Tag Archives: pepper

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volunteer

Ok, it has registered that I have a volunteer in the house. It’s a pepper plant. It is growing with the plant I brought back from Hawaii. The Hawaii plant was obtained in the airport and cleared to go to other states without taking nasty fungi or bacteria to spread around, so presumably this volunteer was acquired in my house. I bought a bunch of dried red peppers in eastern Washington when my son was still in college. These look rather the same. If they are the same, I think they will be HOT.

Also yesterday, there was a bee. A nice big fat bumblebee, pollinating the pepper. I thought about putting her outside, but it’s too cold and I am not sure she would survive. So now I have a pet bee. I have not named her yet. I take that back: I’m naming her Pepper.

Hooray for the volunteers.

This is for Friday’s Ragtag Daily Prompt: register.

volunteer pepper plant

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The introverted thinker in the garden

My second earliest memory is between age three and four. We have moved to upstate New York, Trumansburg, and are living with my grandmother. I am old enough to know that I can’t pick random things outside and eat them. However, my grandmother has a currant bush: red currants.

I am amazed to see her picking and eating something outside. Does she not have to follow the rules? And then she lets me eat some. And I do not instantly die.

“You may pick them and eat them off this bush whenever you want.” says my grandmother.

I remember the color of the currants and the taste and the miracle of having permission to go eat something on my own recognizance, outside in the great wide wild world. I was so thrilled and entranced with the currant bush and my grandmother.

Here are red, black and white currants from the farmer’s market yesterday. I put them in a fruit salad with a honey melon that was so ripe that is dripped, and added apples and blueberries and lemon juice. Mmmmm, bounty. The tartness of the currants is delicious with the sweet melon.