Haiku Friday

The meadow trail ends
on the north end of the bridge;
far from the parked car.

Dr. Earth

The first gift the cute guy gave me was a small box of four rocks he'd collected on a road trip. He wrapped the box with a remnant of ribbon and I carried the rocks in various pockets for years. Twig nests, a worm bin and garden stones have followed but in the last few weeks he's outdone himself.

First he cut and surprised with me an armload of green cattails, five feet tall, that are curling and turning, drying their flat green leaves in a fat glass vase. They are the perfect back drop for the new library book of poetry, Red Bird by Mary Oliver, her voice familiar and strong. And I love that as much as I love the weathering weeds in the corner of the room.

Then the cute guy uncovered an abandoned wasps nest made of tissuey layers of mud in forty shades of gray. It didn't make it home in one piece but he gifted me with what remained of the hidden hive. The cone shaped walls are still in the center of the kitchen table.

The last gift is the one I can't stop talking about. He bought dirt for the pots on the back deck. Not just nursery dirt on sale either. He bought Dr. Earth potting soil. I'd never heard of it and thought he might have gotten take for a ride when he told me the price. But now, now I'm a recruit. Dr. Earth is the best potting soil I've ever had. I mixed it 60/40 with the old dirt, planted tomatillos, peppers and a black cherry tomato. And every day the plants grow an inch. In every direction.

And every day I tell the cute guy what an amazing find he made. "I don't know how you'll ever top this," I tell him tucking chubby stems of leaves into their growing cages.

But I know he will.

Haiku Friday

Reading on the bus
I look up at the first stop.
The weeds have been mown.

The Takeout Queen

I have intelligent friends. The Takeout Queen is high on the list; educated, traveled, driven. A top shelf friend. But sometimes, well, sometimes she surprises me.

"I brought plastic to go containers," she says. "I need to get rid of them. They keep stacking up."

"I'll use a couple," someone replies.

"Take more. I have too many."

"Do you reuse them?" I ask.

"Yeah, I brought them so people could use them."

"I mean do you take them back to the store and reuse them." There's a pause. A pinkening of cheeks. She starts to say something. A half smile appears.

"I can do that?"

"Of course," I tell her. "Just act like you do it all the time."

"Oh." Her smile is on both sides of her red face. "I never thought of that."

She turns around. "Don't take all of the containers," she says into the kitchen. "I want to reuse them at the store."

That's my friend, I think, and I'm smiling too.

Haiku Friday

A handful of mint
pressed into the honey jar,
not a bee in sight.

Local Food Testimonial #1

It was dainty how he picked a single leaf from his plate, between thumb and forefinger. Held it out the way people do when they're far from home. "What is this?" he asked.

"Arugula."

"Arugula," he repeated as if explaining something to himself. He looked at it from all sides. "Do they do something to it?"

"It's local," his sister answered. "Fresh."

He studied it again but this time more intently. I started studying it too, wanting it to be special.

Then he put the leaf in his mouth shaking his head.

"It's good," he finished and reached with his fork for more.

Haiku Friday

The neighbors tree is
full of little green apples,
waiting to turn red.