Morning Has Broken... Almost

Five a.m.. I wake up early to get ready for work most days. I make my coffee in a small French press, because there is only one person in my household. If it's a particularly low anxiety day, I will practice my yoga, attempt to meditate, drink my coffee and if it is a work day, I spread and pack my work clothing and lunch into my bike panniers and get ready to ride in to work.

These are the good days, when the anxiety is manageable. I like those days. The days are a little longer but with Daylight Savings Time in effect, I've lost an hour of light in the morning so I'm riding into work while it's still dark again.

But when I come home, I open a beer and wander around my garden and can smell the earthy dirt warming and calling out to be worked. Like a lover. The weeds have taken over parts of the beds and since I do not have a lawn mower right now, dandelions are plentiful in the lawn. I might try making dandelion wine this year! I am sure the dandelions make my golf course neighbors crazy. I like them though.

They draw bees, and other beneficial insects that pollinate my vegetables and fruit trees. The leaves make a wonderful kimchi, the flowers make wine and I just think they are pretty.

Today, being that it is caucus day in Washington. My morning will be filled with standing in line to make my voice heard, but the afternoon should be spent picking dandelion heads and leaves. Making kimchi and wine.

There are few weeds I'm willing to keep. Dandelions are definitely one of them. They are the first foods that bees have access to when they emerge starving from winter, they are pretty and they are edible. Pretty hard to go wrong on that front. Other edible weeds include: dead nettle (that a friend sent me a pesto recipe for recently), young chickweed, plantain, shotweed, and more are edible. Make sure to do your research before you start nomming on foraged greens.

But there are a lot of weeds that are just nuisances and I have no problems with them going in the compost bin.

Off to caucus and then this to the garden!