It Was a Dark and Stormy Day

Okay so July is almost over. We have been living off the garden: broccoli, zucchini, tomatoes, peas, beans, greens, onions, peppers, potatoes. OH! The potatoes! This is the first year I have grown them and they make me feel like a kid again, picking my first pea and opening that perfect pod to find the most adorable round orbs that tasted far too sweet to surrender to the pot for cooking. I am once again full of wonder at the miracle of life.

I love searching just beneath the soil for thier round coolness and then you pull it out and there is this delicious little tuber. "Taters! Po-ta-toes! Don't you know what potatoes are?" asked Sam. A not so exact quote from The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers which comes from one of my favorite parts of the book right before they meet Faramir and go into the wonders of Ithilien. But I digress...

Although the garden isn't normally considered to be part of nature in actuality it is nature that has reached out to us and allowed us to do its work for Her. Tonight our local food cooperative is having its first book club meeting and we are discussing The Anatomy of Desire by Michael Pollan. He makes just that claim using the apples of  Johnny Appleseed, tulips, taters and marijuana as examples. It's a good read and PBS dd a great documentary that is quite memorable. But again, I digress...

Another amazing thing I discovered while finger digging for taters is that getting your hands into the dirt that way results in a natural kind of manicure. Well you DO have to clean dirt out from under your nails, but the skin of your fingers and hands beomes beautifully exfoliated, similar to the pedicure your feet receive from walking on the beach. I am so grateful to the potatoes!

The rain had just started when I came in and started typing. It got very dark and we had quite a downpour for a few minutes and now the sun is out again. This was a well needed rain as we have been experiencing a heat wave for the last few weeks and whenever the rain comes it is very refreshing and the garden (and the potatoes) is very grateful. As am I.

I promise to share stories of the rose breasted grosbeak dad feeding his full sized baby and the raccoons swinging from the bird feeders and--well I guess I just did. Pictures would be nice but I get too engrossed in watching the life play out in front of me. 

Stay well. Love and light to all.