Day 95

With my long days in the Emergency Command and Control Vehicle, and damp weekends for the last few weeks, the lawn is predictably unmowed. The clover and dandelions are in heaven. In fact, I went out and picked some dandelion blossoms on my lunch break. I had a mind to make dandelion syrup, which I’ve heard called “poor man’s honey.” But the word on the street is you’re supposed to pick out just the outer petals, and they closed up on me before I got back to them this evening. There will be plenty more. I might try again tomorrow.

In the backyard, arugula has become endemic in the garden plot, marching outward into the grass. If I were a more attentive gardener, this would bother me. As it is, it makes me feel like a manly man, that I, like my long-departed ancestors, can go out into the wild environs with a simple blade and single-handedly bring down a feral salad.

The seeds we planted in an uncertain March have become peas—snow peas apparently, which isn’t what we thought we had in the bag, but the seeds were a few years old, and open, so it’s not surprising that things got mixed up. They’re sweet and crisp, excellent for eating right off the vine.

What Pragmatism sowed, Pleasure will reap.

We have strawberries, too. They’re small and lumpy like a boxer’s ear, but they taste fantastic. The neighbor’s giant cherry tree is heavy with thousands upon thousands of young red cherries. The onion we planted when it sprouted in the bag—the one that wilted the moment is tasted soil—is back now, reaching for the sky. The fennel mostly bolted, but that means a treasure of fennel seeds in another few weeks. We even found a volunteer tomato plant dreaming of August.

In isolation, I’ve been mired in today and today and today, but nature has her eye on tomorrow. If she’s to be believed, there might yet be a future worth fruiting for.