The tenacity of spearmint

This cutting has been in my kitchen window since late June.  It has been dried out from the heat at times and nearly out of water at times, and yet it is rooted and growing sprouts (underwater no less).  I love that it grows and takes over in the yard, but unlike vinca and Virginia creeper, it is useful.

I feel like spearmint sometimes.  When I carry water from the duck pond to the parking area garden.  As I replant beans again and again.  While working in the Ppatch until dark after getting off of work.

But I also feel like a hot house orchid more often than not.  The times that I look at weeds and overgrown vines in our yard and think it is too much.  When nothing comes up after we plant and replant pollinator flowers at the Ppatch.  When I let the seedlings I nurtured inside die because I didn't feel like planting them after work.

Maybe I should have been a Gemini.

With the drought throughout the farmlands of the nation it is more important than ever for us to produce more of what we will eat.  This year I increased our food budget for the first time in 5 years, and I expect that I will have to do it again each year going forth.  But now is also the time to make a difference where we spend it.  Meat from local farmers is much more expensive than from Costco, but I will know the animals raised have had the same good life as our own hens.  Vegetables from the farmers' market are in season and local, again higher in cost, but also higher in ethics and flavor. But if I wish to spend more of our budget on better items, it is necessary to produce all that we are able to offset the cost.
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These statements are not anything new or surprising.  We have already heard and read them to the point that the ideas have become ubiquitous, blending into the greenwash marketing, of well, everything.  But that doesn't make them less valid.

So today I strive to be more like spearmint.