The Musical Fruit: Part II
Long ago I wrote about the magical properties of beans, and compared them to the fairy tale of Jack and the Beanstalk?
Remember the lessons in fairy tales? Obey your parents, don't wander off, and again and again when something looks too good to be true, it probably is.
Here's a picture of the beans when the sprouts first showed up:
And about the time I was posting about the wonders of beans:
And within a few weeks:
I attempted to give the beans a place to grow, tying string between the two poles, from the overgrown pole to the failed pole. See all the runners reaching out for somewhere to grow? They were headed towards the fence.
If I find a picture of the beans in between I will put it here, but to keep it fairly short- they overgrew the second pole. The strings did not last long, the beans were too heavy, but then they started making their own way, growing around each other and reaching over to the other pole.
As the overgrown pole began to pull itself towards the undergrown pole, (and I do mean that literally, the plant was pulling itself closer to the other pole) I decided something else had to be done. I duct taped a further two feet pole onto the top of the bean poles. This lasted a week or so- then they broke.
Here's a picture of the bean poles from last week:
I'm making it super big so you can see mom's improvised prism cage, which is holding half the weight of the beans from that pole so it does not break. Four bean plants turned into this monster plant. You'll have to take my word for it, but there's another similar prism on the other side. These have the added advantage of exposing the new beans.
I look at this plant and I think, life is amazing. Life survives everything that is thrown at it, and thrives. Whenever I hear apocalyptic visions of how we're killing the earth, I think of beans, and roses with nasty thorns, and especially weeds. And every time I come to one solid truth: The planet is going to be fine. The only ones we're hurting with our destructive behavior are ourselves. Long after we're gone the descendants of this bean plant will be taking over the world.
Remember the lessons in fairy tales? Obey your parents, don't wander off, and again and again when something looks too good to be true, it probably is.
Here's a picture of the beans when the sprouts first showed up:
If I find a picture of the beans in between I will put it here, but to keep it fairly short- they overgrew the second pole. The strings did not last long, the beans were too heavy, but then they started making their own way, growing around each other and reaching over to the other pole.
As the overgrown pole began to pull itself towards the undergrown pole, (and I do mean that literally, the plant was pulling itself closer to the other pole) I decided something else had to be done. I duct taped a further two feet pole onto the top of the bean poles. This lasted a week or so- then they broke.
Here's a picture of the bean poles from last week:
I look at this plant and I think, life is amazing. Life survives everything that is thrown at it, and thrives. Whenever I hear apocalyptic visions of how we're killing the earth, I think of beans, and roses with nasty thorns, and especially weeds. And every time I come to one solid truth: The planet is going to be fine. The only ones we're hurting with our destructive behavior are ourselves. Long after we're gone the descendants of this bean plant will be taking over the world.
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