I am really enjoying the bounty of the garden and the smell of the season. Today I made tea with borage, mint, lemon balm, red clover, chamomile and nettle (the nettle isn't from my garden- I picked it on Sauvie Island).



berries this morning...

Yesterday we went to the zoo. If I had taken my camera I would definitely have taken a picture of Eva standing in one of those pools with a small waterfall, the ones that people throw coins into and make a wish? Or maybe some people just throw coins? Some just make a wish? She stood with her pants pulled up and her sleeves dripping wet gathering coins from the bottom of the pool. Samuel sent her back in a second time to gather coins for him. I told her that the zoo had posted a sign saying they did not want people to swim or wade in the water and that if the zoo security people saw her in there they would most likely tell her to get out of the water. She was not deterred. She said "I am not wading or swimming in this water. I am standing." I smiled. Somehow I thought this fact would be lost on the zoo security person and that his focus would be on getting me to get her out of the water. We left soon after.

Eva and her friend spent quite a bit of time looking at the naked mole rats and pining for them afterward, imagining them to be such perfectly cuddly lovable pets. Oddly, I learned they are actually more closely related to guinea pigs (hey we have one of those!) than to either moles or rats. I think of all the animals we saw at the zoo the naked mole rats appealed to the girls' sense of but-this-could-fit-not-only-in-my-home-but-also-in-my-pocket sensibility- something that neither the giraffe nor the elephant nor the mountain lion could do. They do seem to be just the little creature to dress up and push around in the little red wagon. Except of course that they are not. But the guinea pig? Now he enjoys a little ride around in the wagon, provided you give him a purple carrot or two.