Dug up

Yesterday I went to the backyard to see if I could salvage anything from my garden. Nothing green but dead grape leaves from the above grape arbor lined the garden floor. Dammit, my irrigation must be off again, stupid irrigation, if it's not the soil it's the damn irrigation. Last fall I had the plumpest red tomatoes you would have ever seen, and the fullest squashes ever, this summer: nothing. Nothing even to get tangled on the prong of my spading fork while I carved. I thought as I uncovered a speck of white from under the soil. It seemed like a large white bit of soil, but as I continued to dig it up, it looked more like a soft yellowish white river rock. Then my fork nicked something, something quite heavy since it wouldn't come when I tried to lift it with both hands. I then brought back my fork, dug some more with my hand-spade and tried against to pull it up. This time it came up, the base of a yellowing skull dragged up by the tip of one of its prongs. This mandibleless skull would have scared me, but I noticed right away it wasn't human due to its oval shape. Pulling the rest of the skull out of the soil, however, I soon realized someone who lived here before me made this fenced-off area a pet cemetary. This was perhaps the fifth animal remain I have found burried in the garden soil, a serious waste of a fertile, well-sunlit space. I couldn't help but notice the color of the bones too, a bit more yellowish than normal, making me smack my head in disbelief as I recognized the real problem. Of course, the pH! You see, skulls yellow a lot more when exposed to low pH levels, that's when demineralization occurs at which point discoloration and cavities would inhabit teeth. Summer harvests need a much higher pH than any other season. Cursing myself that I didn't notice the soil problem earlier, the skull looked up to meet my gaze. Its vacant eyes seemed to tell me something else about how I treat my soil.

TM