Though They Were Dead
S everal years ago, I bought a cantaloupe. It was juicy and sweet, so I saved the seeds. I planted a few, with some success, but most went into a plastic bag and the bag went into the freezer. A decade passed, as they do, and I found that I had not only a bag full of those seeds, but a bag of acorn squash seeds and several small packets of seeds of various kinds that I had collected over the years. Because they were so old, I didn’t expect any of them to grow and they were just taking up space, so I dumped them—some in the garden and some in the compost pile. It was hundreds of seeds. They came up. Not all of them or even most of them, but I looked the other day and I have young cantaloupe and squash plants growing. I would say I have about twenty-five or so. Seeds amaze me. If you’re looking for a miracle, look at seeds. They can lie there looking dead for many years. So much water passes under the bridge. Life happens. The world changes. And then, you drop them on the ground and le...