This was my first year in many that I had a large garden. I was hoping to feed my family of four through my plantings. However The Dreaded Blight hit my tomatoes and something got into my cucumbers! Still though I had one great crop. Potatoes!! Just your ordinary everyday white tubers ( most were brown skinned but a few have green skins thanks to the Sun)! We planted about 50 lbs of seed potatoes... is it necessary to buy seed potatoes... that's for a later posting. From that early spring planting I'm guessing that I've dug out over 1,000 lbs! Not a bad crop for a beginner!

As I was digging out the last potatoes yesterday I was watching my daughter's dog ( an Alaskan Malamute) watching me. I rarely speak to this animal, I'm not an animal lover unless it's on my plate, still I looked the dog in the eye and remarked that he most think humans are a strange creature because we bury our food only to dig it up later. Then I realized hey wait! Dogs do that.. they bury their bones and dig them up later to gnaw at will, then it hit me that squirrels do the same thing, they gather acorns, seeds and nuts , bury them then go back for them when winter hits. What a revelation! We are not so different from animals after all! I'm sure there are lots of other examples of animals and creatures who bury their foods too.

So what I've learned from my garden is that we are animals after all! I guess the difference is that we do plant seeds knowing that food will hopefully grow from them, and animals just gather what they can.