The Yard: Hazards of Collecting

Wherever I go, I am always sure to bring my secatuers along. If it was only more portable, I’d proabably bring a spade too. You never know when you will come across a plant for the garden. Institutional grounds are the best places to go, since they tend to have cultivated varities, and noone would miss a little cutting here or there. When I say cutting, I don’t mean chopping a tree down, I just mean clipping a twig or two off a shrub or tree. With a pair of hand pruners, there is absolutely no harm done.

Still, you have to be careful. Back in Michigan, my father had the cops called on him for digging a few volunteer Scotch pine seedlings out of a drainage ditch, underneath a power line on a public right-of-way. Anyone who stopped to think about it would know that within a few years’ time, right-of-way clearance crews would come down the line and cut down every last one of them. Yet, some watchful citizen, without bothering to come out of his house to ask what was going on, called the police on his neighbor. And the policeman was just as dense, chasing my father away, and warning him not to do it again. So, I know to be careful.

To make a short story long, a little while ago, when I found myself on Telekom grounds with a little time to spare, I strolled around, surreptitiously taking some cuttings of Mussaenda and Hibiscus when a watchgaurd barked at me (in Malay), “Hey, you there! What are you doing?” “Oh nothing sir, just taking a few cuttings for my garden.” “You can’t take cuttings like that”, he said in the same gruff voice, “those are ridiculously small (kecik gilak)! They’ll take forever to grow! Give me those clippers. Here, ah, macam ni haa! That’s how you do it!” He cut off a stout branch about three feet long, pruned it a bit and handed it to me. Then he spun around and marched back toward his booth.

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You’re currently reading “The Yard: Hazards of Collecting,” an entry on Bin Gregory Productions

Published:: 04.19.04 / 9am

Category:: Land

Briefly

The Spiritual Aspirant: Sidi Khalil Moore will be in Singapore conducting a workshop for The Spiritual Aspirant, to be held 27 June to 5 July. I had the pleasure to hear Sidi Khalil speak in Detroit back in 2002 in conjunction with the US tour of Habib Ali Al-Jifri. I regret I won't be able to make the short trip across the South China Sea to attend, but I recommend it to anyone in the area. The workshop is being sponsored by Simply Islam, under the capable hands of some of the fine people who put on the Journey to Ihsan event a couple years ago, which I did attend and enjoyed immensely.

Collapse Preparedness: The transition from the USSR to the republic of Russia was a catastrophic event for the people who lived through it. The eventual (imminent?) collapse of the US will be much much worse, warns Dmitry Orlov. The USA has a Collapse Gap. Orlov realizes

that some people will react rather badly to having their country compared to the USSR. I would like to assure you that the Soviet people would have reacted similarly, had the United States collapsed first. Feelings aside, here are two 20th century superpowers, who wanted more or less the same things – things like technological progress, economic growth, full employment, and world domination – but they disagreed about the methods. And they obtained similar results – each had a good run, intimidated the whole planet, and kept the other scared. Each eventually went bankrupt.

Valuable lessons on what to expect and how to prepare follow. Read it yourself, but the condensed advice is this: Live on the margins of society. One encouraging sign that Americans are picking up the skills they will need to survive: haggling at the mall.

Brass Crescent: Nominations are open for the annual Brass Crescent blog awards organized by AltMuslim and City of Brass. Hurry on down and nominate your favorites. There's even a brand new category for Best South/Southeast Asia Blog! *cough cough*