Grow savoy cabbage. You won’t be disappointed. Few vegetables are more beautiful, or so delicious.

Grow corn. You won’t be disappointed. Few vegetables have such wild hairdos.

Plant a noble fir. In midsummer, its cones will remind you of Christmas. The sap, capping the cones, even looks like icicles.

For a really great time, grow potatoes. When its time to dig them up, it’s like a sandbox for adults. I grew up in sandboxes and on the beach, digging through the sand, making roads and bridges, and castles more than I can count. Digging through the soft, warm dirt, looking for potatoes is every bit as much fun.

And look at all the potato fruits I found. I’ve got thousands of seeds to plant, just with this lot. Something interesting and new should grow with this many seeds.

Don’t forget to thank the earth and all the creatures living in the earth which made your potatoes possible. A sack of potatoes will provide many meals and plenty of conversation, all made possible by the good earth.

A surprise this afternoon was coming upon a snake skin on a log. You can picture the snake rubbing its belly against the log to remove its old skin. It makes you wish you could crawl out of your skin and leave it behind. If we humans did that, we’d have all sorts of rules as to where and where you could not leave your skin. NO SKINS ALLOWED IN THIS PARK! Or country people would say, “I’m so glad I live somewhere I can leave my skin wherever I want.”

Wherever you live, may you be surrounded by flowers.