COOPERATIVE EXTENSIONS AND MASTER GARDENERS

I love the Internet.  We are able to find out so many things just by googling them up through Google, that the latest dictionaries list googling as a word.  When all else fails, as has been the case lately when the dogs were attracted to a strange cheese-like fungus that I couldn't find no matter how extensively I searched the internet, I contacted PA's Susquehanna County Cooperative Extension in Montrose.  And lately when I found an invasive vine that I also could not identify through the internet, after contacting the same Cooperative Extension,  they couldn't find the answer immediately, but a week later I heard from one of their Master Gardeners, Michele Gottlick.  The vine turned out to be Virgin's Bower (Clematis virginiana), and advised wearing a long-sleeved shirt and gloves when handling it.  I had already, but seem to have a resistance to it as I didn't get a rash after tearing out some of the vine near the creek, but a word to the "wise" (which in the title of my blog I "claim"(?) to be... kind of with tongue in cheek) is sufficient.  I'll wear gloves in the future, and try to control or eradicate this plant by (covered) hand, as I can't apply Round-up or any defoliant so close the water.

When we bought the land in PA, we had visions of raising pheasants, quail, and possibly wild turkeys, and got all the information we could on these wildfowl.  Of course, where we got that info was at the Susquehanna Cooperative Extension.  There are these helpful divisions in New York from where we moved from, and perhaps all the United States.  I hope people realize that and call on them for help when they need it for gardening, raising almost anything from goats to fowl, and controlling garden pests, as they were a big help when our hopes became a reality, and we not only raised pheasants and quail, but had overwintered and tried to get the pheasants and quail to reproduce... which they will NOT do in captivity, but with the help of the Extension, we learned about brooders and were able to hatch and raise our adult pheasants fertile eggs, release the adult birds, and bring up another flock of pheasants to release later.  We weren't successful with quail eggs, which are about the size of Jordan almonds, an egg shaped candy that is popular at Easter time.  But Agway has sold us quail and pheasant chicks, and we've learned a lot in the raising of these birds.  Nature is so fascinating, and by raising birds we see the miracles up close and personal.  

As a child in North Woburn, Massachusetts, though most homes there had less than an acre of land, we had 4 acres of swampland only because it was unbuildable... our house was on a rise above the swamp, which would be better termed a wetlands.  Though mosquitoes abounded each summer, it was where in my preschool years my brother Jerry, a year older, and myself were free to see nature up close and personal.  We'd notice walking sticks, which are almost invisible to anyone but a person who was free to dawdle away their summer afternoons lying in the shade, blade of grass in ones mouth, sucking the sweet end and staring up through branches at the clouds, and catch the slow movement of what looked like a part of the tree becoming mobile.  We witnessed a fight between a wasp and a spider; we found out that what looks like molasses deposited on our palm from a captured grasshopper is NOT!  Late spring in digging in some sand and clay we uncovered a hibernating toad.  

All this and much more was our first schooling for a lifetime of wonder.  And when we'd wonder in the way I do now, we have the World Wide Web to question and if we can't find answers, better yet, we have the local Cooperative Extensions.

THE MORAL LIFE OF PLANTS

Do plants have morals?  Are some plants immoral?  One would think the latter if they've gone walking in swamplands in Bermudas, as sawgrass is likely to be there ... somewhere... posing as ordinary field grass, but will tear up the skin on your legs.  Is it right for any living being, be it anchored to the ground by roots or not to snarl up a long haired dogs beautiful fur as do sticky burs (burdocks) or tickweed (Coreopsis) when it hitchhikes as a way of reproduction of its stickiness in life.

In weeding my 20 year old growth of periwinkle ground-cover that's finally doing well, another vine grew alongside it and seemingly overnight seemed to dominate the vines.  In pulling up this gill-over-the-ground, I'd so often pull up the periwinkle, that it became a study to find the differences of the base of these plants.  It seemed that the survival of the fittest was used in the evolution of this plant, as the gill-over-the-ground that survived must have been the plants that looked most like the plants around it near their roots, so one would miss a few and pull up some of the favored vinca minor.


In the Southeastern United States, it seems that there is a vine called Kudzu that is "taking over the world," or so it seems, as it covers the countryside, and whatever is completely covered by this plant dies for lack of sunlight.  That is just plain immoral, even though just a witless plant.

I think the most immoral plant is that which causes Poison Ivy.  It's almost better to have something hurt than to have something itch.  But there are fungus that kill.  One of the worst is a mushroom that if eaten, one doesn't die of the resulting poisoning until it's too late, as its poisons are delayed until days later.  AND there is no antitoxin.

But... when it comes to plants, it's the same thing they say about wild animals... and that is that they aren't human, so they can't be moral nor immoral... they just ARE what they ARE.  The Darwinian theory here is evolution and survival of the fittest.  However, if humans can be the moral barometer, why can't they track down the bad weeds, the bad insects and animals, and stop their reproduction in any way possible.  We do that with viruses and bacteria that cause sickness and plagues.  What is the difference when it's an animal?  Or, especially a vine.  What use is poison ivy?  What use is Kudzu?  Why is it that when something is bigger than a germ, we think it must have a use on this planet or it wouldn't be here... But we don't think the virus that causes smallpox a living thing that must be preserved for some reason because it could be classified as animal or vegetable... we just know it can kill... like the deadly mushroom... the only advantage animals and people have from that poison is that it isn't catchable from person to person.

I've always liked snakes and thought they had a place on this earth, but when taking a walk one day, in a flash, I saw what I thought was a small rattlesnake, which disappeared before I could do anything about it...  Well, what would I have done about it, you might say.  I'd have KILLED it without hesitation.  I don't want my grandchildren visiting with a threat that if they walk through the grass they may come across something that very well could kill them.  But, I wouldn't want the Black Bear eradicated.  Why is that?  I think it's the perspective... meaning virtually our view.  You can see a bear, you don't come across  it in the grass.  And what about the Brown Recluse spider, whose bite kills the flesh around it... or any dangerous spider.  I love the orb webs of the Garden Spider and other orb spiders.  They are harmless enough.  Insects are more numerous than probably Kudzu vines, and many of them do serve a purpose.  Even the poisonous snakes are sought for their venom ...but mostly to develop an antivenom, especially for snakes which have a fast acting venom that can kill in minutes.  There is also the poisonous jellyfish that are being looked into.  I forget if their poisons have any good traits... like for treating some disease like Multiple Sclerosis or Parkinson's... don't quote me... I don't know if there is ANY reason for poisonous jellyfish to be a part of this earth's ocean's fauna.

I at first meant this to be kind of a joke, rather than a serious article.  Sorry about that, but, when you think about all the ways one can die from venoms and poisonous plants, one has to contemplate what is more important: their usefulness to this biosphere vs the threat to the Homo sapiens on this troubled planet.