“For all stories rest in part on unraveling small encryptions of the ordinary.” – Ted Leeson, “Inventing Montana”

What do late-season tomatoes, planting food plots for deer and an abundance of army worms have in common with the writings of the beat poet and Buddhist Gary Snyder?

Nothing and everything are the answers that come to mind, now that I pose the question on paper, and those answers seem both very beat and very Buddhist.

However, the truth is that the former three had me thinking about the words of the latter while working and enjoying the beautiful fall weather this past weekend.

During a tailgate lunch break while working in the woods Saturday, I stretched out in the bed of my truck for a few minutes and let the leaf-filtered beams of the sun wash over me as I listened to the voices of the birds. They seemed to be enjoying the weather as well and, as such, were quite vocal.

Lying there, I clicked on my Merlin Bird app and tried to see how many birds I could accurately identify from their songs. Clearly, I still have work to do if I want to earn the title of “birder,” but I felt good enough to award myself at least “intermediate birder” status.

In his essay “On the Path, Off the Trail,” Snyder writes that, “the truly experienced person, the refined person, delights in the ordinary.”

When that “ordinary” involves listening to an avian symphony in surround sound while prepping for deer season, I couldn’t agree more. I’ve always been amazed by the beautiful and diverse sounds of birdsong when I take the time to slow down, tune in, and listen.

I spent the weekend clearing lanes, cleaning out and repairing hunting blinds, filling feeders and replenishing mineral sites in preparation for deer season. Without a doubt, I found plenty of “delight in the ordinary,” and I have the sore muscles to prove it.

So, how, and where, do the tomatoes, army worms and food plots factor into this discussion? It all starts with my love for homegrown tomatoes. Fresh tomatoes are a summer staple at the Dye house and, in an effort to stretch the taste of summer into fall, I planted a second round this year.

I’m not sure which variety I planted for round two. When I went to my local garden center to procure the plants, I found only three sad specimens remaining, all sans tags. The trio was reminiscent of Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree. They looked tired, but they were my only options.

When I took them, along with a few pepper plants, inside to check out, the owner refused to charge me for them. He seemed less than hopeful about my endeavor; however, I was undeterred as, much like Charlie Brown, I saw them for what they could be rather than what they were.

A little TLC, manure-rich soil, and rainwater soon brought the vines back into the land of the living, and I was well on my way to fresh BLT sandwiches in October. Everything looked great, until the army worms appeared.

I’ve had multiple reports this year from friends whose yards have been eaten by the worrisome worms, which seems like even more reason to ditch the mowed lawn for native grasses and trees.

However, it seems that lawns have not been the only targets for the cravings of these caterpillars. I’ve also seen much “weeping and gnashing of teeth” on social media posts lamenting the loss of food plots to the hungry hordes.

While working on a blind in what we call the Big Field on Saturday, I thought about the aforementioned pictures of so many replanting their wildlife plots. Would native plants and grasses be more resistant to army worms? Would they provide similar benefits for wildlife like deer and turkeys?

As it turns out, natives check both of those boxes through a combination of various ways including coevolution with local insects and building biodiversity into the local ecosystem.

It has become abundantly clear to me with each passing day on this land that nature does an amazing job without us. The question for me thus becomes how do I work in concert with that natural plan?

Snyder speaks to this in his essay “Good, Wild, Sacred.” In his words, “Doing horticulture, agriculture, or forestry with the grain rather than against it would be in the human interest and not just for the long run.”

He goes on to say that “to cause a land to be productive according to our own notion is not evil. But we must ask: what does mother nature do best when left to her own long strategies?”

Sadly, army worms also eat tomatoes and tomato plants. By the time that I discovered the infestation, much of the damage had already been done. I plucked them off by the handfuls and then discovered something else—ducks love army worms. Ah, the yin and yang of life on the farm.

Hopefully, we’ve got enough tomatoes left for at least one October BLT. Until next time, here’s to the wonders of the natural world, to working “with the grain” of nature, and here’s to seeing you out there in our great outdoors.