Amazement is Magical

Hanh mitakuyapi.  Hello my relatives.

  I amaze myself every so often, and that’s both fun & magical.  Then again, sometimes things happen that amaze me, and I have few complaints there, either.  This last happened recently again, to me.

  I am in the midst of renovating an old building that was essentially abandoned for nearly 20 years.  The landlord/mortgage-holder and I go around annually – he’s mainly concerned with whether the grass is cut & the front looks like a pool table than with innovation and creativity that result in betterment of the planet.  I’m of the opinion that: (a) there are 360 degrees in a circle, so if people don’t like the looks of the yard, no on forces them to look at it; (b) they are driving at 60 mph so they should be watching the road & traffic, no lollygagging at ‘yards’ they pass by; (c) it’s in the country, if that makes any difference, and (d) experimentation results in improved conditions, while mindlessly doing the same thing repeatedly is stagnation, & stagnation equals death – of a lot of things.

  This year, the front is ‘overrun’ with a plant that is regarded as “a weed”, although it is planted in its native Asia as a forage plant.  This plant caused my latest episode of amazement.

  When I transplant, I water with “manure tea” rather than plain water, to minimize transplanting shock & to encourage a fast growth start for the plant.  Needless to say, the manure tea bucket smells pretty unique, & I’ve never been able to get it to smell “passable” after even 1 day of making manure tea.  Until a few weeks ago..

  I was pulling said “weed” out of the ‘yard’ preparatory to planting buffalo grass.  Buffalo grass is pretty drought-tolerant, makes a dense mat of fine-leaved rosettes, and doesn’t grow more than maybe 4″ – 5″ tall.  I will never waste time and fuel mowing again, once this project is finished.  I was putting the pulled “weeds” into the manure tea bucket when the phone rang.  I set the lid lightly on the bucket, and answered the phone.  When I came back a few minutes later, the manure tea bucket smelled sweet!  Fresh!  Like new!  Duwahleh!  This is noteworthy!  A-maz-ing!  And my business-oriented brain pounced on the concept that this could be a whole new use for this “weed”, called “a product”.  As in “yields income, improves the environment, and decreases pesticide use”.  I’m an organic farmer/gardener since childhood.  It’s a Traditional thing, after all, that we do not poison our Holy Mother the Earth, and then ask her to feed & clothe us.

  I tested this “weed” both fresh & dried with the same odor-eating results.  I made some sachets of it & put them in sneakers & had good-smelling sneakers in less than an hour.  I was almost bouncing off the walls from excitement.  Magic does that to me, even after dona hey years.  Hope I never lose that….

  So now I’m really fired up to get a web site up & running (any angels out there who would like to help us with this??  Let’s talk!).  And in the meantime, I’ve gone to a couple of friends who farm thousands of acres about this and was told, “If you want this stuff, we’d be happy to go out with the corn chopper and fill a chopper wagon with it for you.”  I wonder how many gadjillion yards of fabric we’ll need to put this out as sneaker-sweeteners, cab fresheners, and so on..  You get the picture.  Comments?