I have to say that I am really enjoying digging in the dirt, independent of any direct engagement with plants, except to clear away the dried husks of what remains of this winter's weeds. Undoubtedly dirt, or more properly and evocatively, soil, has microscopic plants in it, and how foolhardy we are to ignore the microscopic agents of the world in our cultural and political conceptualization of society (has germ theory, let alone the rest of microbiology, taught us nothing about human social formatiion?), but it is really dirt as non-plant, as the substrate for plants, that interests me here.
It has its own composition and texture, its own strange warmth and absorbent qualities. And its relation to water is absolutely fascinating. How springy and cushioning it becomes once it has absorbed a fair share, so different from its dried state. To say that earth, the earth, is a sponge, is to say something essential about soil, about dirt.
The birds, in their aggressive pecking of my new dymondia seedlings (how they descend so opportunistically on the freshly dug and watered soil, picking off insects and, I imagine, the occasional worm or two that are left wiggling on the surface), give me occasion to stick my fingers into the soil on these cool foggy mornings to replant the uprooted plantlets, and what a strange sensation it is to feel the warm - and dry! - soil when I do so. My understanding is that clay soil does not drain well, but mine is not dry as a bone but still quite dry in the morning, a mere twenty four hours after the good soaking that I give it at the start of each day.
Apropos of my earlier comment about worms, have you noticed how quickly snails rearrange themselves? I heartlessly uprooted a whole cluster of them that had glued themselves to a long finned iron spike that I put in the ground to hold a post for a railing. They must have found an ideal place in terms of shelter, moisture and darkness. After my rude upheaving, some tumbled off, while those that stayed stuck roused themselves, and in no time, contrary to popular understanding, slithered somewhere out of sight, impossible for me to find, at least by cursory glances.
My baroque soul is delighted by these worlds within worlds that exist in a patch of earth. No wonder our planet is named for it.
It has its own composition and texture, its own strange warmth and absorbent qualities. And its relation to water is absolutely fascinating. How springy and cushioning it becomes once it has absorbed a fair share, so different from its dried state. To say that earth, the earth, is a sponge, is to say something essential about soil, about dirt.
The birds, in their aggressive pecking of my new dymondia seedlings (how they descend so opportunistically on the freshly dug and watered soil, picking off insects and, I imagine, the occasional worm or two that are left wiggling on the surface), give me occasion to stick my fingers into the soil on these cool foggy mornings to replant the uprooted plantlets, and what a strange sensation it is to feel the warm - and dry! - soil when I do so. My understanding is that clay soil does not drain well, but mine is not dry as a bone but still quite dry in the morning, a mere twenty four hours after the good soaking that I give it at the start of each day.
Apropos of my earlier comment about worms, have you noticed how quickly snails rearrange themselves? I heartlessly uprooted a whole cluster of them that had glued themselves to a long finned iron spike that I put in the ground to hold a post for a railing. They must have found an ideal place in terms of shelter, moisture and darkness. After my rude upheaving, some tumbled off, while those that stayed stuck roused themselves, and in no time, contrary to popular understanding, slithered somewhere out of sight, impossible for me to find, at least by cursory glances.
My baroque soul is delighted by these worlds within worlds that exist in a patch of earth. No wonder our planet is named for it.
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