All the Green

I’m grateful for treadmill time with Cousin Melinda every few days. We start with our eager trainee who jumps on as soon as I unfold it, and while I incentivize her with treats, our assistant coach times her. Today was her longest run yet at two minutes. When Wren is done, I do get on for my own exercise. I’m grateful for everything about this time, from having a foldup treadmill to an eager pup to exercise time with my cousin in Kentucky, and the technology that allows us to do it.
I’m grateful for what promises to be a bountiful apricot year, and to Neighbor Fred for his expertise in pruning and guidance. Is it time to thin them yet, neighbor?
I’m grateful, as always, for the cheese sandwich. The past few days I’ve been grilling them in olive oil and including arugula. So simple, so delicious!
Precious wildflowers on the trail this evening…

It’s a great year for the miniature lupines that I’ve only found in one patch along the trail. I was challenged to find information online about it, but then I was grateful to remember I have a book! So I turned to Weber’s Colorado Flora, and from there was able to locate it online as Lupinus lepidus. It was years before I even noticed this little flower, and the patch just keeps growing. When the seedpods burst they can shoot up to twenty feet. I’m definitely going to collect some seeds to sow in the yarden this summer.

Amidst a forest floor full of weeds, this spectacular patch of miniature lupines stands alone.

It’s a sad truth that the smaller, more delicate, and more sparse plants on the forest floor are the natives, and the much more prolific, prickly or gaudy plants are invasive exotics, like this weedy alyssum below. Carpets of it all going to seed! Sure, it looks like a fairy land in the right light, but drop a match or catch an ember and it’s nothing but tinder. Everyone is thrilled about all the green everywhere, and though I’m not obsessing over it, I can’t help but think often about how as soon as summer dries it out we’ll have ten times the wildfire fuel on the ground as we did last year.

I AM grateful for all the green in the garden, though. Lettuce, arugula, and orach are bountiful now. I’m so glad I made time to plant arugula and lettuce under plastic hoops in late winter, and also that I let the orach go to seed last fall and it self-sowed.

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