Hello,
It is a full summer here in Friendly Forest, warm and not too soggy, exactly how we like it. We have been busy tending the forest.
And you may ask, what is tending? Well, it is a little bit in between what you call foraging and what you call gardening. When we pick, we are mindful of our plants too. We make sure we do not take too much. We prune when needed. We water in times of drought, though honestly, that does not happen too often, as we in the forest have an excellent water retaining system: ground cover.
Just the other day, tending took me deep into the forest, where I gathered wild blueberries with a few fellow Nettlekind. This is always a group task. You see, we preserve blueberries for the winter, and our baskets are tiny, so a few extra hands make all the difference. Wild berries are much, much smaller than yours, you understand. Take wild strawberries, for instance. They are perhaps twenty times smaller than the ones you grow. Only because I have seen some of your large strawberries, and I must say, I was very impressed. I would love to try one, to be honest. Are they sweet? But I am departing from the subject. Where was I? Ah yes, our group project. We are slowly getting ready for winter, and wild blueberries are always appreciated when the cold comes.
What none of us noticed at the time was that my dear friend Mrs. Mint had come along too, quietly collecting moments of the Nettlekind. None of us are terribly fond of being caught by surprise, though we do rather enjoy looking back on the memories afterward. So here we are. A little picture of myself, tucked between wild blueberries and wild strawberries.
Anyhow, I had better run. It is a busy season ahead of us, particularly because, on top of all the preserving (I will share a recipe next time, I promise), Mr. Dandelion, the little ones, and I are off on an adventure. I cannot tell you where, or how. But Mr. Dandelion has been working on something rather big when it comes to transport. You know how he is with his aeronautics. So we may be going somewhere far, far away. I am quite excited, as we do not normally travel during a busy season like this. But I thought, well, only for July, and we can have it all finished before September. So there it is. Adventure awaits.
With warmth,
Mrs Nettle
