Walking through the aisle of my hardware store today, I came across something that really made me stop and think.

The photo above looks simple enough; A cute, cottage garden ornament that grandma would have in her neat vegetable garden. For some reason I could not help but think of the impact something so simple would have on the garden.

A sign that marks, 'Here is the place that carrots go!!!' encourages a monoculture pattern in the garden, or at least encourages the human interpretation of order in a garden. This is far from what I have observed in the natural world.

Am I reading too much into this? Perhaps. Yet as I strive to live off the land and observe patterns in nature, the way I see the world has started to change.