Yours is the Earth

Countless types of birds serenaded me as I picked our first offering of mesclun greens that were grown in the garden. I felt like I was in the middle of a musical hug.

It's interesting how the same seeds produce a totally different leaf depending if they grow in the greenhouse or outside. The outside ones are very sturdy-leafed and the greenhouse ones are soft and delicate.

E - v - e - r - y s - i - n - g -l - e leaf needed to be washed after yesterday's rain.

There was oregano and thyme and chives and parsley and mint as well as a good mix of flowers blooming this week.

Even though I washed each leaf, the greens probably still need a good rinse.

Even native grasses and some straggling rye grasses were called into service. I like the contrast of the different greens in the grasses. They add some nice texture to the bouquets.

Our shortest day veggie, radishes, were ripe today. And, rhubarbs are probably done for the year. This has not been a rhubarb year.

12 bouquets! Yay!

I recently was reminded of one of my favourite poems, Rudyard Kipling's "If".

It's a fitting poem to start the day.

If you can keep your head when all about you   

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   

    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same;   

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

    And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   

    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

    If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   

    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

✻