The package said parsley

When we re-landscaped the front yard earlier this year, I had an area along the top that I wanted to fill with herbs. Lavender along the sidewalk, big pots of mint - Mediterranean Mint, Peppermint and Chocolate Mint, two kinds of basil, and then a 6-pack of Italian parsley. I love to put the big flat leaf parsley in all kinds of things, so I wanted several plants, and spaced them along the top.

It took a while to really get rooted well and fluff out. About a month ago, I decided that it was ready for a big snipping for potato salad. Weird parsley - the leaves were so large. Turns out, it's really celery. I've never grown celery before. Mostly because I don't even like it. I use occasionally in things, like stews, cajun stuff, chicken salads. But it's pretty tasteless, a useless watery crunchy bit. So now that I'm a celery farmer, I don't know what to do with it.

This stuff isn't like your regular grocery store stuff either. It's much smaller stalks, harder, tougher and stringier. I've been chopping a few outer stalks and trying to use them in salads or something. I've even thrown some of the younger leaves in things too, trying to pretend it's still parsley. Maybe in another month it will be bigger and juicier. Or maybe I've just got a row of garnish to deal with.

I love my new camera . It's a little digital Nikon Coolpix S50 in the groovy exclusive chocolate brown color. So sleek and crisp. I'm hoping to raise the bar on my picture taking skills with it (see? this celery shot ain't no medal winner). I'm a total novice with composition, lighting, focus etc. So it's going to be a learning curve for sure - but this little baby will do a much better job than my old dinosaur held together with packing tape :) Tally ho. I'm off to photograph the carpet, a million pictures of the cats, every plant in the yard, breakfast, my knees . . .