Saturday 2 April 2011

Difficult to swallow

We now have four tomato seedlings. As there were two yesterday and one the day before, I calculate that by the end of April there'll be 1,073,741,824.

I found a few patches of ground ivy near the stream. It has attractive small violet-coloured flowers, and apparently "has numerous medicinal uses, and is commonly used as a tasty salad green in many countries." There is also a lot of silverweed on the edge of the tree planting, which has edible roots. But I'm not sure the community is ready quite yet to eat ground ivy, silverweed, chickweed or nettle soup.

The light brown of a gliding kestrel brightened a dull rain-bespattered morning. The sun appeared in the afternoon, as did my first swallow of the year. "One swallow does not make a summer", said Aristotle, who wouldn't have confused March in England with summer in Greece, but who thought that swallows, storks and kites hibernated. Gilbert White also considered the possibility that swallows hibernated, but mine would have wintered in southern Africa.

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