The American Sign Language class I’m taking involves improbable amounts of studying, possibly because I’m not a child prodigy anymore. Even so, spring is in the air. Strawberries are in the markets and leaves are on the grapevines. After work today, Pete and I stopped at the secret organic garden one town over, where we have permission to trim the grapevines that are slowly turning a garden gate into a fragrant wall. Pete brought my left-handed scissors, but the gates were seven feet tall, leaves were mostly out of my reach and Pete’s pruning shears won the day. We stuffed our tools and unusual produce into the trunk of Pete’s car and drove home.

This evening, Drusy went missing for more than half an hour. I should say we realized we hadn’t seen her in some time and frantically searched the house for her. She is so tiny she had tucked herself into a little corner under Pete’s desk in the attic and fallen asleep. Pete crawled around with a flashlight while I struggled with panic. When he found Drusy, she seemed impatient with us for disrupting her beauty sleep.

The task at hand, however, was more pleasant. Before I go hog wild on weeds, I like to find good instructions. This lady seems pleasant and methodical, so I took <a href=”http://www.maureenabood.com/2013/06/05/how-to-identify-clean-and-store-fresh-grape-leaves/”>her advice.</a> I cut leaves off vines, grouped them by size, wrapped them in cellophane and froze them in freezer bags, careful to label them precisely. It’s a drag to find an unlabeled freezer bag in January and toss the contents, but sometimes I do make mistakes.