Bees live in a phantasmagoric world of shapes and colors and fragrances we can’t fathom. For brief moments, following them buzz around flowers, you can get glimpses of what their world is like. Imagine getting your dinner by sticking your tongue into yellow, orange, and violet tubes big enough to push your whole head inside. Eating off flat plates must seem dull to them.

Grape vines have their own special world. Born as white, fuzzy leaves, they unfold into vast sheets of green. What happens to all that baby fuzz? Is it there to keep them warm? So they don’t taste good? So they don’t burn in the blazing sunlight?

The baby chicks have their mother-centered world. To them, their mothers must be towering, gentle giants. What memories of their mothers do they keep when they grow up? As adults, when they tuck their heads under their feathers to sleep, do they have sweet dreams of sleeping under their mother’s feathers?

By the pond, the Japanese Snowbells (Styrax japonica) are blooming. Every spring I look forward to these trees blooming. On a warm sunny day, when they are in full bloom and you can smell their sweet scent, you can lie underneath them and daydream for hours.

So beautiful, so deadly, the foxgloves are blooming. It’s not toxic to bees, which frequent it in droves. But it is deadly to humans and many other animals, so deadly that it is also called Deadmen’s Bells.

Salmon berries are ripening. The much sweeter thimble berries aren’t far behind. I’ll nibble on a few salmon berries, but leave most for the birds. I’m spending hours in the garden every day, and the birds sing the entire time. If we picked all the berries, the birds might go elsewhere.

The cottonwood fluff is everywhere. A spider’s nightmare. With its web coated with cottonwood fluff, what’s a spider to do? It would probably be faster to spin a new web than to pick all the cottonwood fluff out of this one.

Ena 枝那 and Takuma 拓真 were in the garden with me today. I was weeding, weeding, weeding. They were playing and napping, playing and napping. Sometimes, I think life would be better as a dog. They are getting the idea that chasing chickens is a big NO, but that chasing wild rabbits comes with a reward. It’s ten days since they arrived. They are settling in and enjoying their new home. No more relying on handouts. No more worrying about where their next meal is coming from. I could be a dog.

This may be a pinnacle egg. Cognac laid this masterpiece yesterday. Is it food? Is it art? I think I should sell it to a psychologist to use in place of Rorschach cards. “Connect the dots in any order. There is no right or wrong way, just a sane way and an insane way. Let’s see if you are sane.”

A month early, the garlic are having fun with curling garlic scapes. I’m wracking my brain thinking of an evolutionary reason as to why they curl. Is there a pollinator that loves sliding up and down the curls? If the curls went straight up, would they get too high? If so, why not just grow a shorter scape? Why go the trouble of making lovely curls?

Maybe the whole purpose of the curls is to give cooks something to smile about. The purpose is to put art in the kitchen. It’s a mystery. Have a garden and some chickens, and mystery will find you every day.