will come robins and other slug eating birds. Toads and frogs will appear, and if we get that pond going, maybe make babies there.

And there you have it. I am learning to appreciate slugs. Slugs have value. They're mowing down plants that don't belong where I put them, those (poor!) plants will die back and feed the soil, and in turn the slugs become food for other critters.

I'm never going to "get there".

By that I mean I'm never going to instantly appreciate the value of everything that bugs the crap out of me; these things take time. But I am learning that the events and things in my life that I do not like provide me with contrast. Contrast shows us what we don't want. We can use that to figure out what we do want.

And what we want isn't always what we might think we should want. I "should" want to grow tasty, nutritious organic veggies. But really what I want - my heart's desire - is a thriving wild(ish) ecosystem. That's far more exciting and ... beautiful .. to me.

I can buy vegetables - tasty, nutritious and organic - just up the road. I can't buy the scenes of Monarch butterflies clustering on those aster flowers that spontaneously spring up in my yard. Orange wings fluttering amongst purple flowers against a blue sky - oh my! Not to mention the dozens and dozens of different kinds of bumblebees on those same flowers, purring happily.

So: As I learn to appreciate my own heart's desires (again, not what I think I should want, but what I really want), my garden expands in beauty and value to a myriad of plants and creatures. I appreciate (by buying) the vegetables that J.C. grows just up the road and that helps him fulfil his heart's desire. Win, win, win.

Appreciation = more.

What do you appreciate in your life?

A big sky, a leafless bush, a long, tangled mess of vines
on a fallen down barbed wire fence.

The bush may be leafless, but it's plenty fruitful!
Hawthorn companioned by wild grape.

                                                                                       

And all the way along that fence
more wild grapes than you can shake a stick at.

All pics by Paul, as always.

I really appreciate my Paul!