What a great Saturday

It began with five delightful gardeners taking my 'Summer Salads Crops Plants' class.....we reviewed gardening basics, summer salad crops by name, discussed in my kitchen how to make budget home made salad dressings from scratch, then nibbled our way through my yard as we gathered a big salad as fresh as they come. Three folks had to leave before we made the dressing ( balsamic vinegar and olive oil  [CHEAP at Big Lots!) with a pinch of Mexican oregano, fresh Lesbos basil leaves, black peppercorns, Morton's Light Salt and a dash of honey, all buzzed in my dumpster-dived 'Magic Bullet' blender. We scarfed it down. One of the students, a passionate gardener with an unusual name I can't remember (Tiea?) turned out to be the first person I've ever met who grows successfully and readily 'New Zealand Spinach' (a Tetragonia species as I recall) so thanks to her tips I am going to buy a pack of seeds and try again.

Just as class was ending, Tom Hunter came in his truck towing a 20 foot flatbed and BobCat to give me TWO pallets of  20" x 20" and 24" X 24" pavers AND some heavy gauge red bricks!! They will certainly allow me to finish my hodge podge driveway evolving over the years from scavenged and scrounged bricks and such. It will be fun taking up the old decayed mulch I've used for years to hide the original cracked "faux asphalt" driveway that came with the house in 1998, use it to pot up roses I am dividing, then lay down these pavers and bricks. I am working  to make my yard look like a Dumpster Diving Packrat Slob doesn't in fact live here, and a tidy completed driveway will do wonders towards that end. It was my pleasure to thank him with some cool edible plants, plus I will mail him the Vigna unguiculata seeds I forgot to give him in my excitement.

On the way to the store to buy pet food and juice I got to see, finally, shirtless on a bike a hunky waiter who works at the nearby restaurant I barter garden goodies with for their scraps for my poultry (this guy is built even better than I'd imagined) and at said restaurant I got about 4 gallon of scraps I will feed to the chickens and ducks when the storm passes. Pecs ALWAYS make my day.

My mail man brought today my 2 pounds of bulk L-ascorbic acid Vitamin C I got for just $30 after shipping on line a few nights ago...this will at last let me test and address my hunch that Linus Pauling was right in saying we need MUCH more Vitamin C than is commonly thought. The bag says that 1 teaspoon is 4,500 milligrams....I will likely use 1/2 teaspoon daily stirred into juice or salad dressing as it tastes quite lemony. I turn 58 on August 15 and my limited lifespan has been apparent to me since my early 30s, so trying out higher Vitamin C levels seems a prudent step to see if I can match or exceed my grandpa's "robustly healthy with no decline then drop dead while shaving at 93". While I eat a lot of raw greens daily and have for years, I tend to not not enough fruit due to being too cheap to buy it, instead waiting for local fruits to ripen (in Denver it was apples and plums, here it is citrus, mainly in winter and spring). This bulk purchase is vastly cheaper than any sale on Vitamin C tabs I have ever seen, and it is the L-ascorbic acid our bodies absorb well. Those two pounds, kept in my fridge, will last me a long time.

And now, as I type, a grand and unexpected magnificent rain storm that blew in from the east is passing out into the Gulf...the lightning was incredible yet distant, so no power outages, unplugged computers, or freaked out dogs and cats. All my rain barrels look overflowed. It was caused no doubt by my failure to bring in ALL the dry clothes on my clothesline an hour prior. I would not be surprised to see 1.5 inches or more in my gauges when I check later. I love the sight and sound and feel of a heavy rain, especially a sustained one like this.

And now a delightful evening of fine music and "altering" awaits me as I tidy the kitchen and prepare for tomorrow's class about cultivating freedom on many levels...and to begin laying down those pavers!

Thanks to everyone who made this grand day happen.

John