Kangaroos can only hop forward

"Mary put her hand out of the window and held it in the sun. 'It's warm - warm!' she said. 'It will make the green points push up and up and up, and it will make the bulbs and roots work and struggle with all their might under the earth.' ...She put on her clothes in five minutes. She unchained and unbolted nd unlocked, and when the door was open she sprang across the step with one bound, and there she was standing on the grass, which seemed to have turned green, and with the sun pouring down on her and warm, sweet wafts about her and the fluting and twittering and singing oming from every bush and tree. She clasped her hands for pure joy and looked up in the sky, and it was so blue and pink and pearly and white and flooded with springtime light that she felt as if she must flute and sing aloud herself, and knew that thrushes and robins and skylarks could not possibly help it. She ran around the shrubs and paths towards the secret garden."
--Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

What else have I been doing with myself? Gardening... According to Foucault (Histoire de la Folie, 1967) in the early days of treating the insane separately from criminals, it was very common to have inmates working to grow their own food in vegetable gardens. Touching the earth, watching plants grow, and the connection with the seasons was considered to be the best activity for improving mental health.

It has certainly been good for mine. It's just so cool how you put a seed in the ground and it comes up.

Garden in October:














Garden in November:















Garden in December:














By far the most prolific vegetable has been the button squash. It's like a vegetable kudzu and after a month of yellow squash salad, yellow squash stir-fry, and baked yellow squash, Martin was thoroughly sick of yellow squash. So I started hiding it in pureed soup and mashed potatoes.