Eat the weeds! It works when onions are the weeds. Last fall, I let some onions do their thing, go to seed, and let them fall where they may. I ended up with a bed thick with onions. I thinned them out today, gathering a bowl of baby onions for cooking.

Elephant garlic and shallots are worth growing for their flowers. The elephant garlic’s purple flowers are about to open, and the shallot’s white flowers fringed with green are unfurling. Such beautiful flowers. I’ll let these go to seed and start the long process of growing them from seed.

The dogs are in training to be calm around chickens. It must be difficult for these hunting dogs to have chickens walk around them without being able to catch them, but they are keen on wanting to please us. I do wonder what is going through their minds. “All these birds … why aren’t they eating them?”

You don’t need to grow many vegetables to realize that many are worth growing just for their flowers. Eggplants with their blue and purple flowers, squash with their spectacular orange explosions, they are as remarkable as any daisies, and their fruit make great dishes.

A few days ago, I discovered a spider hiding out in the carrot flowers, waiting to nab passing bees. Today, I found it feasting on a bee. I suppose, if you are a bee, dying on a bed of carrot flowers is as good a place to die as possible.

Living in nature’s haven, there are daily reminders that death is but a step away. This afternoon I saw a small squirrel eat a baby bird it had caught. It looked like a baby robin the squirrel had snatched out of a nest.

Living in the country, has taught me how precious life is. No matter how small or how big you are, there is something lurking to eat you.


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One of the trees is blooming, putting out tiny, spidery flowers with a hauntingly sweet fragrance. So many trees have such delicate flowers. Bashful beauties of the woods, their beauty is for the few who go looking.

Niji-hime 虹姫 (Rainbow Princess) is one of the first hens out of the chicken yard this morning. I’ve always admired her multi-colored neck.

The Stewartia is blooming for a second time this year. The bees are happy. They need to bury their heads deep into the blooms to get its nectar. Do the bees get more pleasure the deeper they have to dive into a flower?