Evergreen grain trees.

Grain as fruit. Did you never think about that? I hadn’t. Until a picture from Bing’s wallpaper took me on a trail that that lead up the highest winding road there is. It’s named after a Swiss saint, whose name I shall not publish because it will offend Bruce Willis.

Tremola San Gottardo is the road. Does it have the ride hailing company Ola? Check. Is it not ebbing like Ebola? Check. If you follow the life of the saint, it leads you to a tiny village in Bavaria that looks like God’s own country. The air seems so clean and fresh, the houses beautiful and not a cloud in the sky. There is farmland all around. And that got me to thinking, if we didn’t harvest the plants - chop them down every season only to regrow them the next year - what would agriculture look like? The trees around the village are either evergreen or they lose leaves in the fall onto to regain them in the Spring. A form of cyclic dormancy or hibernation. The plants for harvest are typically not either of those. Because of thousands of years mankind has decided on what farming means without any significant change. Wheat, barley, rice, amaranth etc. Pigs, chicken, cows, etc.

Hear me out though. What if we had trees that gave us grain similar to trees that yield edible fruit? The plant survives, we survive and we plant more grain trees. Guilt free grain might be healthier than the GMO grain we consume that survives Round Em’ Up weedkiller. Of all the possibilities of gene editing there are some that could truly change all human endeavors. No need to till the land every year and deplete it constantly of its nutrients, no need to replant the same seeds in the same patch, no need to spray fertilizer, or weed killers, no need to then harvest the entire plant.

It’s worth pondering a different life.

The beer might taste better. We will never know until we cry.

The Closed Eating Area

L’anime de animal