Tonight, in my routine evening visit to my experimental quarantine garden, I had a few completely normal and average interactions. I left the spider with its masterfully constructed web on the far side of the tomatoes alone so she could catch the flying things. I saw a rarely seen shiny insect just minding his own business. Upon closer inspection, I confirmed it was indeed a young cockroach, and I squashed it a bit mercilessly. I flicked the pill bugs off the cucumber leaves and back into the dirt to do their decomposer jobs. I pondered over what has been eating holes through my basil leaves, as I have not seen any caterpillars and I can never catch the culprit. I picked up several snails and relocated them to the open-air compost pile where they could eat last night’s leftovers and help break down the compost at the same time. Win-win for everyone. Well, except the cockroach. Sorry bub, your species and mine have a long rivalry.
While contemplating if I should sprinkle some diatomaceous earth around the basil since I can’t figure out what is attacking it, I was struck with just how appropriate the whole garden was to an analogy of life, and “the world”, and I thought it was so natural to turn the whole concept into a children’s book series to teach life lessons. While the stray cat who adopted us as her humans stared at me, I laughed out loud, and it probably looked like for no reason.
I had just realized “Ms. Crow” was visiting Miss Spider’s Sunny Patch.
I am certainly not the first to think about turning a garden into a setting for a children’s book or bring that thought to fruition. Maybe David Kirk, the author of the Miss Spider children’s books, could bring his Tea Party to my backyard! Of course, I would want to invite the Library Mouse to the party, and could only hope Daniel Kirk would agree to set the sibling rivalry aside and join in. I am sure Peter, Mopsy, and Flopsy Rabbit would join us since their mother was always serving tea. Worm would surely stop writing in his diary to come play with friends. Maybe if we invited The Very Hungry Caterpillar he could tell his buddy to stop eating my basil. I realized I could create my own characters and introduce my kiddo to so many old friends, and they could all live in harmony in our imaginations. 
And while we learn legitimate standards-based education topics, these characters could help us discuss the world – all of it – like the happy in the glistening dew on the web, the sad like the attacked basil, and the tough to justify… like the squished cockroach. The possibilities to mix the outdoors, gardening, books, and enriching children’s lives are just about endless.
Featured resources:
SA Library’s Online magazine collection –
Green Living and Sustainability Libguide from mysapl.org: https://guides.mysapl.org/green
Get further outside and venture into the forest, even if just on social media…https://twitter.com/DiscoverForest
Krowework by Ms. Crowe 