A Moral to The Story

Almost a week ago, we moved from summer into autumn, and according to the weatherman, we'll be seeing some mild weather here shortly with lower temperatures and humidity.  In addition to nicer weather, autumn means that pecans will be ripening and falling and when I think of that, I think of a couple of things - pecan pies and Crows!

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Although we don't get many crows competing for our pecans here at our house, we do at the farm. The pecan orchard at the farm was planted by my great-grandfather and to be honest, the crows probably consume more of the pecans than we do.  You can hear them with their incessant, "Caw, Caw, Caw" echoing across the pasture as they alert all their feathered friends that there are pecans to be eaten.  Apart from being a complete nuisance in the pecan orchard, crows are pretty intelligent creatures.  In fact, they are one of the world's most intelligent creatures, approaching the intelligence of apes.

In thinking about crows, it reminds me of a favorite storybook of mine when I was a kid - Aesop's Book of Fables.  It was a big book and beautifully illustrated, but more than that, the stories all had morals.  There was a fable about crows called "The Crow and the Pitcher" that I remember.

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This Link recounts the fable that came from a poem by Bianor, a Greek poet from the First Century:

A Crow, half-dead with thirst, came upon a Pitcher which had once been full of water; but when the Crow put its beak into the mouth of the Pitcher he found that only very little water was left in it, and that he could not reach far enough down to get at it. He tried, and he tried, but at last had to give up in despair. Then a thought came to him, and he took a pebble and dropped it into the Pitcher. Then he took another pebble and dropped it into the Pitcher. Then he took another pebble and dropped that into the Pitcher. Then he took another pebble and dropped that into the Pitcher. Then he took another pebble and dropped that into the Pitcher. Then he took another pebble and dropped that into the Pitcher. At last, at last, he saw the water mount up near him, and after casting in a few more pebbles he was able to quench his thirst and save his life.

Depending on which book you read, there are several morals to the story:

• Little by Little does the trick, or as we say it, "Inch by inch, it's a cinch!" or
• Thoughtfulness is better than brute strength, or
• Necessity is the Mother of invention, or
• Where there's a will, there's a way.

Of course any of those morals are good to know and employ in our everyday lives.  I hate to get out-smarted by a bird, but I'll admit I often fail at the second bullet point below.  I try to just work hard to solve things instead of taking time to think things through, when there is an easier way.  I'm a 'roll up your sleeves' type guy.

Yesterday, while straddling over rows of recently planted fall vegetable crops, pulling out weeds that were crowding out the seedlings, I began thinking and I had an epiphany of sorts, not unlike the crow in the fable mentioned above. "There's got to be a better way!"  I hate weeding.  It is back breaking work and monopolizes time I could spend elsewhere.  Once the plants have grown, I mulch around them with hay and it acts as a pretty good barrier against weeds, but when the plants are young and less than two inches tall, hay mulch is useless.

So I emailed a horticulture professor from LSU about an idea that would make weeding the garden an obsolete task and he answered me today, saying that the idea would work, but would require a little tweaking to work in our growing zone. I'm going to experiment with that idea for my spring garden, because it is too late now for that fall garden.  I'll gather some information and will post a little later about the idea.  Thank you, crows, for the inspiration!

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