This summer, my wife and I dug up the grass in our front lawn, pulling away the sod to expose bare earth. In September, I built three long juniperwood boxes, and we filled them with new soil. In October, I planted garlic in a grid in one of the beds; the next day, I found one of our resident squirrels had dug up several of the cloves. Squirrels don’t like garlic, so each clove had been tossed aside next to a fresh four-inch hole. I reburied the cloves, only to find them unburied again the next morning. Now my garden bed is covered in metal mesh—a garlic prison—and the digging has stopped.
I suppose there’s a lesson here about how some people are driven to unearth anything hidden, while others will go to great lengths to keep what’s buried in its place. The garlic will emerge in its time and, if I get the cage out of the way in time, bloom.
In this issue you’ll find Oregon writers exploring things hidden or buried, for better or worse: subcultures and political currents
and stories and plants and pollutants. Dig in: I hope you find something in these pages to treasure.
Ben Waterhouse is the communications director for Oregon Humanities and editor of Oregon Humanities magazine.
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