One thing I do miss about Ohio is all the beautiful wild natural preserves with their wetlands, prairies, tall cliffs and gorges with rushing rivers, old forests of hemlock, cedar, sycamore, and buckeye, and masses of native ephemerals.  The mushrooms and fungi were extraordinary.  Lots of native wildlife.  You could hike for miles imagining you were in a primordial world.

I’m sure similar backwoods exist here in MO, but so far all I’ve seen is manicured city and town parks with some planned natural areas of native/nonnative flowers, and human-made ponds.  Lots of dogs.  Not to be critical; there’s a place for those, too, and STL is known for its beautifully curated green spaces.

These interesting mushrooms growing out of a rotting tree, in stark contrast to the manicured school lawn surrounding them, are a case in point.  I feel a metaphor coming on, but I’ll spare you!  In almost every other way, I prefer the intelligent and progressive culture of STL to the backward-thinking conformity of much of Ohio.  Which gave us a J.D. Vance.  Rest my case.

Back to the usual drill, I made lunch for Avdi, featuring southern-style assorted greens from the garden, did laundry loads, and of course some garden first aid.  There’s a stubborn, aggressive weed grass that has taken over and refuses to yield to force, so I’ve been reduced to covering much of the veg garden with broken-down cardboard boxes, in hopes of subduing it.  One way to recycle cardboard, if nothing else.  Later we had gin cosmos (my idea) on the patio.

Avdi is off on another out-of-state road trip to visit a friend, so I’ll be doing my semi-caretaker role for a few days.  Let’s see what mischief I mean deeper-dive projects I can get into!