The Fragile Fruit of Time

 Rain one day and sun the next... better get out there and check the strawberries.

The fragile fruits in life, like strawberries, are quick to teach lessons...you can't hurry them and they won't wait for you and in their time...oh my they are good.

 And they hide... you have to look from many angles and move the leaves and as often as you congratulate yourself for finding big perfect ripe ones, there are those discoveries of rot, opportunity missed that if left will communicate its loss to the neighboring fruit.  And sometimes, in the eager pick and pull, little green berries get snatched before their time...

It's true.

                                     
All around the raised beds are removable chicken wire walls...to keep this old guy out...he likes strawberries, snap peas and asparagus and will pick at will if he can reach them.

                                         The little fences keep the cats out too...

 Here is  what I brought in today: bolting cilantro, hidcote blue lavender, oregano to dry, French tarragon, a few of the peas I need to pick and all the strawberries I had the patience to find.

 I wonder after words that could convey the mingling fragrances of the sun warmed oils of the herbs, the waft of sweetness of lavender and strawberries.  When the scents are not present, I can barely remember them, and no description of mine calls forth the response that breathing in the mixtures of these mingled molecules does.  The gifts of smell are primal and often laden with memories and emotional meanings.  It is uniquely personal where any particular fragrance takes a person.  Sometimes, in the garden I smell the glory of "this" day,  and sometimes time's mandate of consecutive seconds is breached and time flows together in today's  fleeting sun.

~~~