We dug and planted and constructed our new herb mound in the back yard, and then Maria seeded it. I had lunch with a new friend – Charlie Garbadian – who, it turns out, grew up right near me in Providence, R.I. At lunch, he reminded me that the herb seeds might not grow for six to eight weeks, almost the end of summer here.

This made sense, he directed me to an herb an garden store in Bennington and I loaded up with a tray of grown herbs and handed them over to Maria, who planted them this afternoon. So we have a new, new herb mound.  I gave them a good soaking. This is more like it, we can snip some herbs for dinner tonight. We love the mound. It belongs. And there is a lot of good donkey manure under there.