Wishing I Could Put a Rat Excluder Down the Very Center of My Life

These are rat excluders. They were made by DeKalb County Extension Services based on a design by the garden expert, Walter Reeves. A woman named Bobbi, who is a member of the City of Dunwoody Sustainability Commission, sold them to me at our monthly meeting this past week. You put one in the middle of your compost pile, surrounded by leaves, twigs, and old garden debris. Then, you lift out the black plastic planter, deposit food scraps into the cage, replace the planter and there you have it! Apparently the rats don't like the metal. I'm testing one in my yard and one at the community garden.

I threw one in the car and drove in the pouring rain to the garden (five weeks old today!) to meet with Dennis Lang, a partner/owner of 5 Seasons Brewing Company, along with several board and garden members. Dennis offered to bring us a ton of spent grain (used in the beermaking process) per week for a compost pile, plus he would honor one night a month at the brewpub as Dunwoody Community Garden Night and give 10% of receipts from those who identify themselves as garden supporters to the garden. He'll also do a class on beermaking at the brewpub for garden members so we can see the whole process and appreciate how that glass of Belgian Wit helps our garden grow. A good relationship, if you ask me.

After the meeting, I took out the rat excluder and got to thinking about Dennis and the community garden members. About the folks who were putting in the first organic school veggie garden later that day at the school my children used to attend (and yes, I brought them there to see it happen, after all these years of advocating for it, and yes, Farmer D was involved). And about three other members of the Sustainability Commission:

* Tom, who is working on extending a Safe Routes to School program from one school to all schools in our city.

* Mitch, who is arranging to have bike racks fabricated locally from regional steel for businesses to sponsor around the city (we don't even have a bike rack at City Hall and Mitch therefore drags his bike into our meetings).

* Debbie, whose adorable Idbids sustainable toy company has teamed up with The Nature Conservancy and will soon be in REI stores nationwide.

And about all the other positive, can-do people I have somehow been fortunate to meet lately who are working day in, day out to make a measurable difference.

And then I thought of all the barriers I keep hitting. All the naysayers who will kill any whiff of wonderful possibility they smell. All the issues for which I have to advocate year in, year out (especially at the start of school--yes, the children need guaranteed daily recess; yes, the arts are important; no, my child is not for sale to companies like fast food restaurants and Coca Cola that want to capture yet more youth market share by calling it a "partnership for education"; no, a community with carpool lines that extend for blocks is not normal . . .)

And I got to wishing that I could put a rat excluder down the very center of my life and put all the people who believe in the power of positive change in the cage and protect them from those whose analysis paralysis serves to drive innovative thinkers away.

But then I wondered. Perhaps these people don't need that protection. In fact, perhaps the constant destruction from the rats keeps them going. Perhaps the rats of negativity have a purpose.

What about me? Do I need to be in a rat excluder? Or do the rats have a purpose on my journey, too? Should I, somehow, learn to embrace the rats?

Wishing I Could Put a Rat Excluder Down the Very Center of My Life