pensée pansies!

the name pansy comes from the french word pensée, which means "thought." centuries ago the french believed that pansies could make a loved one think of you.  the three colors -- purple, white and yellow -- were thought to symbolize memories, loving thoughts and souvenirs.  these were all things that ease the hearts of separated loved ones.  also, according to the victorian language of flowers, pansy "to think"  this is why i think the Pansy is the perfect flower to celebrate 

memorial day !!

and what better way could there be to remember than with a nice

PANSY HONEY CUSTARD

 5 tbsp. honey

3 tbsp. finely minced pansy leaves and flowers

2 c. milk

1/4 tsp. salt

3 eggs, beaten

Combine honey and pansy leaves and flowers and heat 15 minutes in a double boiler. Place in a covered jar and let mellow 3 days.

Scald milk. Add prepared pansy honey and salt; heat until honey is dissolved. Beat 1/2 cup of the hot milk mixture into the eggs. Beat this back into the rest of the hot milk and pour into 6 lightly buttered custard cups. Sprinkle each with freshly grated nutmeg to taste.

more thoughts and games...

one early german fable tells the story of how the pansy lost it perfume; original pansies would have been very fragrant, growing wild in fields and forests.  it was said that people would trample the grass completely in eagerness to pick pansies.  unfortunately, the people’s cows were starving due to the ruined fields, so the pansy prayed to give up her perfume. her prayer was answered, and without her perfumed scent, the fields grew tall, and the cows grew fat on the fresh green grass.

another superstition was upheld by American pioneers.  it was thought by many that “a handful of violets taken into the farmhouse in the spring ensured prosperity, and to neglect this ceremony brought harm to baby chicks and ducklings.” on account of its place in American hearts, a strange american game called “Violet War” also arose.  in this game, two players would intertwine the hooks where the pansy blossoms meet the stems, then attempt to pull the two flowers apart like wishbones. whoever pulled off the most of their opponent’s violet heads was proclaimed the winner.  young American settlers also made pansy dolls by lining up the pansy flower “faces,” pasting on leaf skirts and twig arms to complete the figures.

so on this memorial day with a pansy poesy pinned to your pocket, take a moment, and as the french would say pensée!

a pensée pansy puzzle link --

hardly humble hollyhocks!

hollyhock botanical: althaea rosea (LINN.) family: n.o. malvaceae -- Synonym -- garden hollyhock -- Part Used -- flowers
althaea rosea, the hollyhock is my favorite flower of all time! its name is from the greek word althaea, meaning, "that which heals."  the hollyhock, first brought to this country from china, was once eaten as a pot-herb, though it is not particularly palatable.
its flowers are employed medicinally for their emollient, demulcent and diuretic properties, which make them useful in chest complaints. Their action is similar to marshmallow. the flowers are also used for coloring purposes.  they are sold freed from the calyx and should be gathered in july and early august, when in full bloom, and dried in trays, in thin layers, in a current of warm air immediately after picking.  when dry, they are a deep, purplish-black, about 2 1/2 inches in diameter, united with the stamens, which form a tube, the one-celled, reniform anthers remaining free.

the flowers by robert louise stevenson
all the names I know from nurse: 
gardener's garters, shepherd's purse, 
bachelor's buttons, lady's smock,
and the Lady Hollyhock.
fairy places, fairy things,
fairy woods where the wild bee wings,
tiny trees for tiny dames--
these must all be fairy names!

the following recipe for hollyhock sandwiches was suggested by denise diamond in her book living with flowers. -- 10 large hollyhock blossoms, 2 avacados, sliced thinnly, 10 pieces mild cheese, 2 cups alfalfa sprouts, now layer avacado and cheese over blossoms. top with sprouts and your favorite dressing, and as julia would say, bon appetit!

those lovely lilacs!

for maria,  who reminded me of  Wave Hill; my grandmother, my aunts, my mom and how they used to steal the lilacs from the house just around the corner, with my aunt roseanne driving the getaway car.

~ peculiar but true facts about lilacs ~

there was a love divination by lilacs which we children solemnly observed. ther will occasionally appear a tiny lilac flower, usually a white lilac, with five divisions of the petals instead of four -- this is LUCK LILAC. this must be solemnly swallowed. if it goes down smoothly, the dabbler in magic cries out, "he loves me" if she chokes at her floral food, she must sadly say, "he loves me not!"

lilac necklaces

lilac petals makes such lovely necklaces, thrust within each other or strung with a needle and thread.

the pickwick papers

the rich, sweet smell of the hayricks rose to his chamber window; the hundred perfumes of the little flower-garden beneath scented the air around; the deep-green meadows shone in the morning dew that glistened on every leaf as it trembled in the gentle air: and the birds sang as if every sparkling drop were a fountain of inspiration to them. mr. pickwick fell into an enchanting and delicious reverie.

this passage from the pickwick papers by charles dickens reminds me of the times, i am transported just like mr. pickwick, when i sit at my desk in late spring with the windows wide open. the scent of lilacs dance on the breeze and it's joyous fragrance fills my daydreams.

were you able to help blodeuwedd remember the enchanted flora from which she was awoken!

did you make haste and unravel the zinging 

forget-me-not puzzle?

if not here's a big, big hint!

forget-me-not answers

Emily's corner!

A corner of emily dickinson's garden recreated at the bronx botanical garden!

During Emily Dickinsen’s lifetime, she was more widely known as a gardener than as a poet.  She studied botany from the early age of nine and, along with her sister Lavinia, and they tended the garden at Homestead.  In her lifetime, she assembled a collection of pressed plants in a sixty-six page leather-bound herbarium. It contained 424 pressed flower specimens that she collected, classified, and labeled.  The homestead garden was well-known and admired locally in its time. It has not survived, and Emily kept no garden notebooks or plant lists, but a clear impression can be formed from the letters and recollections of friends and family. Her niece, Martha Dickinson Bianchi, remembered Emily’s garden containing "carpets of lily-of-the-valley and pansies, platoons of sweetpeas, hyacinths, enough in may to give all the bees of summer dyspepsia. there were ribbons of peony hedges and drifts of daffodils in season, marigolds to distraction—-a butterfly utopia."  In particular, Emily  cultivated scented exotic flowers, writing that she "could inhabit the spice isles merely by crossing the dining room to the conservatory, where the plants hang in baskets." Emily would often send her friends bunches of flowers with verses attached, but "they valued the posy more than the poetry."

As a little project, you can make your own herbarium and preserve plant specimens that you find!

To start your own herbarium you will need:  A pile of old newspapers, at least four sheets of heavy cardboard, about 12x24 inches, two or three old brinks or other heavy weights, 3 by 5-inch or 4 by 6-inch index cards, pencils, scissors for cutting samples of leaves, sheets of thin white cardboard (like shirt boards), legal-sized file folders, white school glue, a roll of wax paper, and a guide book to local plants.  Before you collect anything, it's very important to be certain you have permission the pick the poesies.  Now, collect your poesies and clean them well.  Place them on newspaper, separate them by blotting the paper or cardboard.  Do not forget to change the blotting paper daily for a week or more. then place your poesy on acid-free pages, label them with the common and botanical name, date the collection, now, if time permits add a thought or two about your posy.

“This is my letter to the world that never wrote to me/ the simple news that nature told/ with tender majesty / her message is committed to hands I cannot see - for love of her - sweet - countrymen - judge tenderly - of me” 

~ by emily dickinson~

Blodeuwedd owl, the forgetful flora enchantress!

photo by jane shirek, digitally remastered by ana traina

Not of mother and father
Did my Creator create me
But of nine-formed virtues,
Of the fruit of fruits,
Of the fruit of the primordial God,
Of primroses and blossoms,
Of the flower, wood and tree.
Cad Goddeu

blodeuwedd owl, the woman who was conjured up from the blossoms of flowers (and perhaps a little bit more) to be the bride of an evil prince... is now on the run -- there is only one problem blodeuwedd can not remember all that she is made of! she can only reminisce that they are things found in an enchanted garden -- Please, help blodeuwedd not to forget the enchanted flora from which she was awoken, so that she may escape a tragic life without love!

all you have to do is make haste and unravel this zinging 

forget-me-not

 ~puzzle ~

happy puzzling, I know blodeuwedd,  fragrantly thanks you!

the answer to this weeks zinger-puzzle will be posted on Saturday!
crossword created by ana traina

dandy daylillies!

day lilies (hemerocallis species) - slightly sweet with a mild vegetable flavor, like sweet lettuce or melon. Their flavor is a combination of asparagus and zucchini. chewable consistency. some people think that different colored blossoms have different flavors. to use the surprisingly sweet petals in desserts, cut them away from the bitter white base of the flower. also great to stuff like squash blossoms. flowers look beautiful on composed salad platters or crowning a frosted cake. sprinkle the large petals in a spring salad. in the spring, gather shoots two or three inches tall and use as a substitute for asparagus. 

NOTE: many lilies contain alkaloids and are NOT edible. day lilies may act as a diuretic or laxative; eat in moderation.

Daylily Bud Sauté

Daylilies (Hemerocallis)  open for just a day. hemerocallis is a greek word translating to: "beautiful for a day."

ingredients:

2 dozen daylily buds                                      1/2 cup flour

1/4 cup olive oil                                            3 eggs

dash of nutmeg                                             salt and pepper

I clove garlic, finely minced

cut the base off the buds. sauté the garlic in a small amount of olive oil. beat eggs and mix enough flower to make a thin batter. to this add the sautéed garlic, 1/8 teaspoon each of salt and pepper, and the dash of nutmeg. add a teaspoon of milk if the batter is too thick. dip the buds in the batter and sauté until a golden brown consistency.

...so to the eye prospective led, this meekest flower of the mead open a winter's day, stands representative in gold of rose and lily, manifold, and countless butterfly! -- emily dickinson

good king henry's tale...

photo by jane shirek

Meet lemmie, the wondrous bat-dog  -- able to leap small tulips in a single bound! my hero!!

And here is lemmie’s partner in crime; gnomie, the gnome. they are here today with me to guard king hal’s secret garden  -- while we were just standing by the garden gate waiting for his royal highness to grace us with an appearance, I took the opportunity to shoot the breeze with gnomie the gnome -- as I am fluent in gnomish and speak several  dialects of the language.  and here is what gnomie the gnome let slip -- they are guarding a rare and mostly forgotten wild plant named, chenopodium bonus-henricus, or gutter heinrich, aka good king henry.  gnomie insists that the name has no connection with his good king hal.  he says the name was given to distinguish the plant from another... a poisonous villian, called malus henricus ('bad henry').  on a side note -- the brother grimm, refers to elves and kobolds(guarding sprites)as 'heinz' and 'heinrich' aka ‘henricus’, indicating their magical powers of a malicious nature.  the name henry was used to allude to the shrewd or knavish sprites, like the english, robin goodfellow, or puck...  

good king henry’s folk name 'smear-wort' refers to its use as an ointment.  the plant is also known by many other aliases; pigweed, goosefoot, lamb’s quarters,  mercury goosefoot, english mercury and marquery (to distinguish it from the french mercury), but whatever name you use remember it has great and powerful medicinal purposes primarily to treat gastrointestinal ailments, hence the proverb: 'Be thou sick or whole, put mercury in thy koole.'  the leaves used to be boiled in broth, but were gathered, when young and tender, and cooked as a pot-herb. --  poultices made of the leaves were used to cleanse and heal chronic sores which john gerard tells us in his 1597 herbal, “they do scour and mundify.” the roots were given to sheep as a remedy for cough.  the plant is said to have been used in germany for fattening poultry and was called fette henne, get it? fat hen.

thirty years ago, good king henry was regularly grown as a vegetable in suffolk, lincolnshire, and other eastern counties and was preferred to the garden spinach, its flavor being somewhat similar, but less pronounced.  cooked or raw, it’s a scrumptious spring veggie.  the flower spikes can be eaten like broccoli and the new shoots like asparagus, tossed with a little butter, while the dried seeds, can be ground and mixed with wheat flour, to make tasty pancakes. 

tale warning: best avoided or used with caution if suffering from rheumatism, arthritis, gout, kidney stones or hyperacidity.

deadman's bells

Foxglove, or digitalis purpurea, is a major player in fairy lore. It is said that the fairies wear the flowers as hats and gloves. If a foxglove is bending, it is said that the flower is bending to receive the fairy.  The name foxglove came from a story that says fairies give the flowers of the foxglove to foxes to wear on their feet so they can sneak into the chicken coops undetected. Other foxglove stories involve bad luck for destroying or touching the plant.  The children were warned not to touch the plant or they would wake the fairies and make them angry.  Yet another story to keep the children from touching the poison.  A child can get very sick from putting their fingers into the flowers, which they have a tendency to do as the flowers fit perfectly over a finger.  Foxglove are also called witches' thimbles. 

Foxglove is poisonous to humans but attracts bees and hummingbirds.

In the 1700s, William Withering learned of this folk remedy from "an old woman in Shropshire" and studied it. This led to Digitalis being a very important plant-derived medicine for heart disease that is still in use to this day.

Scandinavian legend says that the faeries taught foxes to ring foxglove bells to warn each other of approaching hunters.

if you have a nice clump of foxglove in your back garden you cannot ever be bored. there is the echo of all the sweet and liquid sounds of the country in their pale bells. in addition, i am told that their roots, if boiled and added to the soup, are guaranteed to make your most disagreeable enemy expire in considerable discomfort within twenty-four hours, but I have not tested this personally. -- beverley nichols, "rhapsody in green"

There have been many suggestions for the derivation of the name "foxglove". According to the 19th century book, English Botany, Or, Coloured Figures of British Plants:

Dr. Prior, whose authority is great in the origin of popular names, says "It seems probably that the name was in the first place, foxes' glew, or music, in reference to the favorite instrument of an earlier time, a ring of bells hung on an arched support, the tintinnabulum"... we cannot quite agree with Dr. Prior for it seems quite probable that the shape of the flowers suggested the idea of a glove, and that associated with the name of the botanist Fuchs, who first gave it a botanical name, may have been easily corrupted into foxglove. It happens, moreover, the name foxglove is a very ancient one and exists in a list of plants as old as the time of Edward III. The "folks" of our ancestors were the fairies and nothing is more likely than that the pretty coloured bells of the plant would be designated "folksgloves," afterwards, "foxglove." In Wales it is declared to be a favourite lurking-place of the fairies, who are said to occasion a snapping sound when children, holding one end of the digitalis bell, suddenly strike the other on the hand to hear the clap of fairy thunder, with which the indignant fairy makes her escape from her injured retreat. In south of Scotland it is called "bloody fingers" more northward, "deadman's bells" whilst in Wales it is known as "fairy-folks-fingers" or "lambs-tongue-leaves."

dance little iris, dance!

Irises truly are fabled flowers. The name itself means ‘eye of heaven.’ Greek men often planted irises by the graves of their women as a gift to the goddess Iris, who they believed carried messages of love from heaven to earth, using the rainbow as a bridge. The French fleur-de-lis is thought to have originated as an iris. The fleur-de-lis has been an important symbol for the French since the year 496 when Clovis I found a way out of a tight spot for himself and his army.  Trapped, he gazed across the river and spotted a yellow flag iris growing halfway across.  Knowing by that evidence that the river must be shallow, he then led the army across to relative safety and subsequent victory.  Throughout history, the iris has been used in medicines, cosmetics and dyes. Treatments for various ailments ranging from epilepsy to loose teeth called for the iris at one time or another.  In Germany, the roots were suspended in beer barrels to keep the drink from going stale, and the French used it in wines.   

Purple iris petals mixed with alum make a good blue-violet dye, while yellow flag blossoms produce yellow.  For the best colors, gather flowers during a dry spell.  Roots from the yellow flag iris make brown or black dye.

"I adore how beverly talks about the iris -- how can one ignore...that singular and faintly sinister blossom iris sibirica? this latter flower can certainly claim to be “exclusively” dressed; for the petals of no other blossom has nature designed so curious a fabric, veined with slate and violet and purple. / one of my grandfathers died of a clump of iris stylosa; it enticed him from a sick bed on an angry evening in january, luring him through the snow-drifts with its blue and silver flames; he died of double pneumonia a few days later."

beverly nichols, rhapsody in green

the fordham hill roses!

photo taken by micki mcgee, rose hill campus at fordham university, bronx, NY-- 2010

postcard of the rose hill campus from 1905

Micki's photo causes me to remember the passage from, "the secret garden," by frances hodgson burnet--

"she was standing inside the secret garden, it was the sweetest, most mysterious-looking place anyone could imagine.  the high walls which shut it in were covered with the leafless stems of climbing roses, which were so thick that they were matted together.  mary lennox knew they were roses, because she had seen a great many roses in india... mary had thought it must be different from other gardens which had not been left all by themselves so long; and, indeed, it was different from any other place she had ever seen in her life...and she felt she had found a world all her own."

the puckish poppy

Papaver somniferum, during the early to mid-nineteenth century many 

illuminaries fell 

under the wicked magical spell of the 

"divine poppy-juice"!  baudelaire likened opium to a woman friend, "an old and terrible friend, and, alas! like all, full of caresses and deceptions".  elizabeth barrett browning fell under its spell, though she found morphine did not threaten her ability to scribe"poetical paragraphs".  here are just a few examples of some writers under the spell of opium dreams and gentle euphoria...

in Xanadu did Kubla Khan

a stately pleasure-dome decree

where Alph, the sacred river, ran

down to a sunless, sea...

Beware, Beware!

his flashing eyes, his floating hair!

weave a circle round him thrice,

and close your eyes with holy dread,

for he on honey-dew hath fed, 

and drunk the milk of Paradise

by

samuel taylor coleridge

Across the Atlantic, in 1842, William Blair describes his experiences with opium for a New York magazine... "While I was sitting at tea, I felt a strange sensation, totally unlike any thing I had ever felt before; a gradual creeping thrill, which in a few minutes occupied every part of my body, lulling to sleep the before-mentioned racking pain, producing a pleasing glow from head to foot, and inducing a sensation of dreamy exhilaration (if the phrase be intelligible to others as it is to me) similar in nature but not in degree to the drowsiness caused by wine, though not inclining me to sleep; in fact far from it, that I longed to engage in some active exercise; to sing, dance, or leap...so vividly did I feel my vitality - for in this state of delicious exhilaration even mere excitement seemed absolute elysium - that I could not resist the tendency to break out in the strangest vagaries, until my companions thought me deranged...After I had been seated [at the play I was attending] a few minutes, the nature of the excitement changed, and a 'waking sleep' succeeded. The actors on the stage vanished; the stage itself lost its reality; and before my entranced sight magnificent halls stretched out in endless succession with galley above gallery, while the roof was blazing with gems, like stars whose rays alone illumined the whole building, which was tinged with strange, gigantic figures, like the wild possessors of a lost globe...I will not attempt farther to describe the magnificent vision which a little pill of 'brown gum' had conjured up from the realm of ideal being. No words that I can command would do justice to its Titanian splendour and immensity..." 

added poppy trivia:

"a drink fit for buddha"

Youngsters were introduced to the pleasures of opiates at their mothers' breast. Harassed baby-minders - and overworked parents - found opium-based preparations were a dependable way to keep their kids happy and docile; this was in an era before Ritalin. Sales of Godfrey's Cordial, a soothing syrup of opium tincture effective against colic, were prodigious. But Godfrey's Cordial had its competitors: Street's Infants' Quietness, Atkinson's Infants' Preservative, and Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup. 

 By the nineteenth century, vials of laudanum and raw opium were freely available at any English pharmacy or grocery store. One nineteenth-century author declared: "[Laudanum] Drops, you are darling! If I love nothing else, I love you." Another user, the English gentleman quoted in Jim Hogshire's Opium for the Masses (1994), enthused that opium felt akin to a gentle and constant orgasm.

answer to thursday's rosy riddle:  The wizard brought the rosebush to her home at night and returned her to the garden in the morning. Therefore, she was the only plant without dew. 

 

a few words from pepper poesie - the garden fairy!

photo by jane shirek, digitally remastered by ana traina

pepper poesie has dropped by today with an urgent request from james barrie himself and 

peter pan,

 of course!

you see, children know such a lot now, they don't believe in fairies, and every time a child says, "I don't believe in fairies," there is a fairy somewhere that falls down dead. 

please help pepper poesie save the dwindling fairy population! 

for every fairie blossom cookie you bake, a fairy gets to live again!

see secret recipe below and start baking!

pepper poesie's faerie blossom cookies

2 tablespoons sugar

1/4 cup fresh lemon-basil leaves, packed down

1/4 cup fresh lemon-balm leaves, packed down

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 egg

3 tablespoons lemon juice

3 cups flour

and remember all ingredients should be organic!

the following instructions are for human usage only --

preheat oven to 350, and lightly grease two baking sheets. in a blender, process the fresh herbs with 2 tablespoons of sugar and set aside. then beat butter until creamy, gradually adding 3/4 cup sugar. add egg and lemon juice and blend. add herb-sugar mixture, then flour, remember only one cup at a time, then beat throughly. shape into 1 inch balls and place them 2 inches apart on greased baking sheet. dip the bottom of a glass in sugar and flatten each ball. top off with fresh violets if the spirit moves you!

and remember to pick the violets and all flowers with care, be gentle, and always be mindful there are enough violets to go around for everyone to enjoy! and never-ever-never pick flowers by the roots!!

with this recipe we can help save at least 3 dozen fairies!
this recipe was inspired by susan wittig albert's book, china bayles' book of days

rose rustling!

what? you heard the rustling of roses, you say?  come close, and I'll tell you a secret, I'm a rose rustler. oh shhhh, please, don't call scotland yard!  rose rustling is a very noble profession, some of the best people you have ever had the pleasure of meeting, have been known to do it.  it's a name given to gentle folks who preserve heirloom roses by pilfering cuttings wherever they happen to find them: in old cemeteries, forgotten gardens, abandoned churchyards.  why old roses you may ask?  the answer is simple, because of their historic interest, color, and most of all, their fragrance which can be quite unique. making antique roses is a big-ticket addition to contemporary gardens.  early rose cultivars are much more robust than the modern hybrids.  they are especially suited to southern garderns, where roses sometimes struggle.  more importantly, many of these old-fangled roses are no longer commericially available.  there is tremendous thrill, rose rustlers say, in discovering a "found" rose that has not been noticed for a half century or more.  so if you happen to see an interesting rose blooming in an unremembered garden, run, don't walk and fetch a clipper, wet paper towels, and a plastic bag and start rustling! to read more about rose rustlers: people with dirty hands: the passion for gardening, by robin chotzinoff -- People with Dirty Hands: The Passion for Gardening


 -- thanks for stopping by, it's been a pleasure but before i say ta-ta i'd like to leave you with...


a rosy riddle -- once upon a time there was an evil wizard, who purloined 3 women from their homes and turned them into rose bushes that looked exactly alike.  then he put them in his garden. but one of the women had a husband and children and begged the wizard to let her see them.  he grumpily agreed.  so, at night, he brought the woman to her house.  in the morning he came and took her home.  one day the husband decided that he missed his wife, and he should go and rescue her.  so he sneakily snuck into the wizard's garden.  befuddled, he looked and looked at the 3 identical rose bushes trying to figure out which could be his wife.  suddenly it hit him, he knew the answer and he took his wife home.  now, how did he know which rose bush was his wife?

hint -- don’t think too hard on this one! i will post the answer on saturday! so ta-ta for now and remember always find time to stop and eat the roses...

gather, girls, the roses!

in persia, nebuchadnezzar adorned his palace with roses.  they were grown for their perfume oil.  The petals were used to fill the king's mattress.

in 11th century Sufi poetry, the rose became a symbol of life, its beauty represents perfection, and the thorns, the difficulties, that one had to overcome to reach that perfection.  the old herbalists considered the red rose to be more binding and more astringent then any other species: "it strengthen the heart, the stomach, the liver and the retentive faculty; prevents vomiting, stops tickling coughs and promotes stronger health overall.

i recently discovered that rose-petals have been known to flavor butter, for which the following recipe may be of interest!

rose-petals sandwiches

first choose a dry day for gathering the roses and wait until the dew evaporates, so that the pedals are dry.  now put a layer of red rose-petals in the bottom of a jar or cover dish, then put in 4 oz. of fresh butter wrapped in waxed paper.  cover with a thick layer of rose-petals.  coverclosely and leave in a cool place overnight. the more fragrant the roses, the finer the flavor imparted. cut bread in thin strips or circles, spread each with the perfumed butter and place several petals from fresh red roses between the slices, allowing edges to show.  violets and clover blossoms may be used in place of roses.

recipe for the rose-petals sandwiches was taken from a modern herbal by mrs. m. grieve...

more from annabella's garden

two playful peas in a pod...
one lilliputian flower girl, 
who reminds us 
not to be shy 
and seems to be saying, 
please, by all means, 
do eat all the greeny vegetation!  
then there is sante 
who always, 
always finds 

splendor 

in the 

grass!!