I knew it'd come to me

About four and half years ago I had a good idea. When Logan was done making fine art with his mushed up baby food, I'd clean the jars in the hot soapy waters and set them aside for an abundance of good crafty-like projects in the future like the sort we used to do in Girl Scouts - the kind that would have you scrambling for jars that you didn't have reason to have.

Today, I have a draw full of baby food jars.

Empty baby food jars. Dozens of them.

I didn't save every one of them, but certainly I saved MORE than enough. I actually did tap into the supply once over the last several years. On Logan's 2nd birthday the kids that attended his little party used the jars to hold their sand art. It wasn't much of a dent into my stash.

I tend to forget the jars are there until I go looking in that drawer for something. I never find what I want - I do find LOTS of jars.

Last summer we (as in Bruce mostly) built a patio in the backyard. There are four flower beds surrounding it. This spring I used two of them for yellow and purple daisy like flowers, a third still hosts the over sized lavender and mint that has been there almost since we moved in. The final side, the one up against the house, is my herb garden.

The garden started with some obvious stables. Then I got creative and started to buy whatever looked nice even if I had no idea what to do with it - African Blue Basil, Tri-color sage, Bi-color sage. . .when you fill a space with a dozen+ plants you have room to go a little nuts.

We've made good use of the plants so far - herb butter melted on steak, chicken roasted with fresh herbs, iced tea with lemon balm and mint. I keep digging for recipes to tap into this new resource.

Yet the plants grow faster than I can keep up with it sometimes and so I opted to hang a few clippings from the four peg rack on the kitchen wall. A mixture of the three sages I have growing (plain old safe, the tri and bi colored sages), some dill, the blue basil, and the two oregano varieties all in their bundles lending their fresh scents to the kitchen.

Then they were dried. They were dry and crumbly looking and no longer quite as "attractive" the wall art they had been at first. I needed to move to Plan B.

Then it hit me - the jars. The oodles and oodles of baby food jars. I spent part of yesterday crumbling dried out leaves into the little jars that now sport new handwritten labels. The jars are resting nicely in my spice cabinet, looking all sorts of official and home spun. Ideas churning in my mind: hmmm....wonder if I can turn this into a Christmas gift for someone.

I still won't make much of a dent in those jars (unless I do come up with a gift idea!) And yet I still can't bring myself to take the easy way out - add those jars to the recyclable bin. They have a purpose. I'll find it. Little project by little project. I am determined to finish what I started.

Gardening Puzzles

Megan pointed to a yellow and white bag and some of it's spilled out dark, rich brown contents. She said, "Grandma? What's that?"

Grandma said, "That's food for the garden. It's fertilizer."

Megan pushed further with more questions. It didn't look like the fertilzer she had seen on lawns we passed on our walks lately.

Grandma explained it was a different kind of fertilizer. It was manure.

"What's manure?"

"It's cow poop," explained Grandma.

Megan was quiet. She started to look around with a puzzled look on her face.

"Grandma? Where's the cow?"
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Today Meg and I trekked to the home improvement center to pick up our own hefty bags of hummus-manure mix for both my vegetable garden and both the kids'. As we got out of the car Megan said, “Why are we getting strawberries and cow poop?”

I said, “I thought you might like to grow your own strawberries and the manure will help the garden grow”

Megan said, “Yuck. I don’t want to eat cow poop!”
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One of the employees helped us load up the cart. Megan smiled sweetly at him and said:

"Man, can I see your cow?"