I am anything but a gardener. And I can only take the tiniest bit of credit for these beautiful radishes. The lion’s share goes to my husband. But I did water them occasionally. I made sure the weeds didn’t choke them. And, most importantly, I pulled them from the earth.

I don’t know about anyone else, but sometimes in NY I forget to look up instead of down or straight ahead. But the reward of training one’s gaze skyward needs no explanation. There is no trickery to the scale in that last picture. It’s of Mary Lou’s Milk Bottle Restaurant in Spokane Washington — well worth a detour for a crazy delicious burger served with hand-cut fries and some of the best milk shakes you can imagine. The thing is huge. And, crazy as this sounds, it’s not the only giant milk bottle in town. It’s actually one of two in Spokane, built by the Benewah Diary Company back in 1935. The other one is a Democratic Party headquarters.

I walked into the local health food store yesterday and thought there was some prerecorded bird track playing. One of those mixes that’s supposed to soothe the nerves. But after about 15 seconds I realized that the sound was coming from a closed cardboard box. When opened…this is what I saw. I practically jumped up and down. These little gals were en-route to a farm. I think they are pretty anxious to get out. If you look closely you’ll note some none-too-friendly pecking going on.

These charming prototypes from Studio Fludd (an Italian design collective, whom you may know from their super- cool wood faceted jewelry) are called Slow Wood. They are meant to encourage fun, healthy and perhaps creative (see dog bone) eating habits in kids. Maybe if the studio gets enough requests they will go into production.

A trip to our local supermarket upstate yielded these three little treasures. Never seen the “One-Pie” can before. Don’t plan on eating the German potato salad. Might give Grandma Brown’s Beans a whirl when the pantry gets low. Odd continuity of color in all three designs.