Ready, Aim, Plant!

            Hold onto your holsters, folks.  I have another brilliant idea.  Remember the last one?  I suggested putting Beano in dog food and tell me that would not make someone into an instant millionaire. (See that post here: http://bit.ly/12zTJzm)

            Well, now I have another one.  Bob says I think so far outside the box that I can’t even see the box,

but I choose to take that as a compliment (and you should do this with all evaluations, positive or negative). 

            First you must remember that the land in Rocklin, where I live,  is a former granite quarry and hard to plant.  Literally.  I have a slope in my back yard that you can pound all day with a garden spade and not even make a dent.  Except in the spade.

 

            So two days ago we’re driving along and I see a police car.  “Hey, flip a U-ee and go back there!” I shout.  “I have a question for that cop!”

            “Oh, I can only imagine the outcome of that conversation,” Bob says, refusing to go back.  “Is this one of your hare-brained schemes?”

            “Why do you assume the worst?” I ask.  “I have a fantastic idea I want to run by him.”

            Bob insists I tell him the idea before he will go back.  Fine.  I tell him I want to know if a person can make their own bullets, and if so, can I stuff them with seeds and shoot them into the slope in our back yard.  And also can I buy a silencer so as not to alarm the neighbors. 

            “You want to shoot seeds out of a gun?” Bob refuses to go back.  Total party pooper. 

I call my eldest son, Richie, because he cannot see the box, either.  He tells me it is perfectly legal to make bullets, but that firing them might denaturize the proteins in the seeds, because of the heat.

            “What heat?” I ask.

            “Well, the gun powder ignites and heats the bullet.”

            “What? Are you telling me that when someone gets shot they also get burned by the hot bullet?”

            “Well,” he says, “that’s usually a secondary concern.”  

            Maybe so, but it is never mentioned on the cop shows I watch.  Richie recommends a pellet gun or an Airsoft BB gun that would not only keep from cooking the seeds, but would not require a silencer, either. And, from close range, would sink the pellets about an inch into the ground.

            I figure I can buy empty medicine capsules online somewhere, fill them with seeds and a pinch of fertilizer, and have that whole hillside planted in 15 minutes.  I won’t even get my hands dirty!  Suddenly kneeling down and digging with a spade seems so archaic, right?

            Now my wheels are turning and I cannot fathom why some enterprising person has not come up with Planting Pellets filled with jasmine, vinca, rosemary, spearmint seeds, whatever groundcover you choose

—or vegetables, for that matter. 

 

         Perfect for rock-hard soil that takes a jackhammer to penetrate (I’m not making this up; this is how we planted a tree).  You package up the gun in a bright yellow box, let’s say, then put “seed pellets sold separately” on the cover.  And then you sell dozens of little packets of 15 pellets for every plant that has a small enough seed. Acorns would obviously not be under consideration.  If you want to take this idea and run with it, be my guest.  I will be your best customer.

            Until then, I’m going to check out those BB guns at the local Big Box stores.  At least that’s a box I can see.

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