The Cecil Bruner rose is blooming in profusion right now.  The yard is full of scented flowers and bright colors among the cool greens.  We had some thunderstorms and rain last night.  It has been a very cool spring and the vegetables are slow to start.  The local cherry crop has been ruined, but my tree seems to be all right.  Mine are Balaton cherries, a Ukranian variety from which I make juice and pies.  The juice is to die for.

We have some favorite books we have passed around in our family lately.  Here is the list:

Steve Solomon  "Gardening when it Counts"

Patricia Lanza  "Lazagna Gardening"

Barbara Kingsolver  "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle"  This is my very favorite book!!!

Jeff Gillman  "The Truth About Organic Gardening"

Michael Pollan  "In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto"  I LOVE this book!!

Well, if you haven't read Kingsolver and Pollan, they will inspire you to eat right.  Our western style of eating is killing us.  We have too many chemicals in our food (sometimes in the name of health----that's certainly questionable).  We need to go back to basics.

And growing and canning your own food is certainly more nutritious than eating food shipped up here from South America, costing fuel, picked green, grown without FDA regulation.  When it is canned ripe from the vine or tree from your own yard (and hopefully organically grown), it has all the nutrients.  In the middle of winter it is far more vitamin-rich than the so-called "fresh" foods we get out of season at the grocer.

Well those are my favorite lectures of late, so I will get down off my dais and go out and groom my roses for a while   Ahh, the peace and serenity of beautiful, fragrant roses rivals the greatest

of therapists!