wednesday's words and wanderings and wonderings

Day by day, more and more sunflowers are filling the field at the farm. This is the first planting, with bright yellow faces reaching toward the sky and spreading seeds of happiness. Two more plantings are coming along behind this one, and the hope is that the fields will be blooming with sunflowers through mid-September.

Right now the biggest question we get at the farm is, "Do you have lettuce?"

We do not.

Lettuce is a spring and fall crop. Summer heat makes it bitter and tough, so it's just not at its best this time of year.

One day a young man came in looking for lettuce.

"Do you have lettuce? If anyone has lettuce, you guys will."

"Sorry, we don't."

Then the drama began.

"My wife and I are missing our lettuce salads. We like to have a salad every day, and we're going nuts without lettuce!"

"It sounds like you probably have plenty of vegetables at home," I said. "Have you ever tried chopping up a variety of fresh vegetables and marinating them in an oil and vinegar dressing? We carry Garlic Expressions, and it's a delicious dressing. Add some fresh sweet corn kernels to the mix. They're a wonderful addition."

The young man left with a bottle of Garlic Expressions and a couple ears of sweet corn.

Crisis averted. Salad saved.

My neighbor has a fully loaded elderberry tree and invited me over to pick some berries. I've never harvested elderberries before, so she gave me a quick lesson. First, cut the clusters (called drupes) from the tree and place them in a bucket. Swish them around to loosen any debris, strip the berries from their stems, and pack them into freezer bags.

They're tucked away in my freezer now, waiting for cooler weather. When cold and flu season arrives, I'll turn them into homemade elderberry syrup.

We've had a couple of rainy days. I love this bee at the top of its coneflower mountain, with raindrops still clinging to the base of the flower's spiky cone.