#voisine (en se marrant) : ''c'est incroyable cette voix 'France Télécom bonjour' que tu as au tel.

[hedgehog-moss]

Good news! I managed to find the last dandelions of the season :) I really thought I'd missed the window to harvest them this year; it's usually a late-April activity for me but it rained so much in the past couple of months, it just ruined my flower-harvest schedule.

The only dandelions left where I live are all in their wish-granting puffball phase, but I thought I'd try my luck at higher elevations—yesterday I called a neighbour who lives 150 metres higher, it went something like "Hello I would like to inquire about your dandelions and what stage of their life cycle they have reached." Neighbour told me if I hadn't introduced myself first she would have assumed I was a salesperson cold-calling to pitch a product ("You sounded so professional.") But she confirmed that she saw a few still-yellow dandelions during her last walk! Pandolf and I were immediately on our way.

Neighbour also told me that the cows were out in one of the pastures I was about to cross, but I didn't tell Pan, it was a surprise. He was so happy! Look at him bouncing his way towards them:

I was ready to call him back if the cows looked nervous, but instead more cows arrived to meet this visitor, to Pandolf's extreme delight (I had to call him twice before he deigned to stop greeting cows and join me on my dandelion search.)

Usually I just sit in a pasture covered with thousands of dandelions and I barely have to move to fill my basket, but in late May the harvestable dandelions are few and far between, so I had to walk long distances to find a couple here, a couple there—and I had to really inspect the tall grass, where they are much better-hidden than in April grass.

And guess what else I found in the tall grass?

A lion!

Worse! it's Texas :) I guess he is officially a recurring character. (Here's Texas' memorable introduction, for those who missed it.)

He makes Pandolf look small and scrawny!

I went to say hello to his owner but she wasn't home, so we returned to our dandelion field, followed closely by a suspicious Texas.

Sure, I'd scritched his ears and it was nice, but he's a diligent guard dog and unlike Pandolf he doesn't think friendly ear-scratching and malicious intent are two circles that can't overlap. But once I showed him my harvest he lost interest in us. Catching dandelion thieves is not in his job description.

Another animal I had to negotiate with were pollinators, who were clinging to the last few dandelions even though there were other wildflowers for them to feed from. They probably thought I was being similarly unreasonable with my single-minded focus.

I also found an adorable tiny spider in my harvest—she was dandelion-yellow and perfectly camouflaged to hunt insects in there! Here she is giving me a tiny spider high-five (or maybe angrily shaking her fist at me as I deprived her of this ideal hunting ground)

I let the llamas out to eat the weeds in my (still not planted) vegetable garden, like last week, as I started the long and meticulous process of destemming 400 dandelion flowers one by one. It started raining at some point but I had to stay outside to keep an eye on Pampe—it wasn't cold at all, and after the initial "oh no! rain" reaction, it started feeling pretty nice and meditative, sitting outside in the soft spring rain with the animals while preparing flowers.

I proudly told my mother that despite being one month late I managed to make 5 jars of dandelion honey just like last year, and she complained about shrinkflation seeing as I used significantly smaller jars than last year. I'm sorry but that's just called making clever use of packaging to meet unreasonable customer expectations in difficult times. Plus, I used 1 more lemon than usual in my recipe, so what this product lost in quantity it gained in quality. ("That's what they all say," she tutted)

(If my hen looks grumpy it's because she was sheltering from the rain under the table and I unceremoniously caught her and dropped her on top of it to enliven my photo. Not only did she get wet but she felt used, like a mere prop. She's back in her sheltered spot and it's been over 10min but you can still hear muffled resentful clucks when you walk past the table.)