one carrot patch

 Once, there was a group of lease-holders who wished to grow more carrots.  They searched far and wide, and finally decided to lease some land in a country renowned for its hard-working elephants, loose morals, beautiful beaches, and world-class traffic jams. Ostensibly, they wished to grow perfect carrots for the land owner, but in fact, most of this group wished to make lots of money.

So they leased land in a place contrary to the landowner’s manual, and constructed an elaborate carrot patch, again, contrary to the manual.  One of them who professed great love for the manual became the chief caretaker, and a team of caretakers were assembled from all over the world.  Unfortunately, the instructions in the manual regarding hiring of caretakers was not followed, and it soon became evident that even the chief caretaker was not doing what the manual said to do to raise perfect carrots.

Into this background carrot planting began. Seeds were planted, daily they were watered, and many of them grew.  However, the seeds did not produce golden-orange carrots.  Some of them produced some lovely leaves on top, with some symmetrical properties, but when the carrots were dug up and inspected, it was seen that they were mostly blue, with just a hint of orange here and there on them.  This did not seem to concern the chief caretaker much, as he was too worried about how to get more seeds. The other caretakers weren’t too displeased either, as they had been trained in growing blue carrots, and did not bother too much with really studying the landowner’s manual to see for themselves how to grow perfect carrots.

After a few years of this, one of the chief lease-holders decided to personally oversee the carrot patch.  Since a small child, he had been trained in the knowledge of the landowner’s manual. However, he had spent many years getting a training in one of the top blue carrot laboratories, and was a immersed in blue carrot literature and technology.  At this carrot patch tho, he vowed to make perfect carrots for the landowner.  Around the same time, nearly all the caretakers were exchanged for new ones who promised to do their best to understand the manual, and put it into practice to grow perfect carrots.

There were some victories in following the manual.  For example, the manual said not to put any rocks in the fertilizer given to the carrots.  Now rocks were very popular among the people, and even among the carrot seed owners, and it was told by the ones who produced blue carrots that you must give rocks to carrots to make them strong and healthy.  But the landowner’s manual said differently, so no more rocks were given the growing carrots.  Some of the seed owners were upset at this, but most could see the wisdom in this move, and gladly accepted it.

The pernicious practice of many growing blue carrots to not allow sunshine to reach the growing plants was also followed by some in this carrot patch.  But here too, the instructions in the manual were followed more carefully, and in allowing more sunshine to reach the carrots, it was seen that they were growing faster and more symmetrical.

Some of the seed owners would come at nite and try to “beautify” their carrots by spraying their leaves with shiny colors.  Not only did this create jealousy among the other carrots, it hindered the growth of their own carrot!  This habit was nipped by the lease-holder, and no more metallic paint spraying was allowed on any of the carrots.  However, here was seen a major flaw in how the carrot patch was governed.  The rule about “no paint spraying” was only applied to the carrots themselves, and not to the caretakers, among which were some who enjoyed spraying themselves. Of course this confused the carrots, seeing some caretakers bending over them to take off their paint, while others were spraying paint on their own bodies!

The major problem tho, was that sometimes blue coloring agent was put into the fertilizer for the carrots.  The first time it happened unintentionally.  When the problem became apparent, the lease-holder took the coloring agent out of the fertilizer, but was loathe to take it completely off the premises of the carrot patch.  Perhaps there were many reasons for this.  It was true that blue-coloring agent was sometimes very expensive, and it was also very popular among the seed owners.  One caretaker who was a known blue carrot advocate gave all the carrots a large dose of blue coloring agent one day.  Instead of kindly pointing out to that caretaker that this was helping the enemy of the carrots, and doing everything possible to remove the blue coloring from the carrot fertilizer, the lease-holder did nothing.  Instead of following the landowner’s manual 100%, it was plainly seen that the real objective of the lease-holder was to grow mixed carrots – mostly orange, perhaps 99% orange, but in place of the golden hue to signify the perfect carrot, just a little hint of blue would be acceptable.

The caretakers for the most part had learned that the lease-holder was not careful in keeping his promise with the landowner, so they began to break their mutual promises too.  Most of them began to wear things that even blue carrot patch caretakers would not wear. Many of them did not even bother to show up at the carrot patch when they had promised.  Some of them were eager to follow the blue carrot producers’ methods.  Nearly all worked in two or more carrot patches.  One even just up and left the carrot patch, but even this did not elicit any action on the part of the lease-holder.  With no enforcement of the promises, lying and being lied to became the order of the day.

Meanwhile, the lease-holder had hired on two caretakers, both of whom were blue carrot afficiondos.  After some disastrous results, these two had been let go, and there was hope that a new day was dawning for the carrot patch.  Even some of the blue coloring agent was taken care of.  Some of the young, tender carrots had really taken a shine to the fertilizer recommended by the manual, and were thriving on it.

Just then, an action occurred which forever changed this carrot patch.  It had been known for quite a while that there were not enough carrots in the patch to support its upkeep.  The folly of not following the manual at the beginning, and making the patch too elaborate had hit like a ton of bricks.  Something had to happen.  Either a new lease-holder had to be found, or many more new seed owners had to be assembled.  Both hands were tried.  The lease-holder found a new caretaker to focus on finding new seed owners, then took a journey to find a new lease-holder.  Before leaving tho, the lease-holder’s representative was appointed from among the caretakers.  This caretaker was one who was known by all to be a strong supporter of growing carrots according to the manual.

The representative, while knowing that the new caretaker would not be suitable for helping to grow carrots, had not been consulted concerning this hire, yet was now left with dealing with the damage.  The new caretaker quickly showed disdain for the landowner’s manual by quoting from it, then acting directly opposite to what it said.  This caused at least one caretaker to justify looking down on the manual.  The new caretaker showed disdain for the lease-holder too by actions of hate in word and deed to the lease-holder’s representative.  Yet even with all this, the lease-holder could say to the caretakers and even his representative that he was glad “everything is going well”.  At least twice it was seen by the caretakers in the space of one week that the lease-holder, instead of practicing “love one another”, was practicing “lie to one another”. 

The representative, seeing that the lease-holder was not going to follow the landowner’s manual 100%, decided the best thing to do would be to start a new carrot patch from scratch in a new location, and quietly departed.  Among the remaining caretakers who really studied the manual and wished to follow it to grow perfect carrots, they continued in various degrees to impart good fertilizer to the carrots, according to the manual, but it became more and more obvious that their hearts were really for working in a carrot patch where growing 100% golden-orange carrots was the goal of all the lease-holders and caretakers alike.

Will the landowner find any perfectly golden-orange carrots from this patch when he returns?