Pretty Little Things

I take so many more photos than I ever post.

This little bastard helped themself to multiple pears on our tree.

It’s actually ok, because we’ve never gotten the timing right to eat one of these bad boys when they’re actually edible, so at least SOMEbody can enjoy them.

Parsnip and beet leaves from my garden. I dug my finger around the top of my largest parsnips’ root, unearthing the cap where the leaves connect to the body of this vegetable, and they were sufficiently wide so I pulled them up for dinner.

😒

The leaves make a nice bouquet, at least.

There is a party favor yellow paper bag that has traveled around various shelves in my home office for the last couple months. At some point I wrote a now-unfathomable note to myself on it but the reason the bag is important is because that’s where I’ve been storing my left over poppy seed pods.

Harvesting poppy seeds isn’t hard but it does take all of my focus. The pod cases don’t always split apart when I twist them so I have to use the tip of my fine scissors or tweezers to slice through the remaining materiel to expose the hard round pellets lined up inside.

Sometimes the seeds are exposed enough that all it takes is me running my finger down the length of them to dislodge them and rain down onto my landing paper below. When they need some more encouragement, I use a small twig or the tweezers again to fit inside the pod’s open space, bumping out the reluctant seeds as I swipe downwards. Then there is the collecting of the seeds, separating out the plant detritus, and depositing them into a container to reach for next planting season.

It’s satisfying and all-consuming and it keeps me from looking at the election news.

We did eat those tiny little turnips last night, along with a backyard beet and the last of my garden potatoes and carrots, with some assorted veg from the grocery stall at the bottom of the hill. Matt topped off the roast with lemon juice straight from Lemony Snicket, our potted lemon tree.

It sounds pretty idyllic when I put it in a blog post and I guess it is.

I’ve been making an effort to practice the skills I learned in the mental health program at the hospital last year. I think it’s helping.

I hope you’re doing as well as you are able to right now. We all just gotta make it through one day at a time, eh?