I can't dance and it's too wet to plow. I've heard that expression many times over the years and never understood it until April. I can't dance and it's certainly too wet to plow! So I sit here, surrounded by 90 pounds of seed potatoes, wondering when they will start to rot. Or if my tomatoes and peppers will be too leggy before planting time. Pea season is over, although I may try planting in the fall, especially to feed deer and rabbits. I feel some regret for the wildlife around the acre/one day of the garden. I'm sure they will consume more of our efforts than us. However, I will harvest something from that land, be it tomatoes, beans or venison. I'm not much for killing things, especially mammals, but I'll take what I'm offered. (Also, it's ridiculous to be a bowhunter safety instructor/archery coach who has never taken a deer!) While we wait for the call: "Come help me hitch the plow to the tractor" . There's little left for me to do but think about everything that could go wrong. I searched public libraries hoping to find some clues in some gardening books! So far, Gene Logsdon has had the most practical advice on dealing with wildlife in your yard: Kill it and eat what you can. I can't say that the rain pouring down and the "high water" sign posted on our street made me happy. (Even if the acre were plowed, we wouldn't be able to work it because of the rains.) When I'm not reading about farming (gardening an acre is not farming, but working that much land requires some farm tools, so I'm into farming.) I think about why anyone would bother farming in the first place. It's much easier to simply do the shopping. Reflection also led me to conclude, what... middle of paper... asp the thoughts of others studying this whole "big picture" and our place in It. “Saving the planet” is not possible. The planet will save itself if it needs saving. Saving myself might be something I can achieve, if I ever figure out whether or not I'm worth saving. So let's go back to school days. Only this time the classroom is an acre of land, the goal is education and understanding, not the control and manipulation I endured in my first 12 years of school. Unfortunately, most of the books I'm reading on this topic are about controlling myself! However, some tiny grains of truth emerge from them. It remains to be discovered whether I will be intelligent enough to identify them, understand them and pass them on so that future generations of my family can live as long and as long as the past ones. We come from the earth. If we don't understand what soil is, we don't understand anything else.