Walnuts and Wine

Some writers make their readers feel
Provided with a good square meal,
While others – such a task is mine –
Supply the walnuts and the wine.
A sip of truth – the merest smack,
A pinch of salt, a nut to crack.
- Charles E. Benham, Jottings

The perfect recipe includes a mere sip of truth, the balance of the ingredients being forms of craziness, and various spices. That’s exactly the kind of blogging I aspire to. Why limit yourself to truth when you can blog about alien invasion conspiracies, or spilled birdseed sprouting among the balls?

I’ve been gently moving trowel-fuls of black sunflower birdseed sprouts to sunnier spots in the backyard, and then carefully mulching them against the blistering sun. They began life as sprouts among the decorative garden balls, including the non-reflective repurposed bowling ball trying to look inconspicuous among them.

This is not particularly lovely corner of my yard, but where better to illustrate how well a sip of food fight goes with a sunflower seed to crack? The feeder itself (the white house hanging above in this picture) provides not only opportunistic flowers, but is also the source of loud and messy al fresco bird parties all day long. Birds have poor table (or, feeder) manners.

But my greedy birds go together with sunflowers as well as walnuts with wine.