Vodka bottles and pregnancy tests

Last week, I complained about how iguanas had invaded my garden.

This weekend, my garden suffered through another species of pest.

I went to my garden early this morning to do some post-weekend maintenance. I expected to find a few more weeds, maybe some cucumber plants smashed or some bugs on my bean plants.

Instead, I found rocks strewn across the tomato bed, alcohol bottles tossed about, and a used pregnancy (rest assured, it was negative).

Here is my best guess of what happened.

Some young people from the neighborhood were looking for a discrete place to take a pregnancy test. They realized that nursery is empty, and nobody would disturb them. They took the test and saw it was negative - and were very happy.

So they decided to drink. Then they noticed the plastic bottles I had left in the plant beds to try out a new irrigation strategy (I filled the bottles Friday afternoon and placed them upside down in the soil next to the plants. That way I wouldn´t have to come into the garden to water over the weekend.) They also saw a pile of rocks and thought it would be a great idea to see if they could, while inebriated, throw these rocks at the bottles.

A little bit of target practice. But seeing as they were drunk and their aim was a bit off (Beer pong doesn´t exist down here yet, so they have limited experience trying to balance the effects of alcohol and some sort of activity that requires precision.), they missed the bottles, and the rocks landed on my tomato plants.

I placed the watering bottles near the plants that I wanted to care for the most. And because only four tomato plants survived the transplantation, I would probably take a bullet for one of them.

Oh, well. I like to think of my garden as fighter - that that don´t kill it can only make it stronger, right? With my photos, I´ll put together a montage, make a slideshow with the Rocky IV music, and destroy anything that tries to get in my garden´s path.

That is one possible step I can take. But there are some other more practical ones I could take. I could put a sign up in the garden that says this is a garden and not a garbage dump, but I think that would only encourage more garbage. I could make a sign about the pregnancy test, but that might encourage more youth pregnancies and unprotected sex.

If you have any ideas, let me know.

Iguanas last week. Pregnancy tests and vodka bottles this week. Who knows what I´ll have next weekend? I´m excited to find out. I´m praying for tranquility.