CHAPTER TWO: We Know What's Best

continued from March 14, 2005

Rank weeds, that every art and care defy,

Reign o'er the land, and rob the blighted rye.

George Crabbe 1754-1832

"It has come to our attention," the letter from the city began. "You need to mow your backyard." Enclosed were a picture of our unmowed grass and a copy of the pertinent city ordinance. The regulation said the grass could not be more than 12-inches high and it defined weeds as anything that was "generally recognized as wild or undesirable plants."

If we did not take care of this matter we could be subject to the "appropriate legal remedy." We had ten days to contact the city if we disagreed with the violation notice. The letter was signed by the Neighborhood Service Specialist--II.

Our first reaction was that the complaint was plainly absurd. What neighbor or neighbors would make such a frivolous complaint? Any halfway-enlightened community would of course understand natural landscaping and the utilization of native plants. We merely had to explain all of this to the city. Of course we'd also be willing to talk to any of the neighbors, once we found out who complained.

We knew these archaic weed laws were being overturned all over the country. They were being buried on weighty constitutional grounds--like free speech and freedom of religion. We'd be able to put this matter to rest once we explained our position.

We have a half-acre of land. The portion of our property that generated the complaint was approximately a tenth of an acre, in the back of the house--which could not be seen from the street--and did not abut any of the neighbor's property. The section of our property we were turning into a natural garden was clearly delineated by a border. Could any reasonable person fail to see what we were doing? We clearly had common sense on our side. Didn't we?

We wrote to the Neighborhood Service Specialist ... Two. Reasonable people can work things out I was certain. All this was included in our letter. Then we waited.

About 100,000 years ago we arrived. That is Homo sapiens, whom we think of as modern humans, appeared. It's unlikely we'd have much in common with our kin, but we would have recognized them as relatives.

Between 50,000 to 100,000 years ago language developed, a huge evolutionary step that set us apart from other species. Disputes still rage as to why or how language came about and whether or not there was an obvious evolutionary advantage. But regardless, we were talking to each other, gossiping, telling secrets, and passing along information to one another.

Another 10,000 to 20,000 years went by and we began colonizing the planet. Now we were building boats and moving to previously uninhabited regions, to the undoubted regret of many other species.

As hunter-gathers we traveled in groups of various sizes, learned to work together when hunting large animals, and through trial and error discovered which plants were edible. Anthropologists and paleontologists tell us that we humans now began our first tentative steps in considering "what it's all about."

Things were beginnings to look pretty good for humans. The planet got a little warmer and the ice started receding. But then quite unexpectedly, perhaps in only a few decades, we were hit by another ice age, some 13,000 years ago. This lasted, according to climate experts, for more than a 1,000 years. Then it swung back again, without a lot of advance notice. It does give one pause, especially when some critics of global warming say any climate change will be slow enough to adapt to. Are you sure about that?

Finally, some 9,000 to 11,000 years ago, another momentous change occurred; we humans settled down and started gardening. Our young couple can now make their historic appearance.

Thorat and Merka possess above-average ambition, curiosity, and intelligence. They'll be part of a profound change in human history--the domestication of wild plants and animals, leading to permanent agricultural settlements, and ultimately culture and "truth."

The Fertile Crescent was the region where plant domestication most likely started. Parts of present-day Israel, Jordan, Syria, Turkey, and Iraq would have been included in this area. Thorat and Merka were born somewhere in southern Iraq.

Our two young ancestors had managed to avoid any serious illness, disease, broken bones, or getting clubbed over the head. Thorat was handsome and broad-shouldered, nearly five-foot tall, an excellent hunter, and well liked by the small village where he lived.

Merka was a woman--if truth be told--the young men of the village dreamed about. She was, however, far too serious-minded for most of them. Today we might call it a gift or natural ability, but Merka possessed an almost uncanny power from an early age to identify edible plants and accumulate knowledge of the plant life around her. In fact she had been "experimenting" with several plants in a small garden beside her parent's hut. She also happened to mention to a close girl friend that she thought Thorat would make an ideal mate.

To digress for a minute, Thorat and Merka nor anyone else in the village likely woke up one day and decided the life of the hunter-gatherer was limiting and agricultural development was the way to go. Like so many changes throughout history, many factors can come into play which cause people to act differently. As Jared Diamond points out in his book Guns, Germs, and Steel, agriculture started in the Fertile Crescent because it was here that the earliest plant domestication took place.

All our crops came originally from wild plants. Thorat and Merka were fortunate in that they lived in an area possessing the perfect weather, where winters were mild and wet and summers were hot and dry. It was also in this part of the world where cereal crops, like wheat and barley, were abundant in the wild and proved to be the easiest to domesticate.

It's also thought that wild game became increasingly scarce in the Fertile Crescent, making the existence of the hunter-gatherer more precarious and less appealing. It is quite possible, as Diamond and others believe, that the beginnings of the first garden came about when hunter-gatherers began plantings a few crops as a way of insuring that some food would be available if game became unavailable. Obviously someone was now thinking beyond the next day or the next week, or for that matter just picking up and moving to another location.

It had taken longer than most because Thorat was naturally shy, but he eventually approached the hut of Merka's parents. He asked if he might visit their daughter from time to time. Merka's father was a decent man but no fool. He had no doubt that Thorat would probably be a good relation, and was likely one of the few men who could deal with his strong-willed daughter. He had, however, observed how Merka's garden was growing and that many of the villagers were coming to her for advice about planting crops.

Only the week before, when the moon was half-full, he negotiated with another villager for some baskets. All he had to give were some chickpeas--which he had plenty of--in order to obtain six sturdy baskets. All in all he thought he'd gotten the better of the deal. But what might happen if his daughter went off with this Thorat? He and his wife were getting older; they had seen close to thirty full seasons. His wife had lost most of her teeth and had a bad back. He could barely lift his right arm above his shoulder and the sharp pains in his stomach were occurring more frequently.

But Merka's mother knew how much her daughter liked Thorat, and she also knew Merka had to start making children soon. After all, Merka had seen nearly fourteen full seasons. Time was running out. Within two weeks Thorat and Merka were together.

Within a year Merka's garden had become the biggest and most productive in the village, and their community had now grown to nearly 200 people. Women were having more children because they didn't have to travel, and there had been a surplus of food for the past three seasons. Thorat and Merka worked full-time in their garden and three other persons worked part-time. In return these three individuals received a portion of the crops.

They started trading with people in a nearby village. There was even talk among some of the most influential members of the community that they should inquire about the other village's success in raising sheep, one of the first animals to be domesticated some 8,000 years ago.

Merka's garden contained all of the earliest legumes such as peas, lentils, and chickpeas. And only recently she had started growing muskmelon. Thorat decided to expand the cultivation of emmer wheat and barley in another area. Five more people arrived to work part-time, in exchange for a share of the crop. And they continued to experiment.

to be continued....