Reasons to use a human-powered lawnmower

Why I love human-powered lawnmowers -

• Free exercise
• No unpleasant internal-combustion exhaust fumes
  
• You can mow in early a.m. without irking your neighbors
• and finally...the rote work of it is, somehow, ideal for facilitating rumination (of the cognitive variety, if you lack livestock; or of both types, if you've got them.)
  
  Update: Yow - I had no idea. It turns out that rumination, of the psychological variety, means chewing over upsetting experiences; I'd thought it just meant sifting for pattern & understanding.
  (Which it also does: "to meditate or muse; ponder." (link))
  

Fine old NYTimes story on Amigo Bob Cantisano, Peaceful Valley Farm Supply founder; and Felix Gillet

Amigo Cantisano's Organic Dream, by Verlyn Klinkenborg, from March 1996.

"... So I became a test plot," Amigo says -- a metaphor that describes his working life almost perfectly. ...

Disturbing moments in horticulture

If your tomato plant seems to be....shrinking...and growing sparser by the day, it might not be your imagination, and it might not be due to poor plant health.

But who ever heard of squirrels eating tomato leaves?