Last year, we planted butternut squash at the lower end of the garden. It started to migrate south. Then this summer we put up a fence to keep out the deer. The squash simply ignored the fence with new long plants sprouting up beyond the borders. Then suddenly last month, they shot into the compost pile, then up and across the top, and, no doubt inspired by the rich nutrition they found there, are now moving towards the orchards across the way.

Being a child raised on the streets of Philadelphia, every time I look at them I laugh as they overtake my landscape and think of Bill Cosby’s routine about the Chicken Heart that ate up New York City.