Given the whole saga of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool—the graft that keeps on grifting; the $15M "improvement" job that lasted less than a tenth of a Scaramucci before it began to sprout algae bloom—I think the only possible earworm for today has to be “Bein’ Green”. And who else to sing it but the OG, Kermit the Frog.
©2026 Bas Bleu
Do you need some Asiatic lilies? I expect you do.
You’re welcome.
©2026 Bas Bleu
I’m guessing that one of the members of a neighboring household was away for a while. Really sweet to see this walkway o’ welcome for their return:
©2026 Bas Bleu
For years I’ve found the fruit you get in the local supermarkets tasteless. With the exception of apples, oranges, grapes and sometimes cherries, everything (especially stone fruit) has the consistency of concrete chunks, the juice of a tax form and the taste of cardboard.
This usually includes berries.
Occasionally you can find blueberries that don’t feel and taste like little
balls of paste. And since all strawberries now seem to come from Driscoll, they’re
gigantic, hard replicas of berries with no fragrance or taste.
So this summer I signed up for
a CSA from a farm in Pennsylvania. So far, I’ve had two deliveries, both of
which included strawberries. (The first one also had peaches, which frankly
were indistinguishable from what I could find at Wegman’s—if they don’t smell
like peaches, they won’t taste like peaches. The second had a clamshell of
cherry plums, which were mildly flavorful, but of course they journeyed from
South Carolina to Pennsylvania and then to the People’s Republic. The CSA farm
did notify customers that it’s been a rocky year for fruit and they’d be
supplementing their supplies with items from elsewhere.)
Those strawberries, though—they
were the absolute berries (if I may be so bold.) Small, intensely flavored,
richly crimson. They absolutely exploded with flavor. The first time in years I
haven’t had to sprinkle sugar on a bowl to entice any taste out of them.
See what I mean?
©2026 Bas Bleu
We had three gardenia bushes in the house where I grew up in Southern California. We also had no air conditioning, so on summer nights my bedroom windows were open. Even though I was at the front of the house, I could still catch the scent of the gardenias. It was heavenly.
About seven or eight years
ago, I bought a little gardenia shrub and planted it in a pot in my back yard.
It’s not an ideal situation for it—that area gets only scattered bouts of
direct sun seven months out of the year, due to all the trees around me. But
that little trouper has hung on, even though it took a bit of a hit during the
snowcrete days we had earlier this year.
Although it doesn’t give me weeks of scented evenings, I’m still grateful for the flowers it produces for me. Gardenias mean summer to me.
©2026 Bas Bleu
