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Green Things Flower Farm

By Lydia Seales-Fuller

By Lydia Seales-Fuller Published 3 years ago 5 min read
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Green Things Flower Farm
Photo by Léonard Cotte on Unsplash

Eunice was becoming desperate. If this continued, her hard-earned reputation as a reliable supplier of flowers would be ruined. This was the second wedding/party decorator she had failed to deliver all the required flowers to.

This occasion was embarrassing for three reasons. She had gone to school with the decorator’s older brother, and he was now a big wig lawyer in New York City. She was sure Camille; the disappointed decorator would be on the phone soon, reporting Eunice’s failings to her older brother and her friends. She could just imagine the conversation.

The second reason was that her business was widely publicized as always satisfying the customers’ dreams. Currently, she was the one having business nightmares. This had to stop. It was the middle of summer, all the animals that destroy gardens and eat flowers were prolific. They were accompanied by their growing babies and storming through Green Things, her 15-acre flower farm, the largest of her three farms. This was the farm she had much controversy with her mother about. Her mom, Clarice, was the previous owner of the business. She bought it from her fully three years ago. However, Clarice seems to constantly forget that the business had an established knowledgeable owner.

She made daily tours, passed down instructions to the resident farmers and the workers on the three farms. Eunice and her team held meetings with Clarice and the farmers to introduce them to the new voices they should listen to and who they should accept instructions from. Old habits die hard therefore, Clarice was still instructing the farmers and they were still listening to her.

Early spring, she told the resident farmers that they would be putting up fencing. The reasoning behind the fencing was plain. Keep out rabbits. In the area, rabbits were the most menacing creatures for a flower farm. There were no fences, and this was the middle of summer. She was willing to find new farmers at this rate. They had to listen to her, or they would be out of their livings. These men were with the farm from the very beginning. Just as she did not ask them to keep using the old manual plows and they were grateful to use tractors and airborne fertilizers so too they had to use her modern ideas. What did they have against fences?

By Muhammad Mukhlis on Unsplash

The previous owner had a different philosophy. She believed that marigolds and a lettuce bed would keep the rabbits from coming at the flowers. She hated fences.

You see the flower farms were also used by many brides as their wedding venue. Fencing made it less beautiful. According to Clarice.

The brides of Clarice’s era loved wide open spaces without fences. The brides of Eunice’s era did not care if there were fences. They instructed the photographers to edit out the fences in the photos. These modern girls were more interested that they got more flowers without rabbit teeth marks.

The farmers wives told Eunice’s assistant Parvati, in strict confidence, that when their husbands shot the rabbits and brought them home for stew, they swore that the meat tasted better for the floral diet of the rabbits. The rabbits that survived on random bushes did not taste as delicious. That was not for Eunice’s ears. She felt about rabbits the same way a restaurateur felt about mice.

Now Clarice was not ready to retire when she handed the farm over, but she had a stroke, and her husband had a heart attack during the time she was recovering. This frightened her very much and it caused her to hand over the reins at a hefty price to her daughter.

Clarice promised to be very busy healing and caring for her beloved husband Anton. She swore she would not interfere. Yet, she was at Green Things so often she needed an employee badge.

During the time she was owner, she told her farmers to plant a section of the farm with lettuce and to surround the flowers with marigolds. She was confident that lettuce would fill up the rabbits and they would not bother her flowers. If there was a greedy bunny or two, the marigolds would deter them from foraging into the flower beds.

Clarice did not calculate correctly because each year the rabbit families would be larger than the previous year. This meant the lettuce beds were never adequate for them. Multiple times even the marigolds would be eaten.

By J K on Unsplash

She always seemed shocked when this was reported. It is true that some agricultural sources state marigolds are deterrents to rabbits and other garden monsters, but this is not always the case.

The bunnies who rampage at Green Things seems to love marigolds or totally ignore them. Clarice, after all these years was still in denial.

The third reason why Eunice was horrified by this failure was a loan she had taken out from the bank. She was due to make a payment and the business with the decorator was to provide her with the funds for the payment. How was she going to deal with that now?

She had an Amish friend whose honeybees were allowed to use her flower farms. He had promised her to help with the fencing. He made sense. He told her how high the fence was to be, and he told her to be sure to bend at least 14 inches of the fence top outwards on a slant. This would prevent jump overs.

At the bottom of the fence, she was to dig a trench of about 8 - 10 inches wide and 1 – 2 feet deep. Lay the bottom of the fence in the trench to an outward L shape to keep the bunny from digging under the fence. Then fill in. The fence should be made of chicken wire to prevent desperate chewing of the fence. The rabbits would not be able to jump over nor dig under and she would have a well needed and deserved bountiful flower crop.

She had already called Mr. Henkel, her Amish friend. Yesterday, he had measured all the farms and he knew how much wire was needed. They were heading to the hardware store for posts and the wire. Sunday was the last day Mr. Cottontail and his voracious, large family, made a meal of her beautiful award-winning flowers.

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