getting outside in between the raindrops

 It's pouring out now, and is supposed to continue tomorrow. But it was beautiful out earlier and I took advantage of it - I pulled up weeds in the two raised beds I'm going to use and dumped a bag or topsoil in one of them. This bed has been the repository of all kinds of raw kitchen scraps and sticks for the past year, and I usually have not bothered to chop up very much of it. So, you'll never guess what I found out there - 

This was growing out of a turnip.

Amazing. And I guess the seeds are in here 

I have never entertained the idea of growing turnips, but I should look at these and see if there are seeds in there. Don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth!

I plopped it in the hobnail "basket" on the table, and you-know-who was unable to contain her curiosity.

It was very mucky outside, around the raised beds; my brother rototilled the pathway around the beds but inside the fencing, but if the weather doesn't get drier, I don't know how he'll manage. His approach to gardening is different from mine. I spend the money to enrich the soil - yes, it's an expense and that's why I am focusing on them, one at a time. His philosophy is that a summer garden should save money, and so you want to spend as little as possible. He knows what he's doing and has gardened many more years than I have, but I want to improve the soil, not just grow things. We will also have to try to keep our rabbit friends out, but that will be trial and error. 

There is a particular rabbit who I often see out my bedroom window, eating his grass or just resting amongst the forsythia hedge. It seems that every year there is one I can watch out there, but it can't be the same each time, since I don't think wild rabbits have a long life, being a prey animal. But there's always one who enjoys this patch and I'm happy to see him out there.

I like this photo.

He has seen the starry hours
And the springing of the flowers;
And the fairy things that pass
In the forests of the grass.

- Robert Louis Stevenson, from The Dumb Soldier

I've happened upon Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses, with illustrations by Tasha Tudor. 

Delightful beyond anything, a match made in heaven.