Thing To Do Today: reap.

We are told, on apparently excellent authority, that we shall reap what we shall sow. It's not always true, of course: many a cabbage is reaped by the slugs or pigeons long before its sower gets a tooth to it, and I've been eating the flowers of the fennel plant growing through the cracks in my front drive for weeks without any effort on my part whatsoever.

The hedges will be full of blackberries any minute, too.

Anyway, I'd like to dedicate this post in gratitude to all the gardeners and farmers all over the world whose skill and work and cunning ways with slugs allows me to put food regularly on my table without getting my hands dirty.

Strength to the reapers!


The Corn Harvesters by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

(Except for the grim one, natch.)

Thing To Do Today: reap. I do hope you can find something delicious to harvest as you go about your day. The word reap comes from the Old English riopen, and is related to the Norwegian ripa, to scratch, and the Middle Low German repen, to card (as in flax).