Flower child

Benefits can come in strange ways: sometimes you have to be ill to get better.  He who is "never" sick, was floored by the stomach flu, at least that is what I hope it was.  Clustered to bed and the porcelain throne for a couple of days.  Actually missed a day of work, the second one in 9 years, quite miserable really.  But now I am getting "better".    But my mind is dragging behind.  Usually have great joy in the gardening thing, but right now I don't really want to have anything to do with it.  Maybe it is because the days are getting shorter again, winter is just around the corner...  It has been a great blessing to have Pablo and Justin over and carry the weight of picking weeding and selling.   Our local VISTA employee Shelbie Blank roped me in to participate in a farm tour, entailing being home for 2 days, talking to strangers about what is going on here.  It means you don't get anything done, walk around tell stories about how awesome it all is (and I just want to go back to bed and feel miserable in the AC room).   But then good things happen, a family with two little kids come by and have a fine time picking flowers for grandma and picking peas for grandpa,  a kid with cerebal palsy gets to pet a chicken, an old geezer, 80+ y/o, tells me how he always wanted to be a gardener but had to provide for his family and ended up in construction and he is glad for me to be able to do do it, he sees how much work is involved, I have to go to the bathroom, again, and Pablo shows up and takes over the tours.  And then a lady and husband stop by, they are in awe of the coreopsis, the yellow flowers in the paths in the photo below.  The photo is from last year but you can see how dense those flowers were, and they were volunteers in the paths, not the beds.  Nathan has spent many an hour mowing them down.  Well this lady has connections in St. L.  and wants to buy them.  So we exchange numbers and all that and on Monday I instruct Justin how to pick em (12 to a bundle, 10 bundles to a bucket, 6 inch of cold water, rubber bands etc.).  Justin will pick em and deliver them, but sure enough, he is driving around on the donut and no money for the new tire.  So by the time he has made the delivery the coreopsis has paid for his new tire.  So here you are, growing things on purpose, and the real money is in the wild flowers that you are mowing down. Go figure.  Hopefully they'll be around for a couple of weeks because Pablo desperately needs new breaks on his car.  Growing some beautiful kale, but where do you take it?  Suggestions?  The chickens are slowing down substantially in their laying: going into molting.  They will replace their feather deck and rejuvenate their reproductive parts, which they do once a year abouts and these chicks are about a year old now.  Nice variety of things to eat right now:  I 'll have me some good eats tonite. anyway, just a boring blog, but you are up to date again.