tools

Sometimes, I like to look at things that I absolutely cannot have.  Call it wishful thinking, or anything else you want, but this is the reason why I can't walk past Anthropologie without "taking a quick look" and why I always ask to see the dessert menu, even when I'm way too full--or way too poor--to order dessert.

So the other day, I was doing some of this wishful wandering over at Terrain--which frequently features items that would require multiple paychecks for me to purchase.  But then, I was cruising through the first page of the 'new arrivals' and found myself saying, "Hey, I have that."  Twice.

For someone with no ground to garden in, I have an awful lot of gardening tools.  And some things that might be more accurately referred to as "farm implements."  There's a tractor seat on our back porch.  And two chicken feeders.

And, apparently, I'm also the owner of a pair of okubo shears.  Who knew?  I came across these a few years ago at my old job and have been using them to prune herbs ever since.  Terrain says that theirs are made in Japan, and I'm guessing that mine are, too.

As for the other thing, it's a bit of a stretch.  Terrain has some cute little herb snips that are four inches long and kind of pretty.  Mine are over a foot long and too big to use for clipping little bits of oregano.  In fact, I'm pretty sure they were used to shear sheep.

Which is way more interesting than snipping herbs.

The sun is out, so I'm planning on spending some more time sifting through the collections of stuff on the back porch, seeing what other exciting things I've managed to bury under more recent acquisitions.  If you're too organized for anything like that to happen to you, then here are a few other fun things to keep you busy:

a spring bike tune-up how-to

roasted strawberries!

olive oil cake to go with the berries

cheesemaking in the big city

a string garden

Happy weekend!