Salad Burnet

Day 89: My artistic skills leave a lot to be desired, but every now and then, I'm inclined to make a botanical drawing. Today seemed as good a day as any, so I give you Salad Burnet, anticipating that you will be unfamiliar with this delightful little plant and will ask, "What the heck is Salad Burnet?" Sanguisorba minor is a culinary herb, not often cultivated in the home garden, but very easy to grow, quite hardy and won't run rampant. Despite temperatures in the 20s a few weeks ago, mine is still as green and fresh as ever. It can be eaten by itself if one is so inclined, picking it fresh from the garden as I often do when I'm working outdoors, but its best use is as a garnish. It tastes of cucumber! The individual leaves are about the size of a thumbnail. Strip them from the main stem and sprinkle them over your next potluck salad and be prepared to answer the inevitable question: "What is this stuff, anyway?"

Botanical Art

Day 97: My talent for art is feeble at best, although I'm learning how to handle coloured pencils thanks to a Christmas gift of Johanna Basford's "Enchanted Forest" colouring book. As I've experimented with shading and blending, it has occurred to me that any naturalist worth the name should at least dabble at illustrating. Here you see my first effort, catkins plucked from Harry Lauder, the contorted filbert in my yard. I made a faint outline of my subject with a standard lead pencil and then began applying colour. Unfortunately, I failed to center the drawing on the page (laziness on my part...I should have erased it and started over), and I find the colour saturation to be lacking (best I could manage with these pencils), but as a first attempt, I'm not too disappointed.