Honey sticks.  The highlight of the Farmer’s Market for two certain little girls.  Five for a dollar divvies up to two for Lia, two for Amelie, one for Mama.  None for Levi.

The honey man is spectacularly vague about the origins of his honey.  But I want to know the bee equivalent questions — are your honeybees in unions? do you provide them with an adequate wage? are the bees healthy, wealthy, and wise?

But there is only so nosy you can be. Or, bee.  <snicker>

I was totally stoked when I found out that my cousin’s film-making husband is working on a documentary about bees.  Score!  Doing my part to save the world through one relative acquisition at a time!  I’m waiting for it with bated breath.

Queen of the Sun highlights unsung heroes who are dedicated to the survival of bees: from poets and philosophers to scientists and shamans, from political activists to biodynamic beekeepers. Across the globe Queen exposes the long-term effects of modern agriculture, and the industrial practices of beekeeping while sharing the mystery of the honeybee.

Also at the Farmer’s Market this week ::

• sunflowers
• flat leaf kale (tender, yummy)
• lettuce (still the queen of the show)
• carrots
• onions
• cilantro
• swiss chard
• kumquats
• eggs
• avocados
• organic, natural soap
• navel oranges

I was pregnant with Amelie (that was the Lentil Soup Craving pregnancy) when we went to an Ethiopian restaurant in Portland, Oregon.  Ordered their lentil soup.  Of course.  Lentils, potatoes, tomatoes, cumin, swiss chard, lots of lemon.

And the love affair began.

I came home and recreated it, but every time I made it, I put in more chard.  More chard.  More chard.

Move over spinach, you are a boring, monotone leaf compared with chard.  Compared to spinach, swiss chard is like a mid-life crisis sports car.  Bright, flashy.  Wild.  It’s my green of choice.  I put it in omelettes and frittatas, soups, burritos, or just plain.  (Lia also loves “shwish chard” and always asks for more).

Swiss chard isn’t even Swiss, you know.  It’s Sicilian.  Maybe it’d get more attention if it was named Sicilian Chard.  That sounds like a more alluring vegetable.

The chard in the picture was from the farmer’s market this week and it was destined for a triple batch of minestrone.  It fulfilled its destiny.

The first garden bed I set out this spring (is it spring yet? or is it still winter?  I can’t tell) was a Swiss chard bed.  I’ve had about a half dozen plants – my hardy perennials – surviving and thriving in the garden’s flood zone.  But I didn’t feel that I had enough plants.  So I set out 18 more.  Just to make me feel rich-like.

And now they are all under water.  Because it rained.  Exultant spirit feeling a bit…dampened.

Too hilly, we complain.

Reminds me of Berenstain Bear’s Old Hat, New Hat.

Too sandy, too hilly,
Too small, too silly!

Yes, we have small children.  And what a wonderful life it is.

Over the winter, my strawberries have again set out their runners.  I transplanted 35 babies this afternoon.  And I haven’t even looked under the kikuyu grass yet.  Rather prolific with their baby making this year, those strawberries.

Isn’t it deliciously ironic that the strawberry, Fruit Queen of Romance and Honeymoons, is actually an anaphrodisiac.  As in, it “blunts the libido”.

And to add ironies to ironies, the strawberry itself is actually the enlarged stamen of the plant.  In case you’re not up on your plant biology, stamen = male organ of flower.  My, that’s some stamen.  But watch out, it’s a libido blunter.

Apparently, in the case of the strawberry, it’s not the size that matters.

Farmer’s Market is on Fridays around here.  Inconvenient for our family (we gear up for the weekend, not down), I nevertheless make the trek.  A whole 15 minute drive, each way.  This is Southern California sacrifice, where I have three grocery stores within five minutes, to choose to drive six miles down the freeway.  Oooh.

This week, lettuces were the stars of the show.  Like gorgeous, big, blooming flowers.  Especially the butter lettuce, shown above.  At least, I think it’s butter lettuce.

That lettuce was so tender, my great grandma would have said “it’s as tender as a woman’s breast.” So tender, I couldn’t bear to take a knife to it, and actually tore the leaves by hand for our lunch salad, something I usually disdain when chopping the ubiquitous romaine or iceberg.

I also picked up:

• a bar of natural soap, kumquat scent
• kumquats
• butter, red leaf, green leaf, and endive lettuces
• two kinds of kale, one of which I’ve never tried before
• a cabbage so heavy my arm was hurting from carrying it in its bag
• lemons
• sweet limes, something similar tasting to kaffir lime, but mild and sweet
• leeks (are they really worth the money at $1/leek?  I don’t know.)
• cilantro
• yellow and red onions
• more of those tart tomatoes
• farm fresh organic eggs

And, lastly, beets.  Because last week Amelie said she wanted to eat beets.  Even though she’s never had a beet, and I despise them as a matter of course.  But I’m game if she’s game.

Bigger reason for NO — our three small fish living in a state where drowning is the #1 cause of death in children.

Although, if we could get these maybe we could be persuaded. Maybe.

So this week, when the temperature jumped up to the 80s (yes, the 80s), we rushed out the back door and into the garden.  Mud for the girls, weeds for me, and a return to the pushmower for Devo.  (Bless his little heart, Levi’s first mobile foray into the garden has provided him with the endless delights of mud tasting).  Noticed that the first strawberries have formed.

Please note the mud pie.  Actually, it was a mud cake, with sprinkles.

Please note the evidence of mud sampling.  Another reason to grow organic.

Did I mention the garden has been neglected?  One benefit of a mid-winter three month sabbatical is that most of the weeds die, leaving me to yank up great handfuls of rootlessness with pinkies extended.  Love it.

I did not take a before picture of our garden.  My ego thanks me.

I go through long periods of time where I ignore the book, walk by with my nose in the air.  Mainly out of jealousy-driven disgust — Frances Mayes’ idea of budgeting is my idea of extreme excess.  But it’s winter and there is something about the book that makes me think of warm sunshine and warm fires.  So out it came.

And I dreamed all Saturday night about lavender.  And basil.  And pots of lemon trees.

Every house we look at I scope out the best place for a hedge of lavender.

We did look at a couple, lured in by the idea of no repairs.  Just driving through the gate makes me break out in hives.  My heart rate accelerates with anxiety.  I begin to beg and plead with my husband, No, please, no.  I’ll wither into a prune, good only for keeping things moving, but not necessarily keeping them alive.

We’ve stopped looking at gated communities.