Zucchini in the Salad

I have been spending a lot of time at Orchard House every chance I get. I am trying to prepare the property for either a sale or a rental, and it looks as if we may have found a good tenant. Meanwhile, as I spend time there, I notice all the beautiful flowers.

Some of the flowers are the result of meticulous and effective landscaping by the owners who preceded me. Although nobody is tending them, the flowers come out every year, each at its appointed time and station. Some were placed there by design.

Others are wild and spring up unbidden in the woods.

First I spot them as a flash of color from afar.

Then I come in closer for a better look.

If you look very closely at some flowers, you can actually see the pollen spilling out.

Pollen is a feast for insects. Eating alone at Orchard House, as it was my day off, I spread out my own  feast.

Lunch consisted of a peach, some cherry tomatoes, blackberries and fried chicken.

With it, I had club soda in a can. The food was good and better out in the open than it would have been inside.

The blackberries were fresh picked from the Orchard House grounds.

Later in the day I went to visit musician and piano and voice teacher Jill Dabney. She is helping me with the music for the Debt Collector. Before I left, she gave me some zucchini from her garden. This pretty much determined what sort of salad Bow and I would have with our supper.

First I sliced the zucchini. Then I added tomatoes, sugar snap peas and cauliflower.

Then I generously sprinkled on sesame seed oil.

When the salad was ready, I presented it to Bow.

Bow enjoyed the salad, though the zucchini was not necessarily his favorite vegetable of the bunch.