O Is for . . .

. . . the ocean. I'm a Pisces, and I definitely connect with water. I love the way the ocean smells, the way it sounds--it's mesmerizing. I might well whinge and moan about walking for an hour or two down a city street, but I'll wander down a beach for that long and be surprised when I realize how far and how long I've walked. Of course, being a foziewisp, many shells and bits of sea glass are likely to be garnered along the way. . . this photo was taken in Hawaii, on the Big Island. The knobular thing in the middle of the photo is the face of a green sea turtle, known as honu--such cool and majestic creatures.

"O" is also for organic. B. and I try really hard to be good citizens of the world, and for us that means organic, as often as possible. The result is sometimes not pretty--witness the devastation wrought above on my rosebush by rose slugs (larvae of a type of fly). It happens every year--they eat the leaves down to nothing, then I remove the skeletized leaves and wait for healthy new ones to emerge. Better some gnarly leaves than the application of some sort of icky poison.

We also try to buy organic products whenever we can, and we belong to an organic CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) farm. This week in our box we found heaps o'greens (collards, chard, kale), heirloom tomatoes, zucchini, and peaches, among other goodies. I have to admit that sometimes being organic has its annoyances, everything from our cutting garden turning into a gopher playground this summer to the fact that organic shampoo just often doesn't lather as exuberantly or leave your hair quite as sleek and shiny. Oh, well . . . on the whole, I just believe wholeheartedly in the big O--why, naughty minds, that stands for "organic."