I feel bad to be shedding tears over this when there is so much truly wrong in the world, but I admit, I have cried over this. Big fat messy tears.

I have wondered if I can ever garden this piece of land again, if my loved-to-distraction gardens, the very basis of my contribution to this website, is finished.

Even if no PCBs are detected in the transformer oil, no matter what amount of industrial oil of whatever kind was rained down on my home and yard, it isn’t what I want in my food, the food I put on my children’s plates.

No one I have talked to about this incident has had any idea there are gallons of industrial oil in transformers. We don’t think about them, except when they fail and we have power outages. Did you know they’re full of oil? Did you know they can catch on fire, throw large pieces of metal into your yard? Look out into your yard and see if you can see the closest transformer. Is there anything in its proximity that you don’t want covered in a layer of fossil fuel? Do you have thunderstorms where you live and lightning that strikes tall things? If you answered yes to those last two questions, then you might want to start thinking about this issue.

Is there anything in your yard you don’t want this landing on after it has been blown into the air by an explosion?

IMG_2090How about wildlife? Do you love wildlife? One of my children who loves birds stood at the window yesterday as we “visited” our own house (I’ve moved us out temporarily while we figure out what is going on) and watched one of her beloved robins eat a worm from the contaminated area. “Is the bird going to get sick from eating those worms?” she asked.

This happened Sunday, today is Wednesday and some of the worst-hit strawberry leaves and the leaves of my Calycanthus floridus are turning belly up and turning brown:

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And just to torture myself, here’s a sample of what we won’t be eating:

IMG_2110 IMG_2113 IMG_2115I’m also afraid to eat the beautiful lettuce.

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Or spinach.IMG_2117I’m not eating anything from the garden right now. And I really, really, really miss it.

I think we all need to think about what we would miss if our transformers explode.