BigDog Speaks

Having a garden is a great thing. All the work to put one in is great exercise. All the thinking and pondering about what to plant keeps your brain active. Realizing you have more seeds than you have space can cause high blood pressure.

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Having a garden is good for your health, and kidding aside, should actually lower your blood pressure. The outdoors, moderate exercise, and the enjoyment of gardening is something to see. Then of course, there are folks like me. A simple shovel can do bodily harm when wielded by a non-gardening person. Better yet, arm a non-gardening person with a shovel and you may witness the demise of your garden. Fire ants like gardens. Fire ants like to bite people. They especially like to bite non-gardening people who are holding shovels. You can hear the whole colony laughing at the shovel flinging, bit person, trying to extract revenge on a clod of earth mistaken for an ant mound. It is embarrassing. As luck would have it, enjoying the benefits of the outdoors while gardening is not limited to fire ants. Wasp, hornets, and other ferocious looking and sounding stinging critters also like to spend time in the garden. The shovel toting person WILL encounter them. The results can be painful. The more you swat with the shovel, the braver the critters become and more determined to leave their mark. You WILL lose. Lets not forget the slithering things that never go bump in the night but seem to always be curled up where you are about to put your foot. Depending on your intolerance, these critters can cause immediate levitation abilities that instantly vanish when the critter is directly underneath you. The results are harmful to ones joints, draws immediate attention from every neighbor with 3 miles, and will be talked about for years to come. The trouble with gardens is, only gardeners should have them.