Calling Demeter: Things that keep my mind off gardening...for now

Wednesday night was a step in the right direction for my daphne perfume. It wasn’t a home run but at least I’m making progress. My secret agent was able to locate a perfume that has the quintessential “lemony” note that is so important and pronounced in the daphne flower. I think daphne is so hard to recreate because you can’t decipher all of the smells that pack that refreshing yet dreamy punch. I say it’s two parts lemon zest, one part tart orange juice, a 1 part star jasmine or maybe gardenia or honeysuckle, and a pinch of ginger. But I’m sure if I was to mix those together it would be a hot mess.

Limone di Sicilia

So to try and recreate this scent, she had a warm floral smelling perfume as the base and then we sprayed the lemon perfume over that. It smelled really nice but it just wasn’t daphne.

Be 21

I’m starting to feel like this is my life’s work. Maybe my next 30 years will be more successful on the daphne perfume front.

Nonetheless, the lemon perfume has quite a story – its recipe is very very very old. Like from the 1500’s old. I like that. I’m not quite ready to give up on this one. I think the lemon is right on – the base might need some tweaking. I think it was a bit too sweet or heavy and didn’t let the tangy lemon shine through as much as it needed too. The lemon needs to be very bright and zippy.

On an un-zippy note, a crazy storm came in yesterday with steady winds of 40 mph from 10am until about 4pm and gusts up to 60 mph. It rained harder and longer than anything I’ve ever seen. It was sustained “white” rain for hours on end. I couldn’t help but think of my little seedlings getting beaten down by the rain and wind.

On my walk to work I took a picture of the cherry blossoms that I thought I wouldn’t get to see until next year. To my surprise they are still holding on!

One of the fruitless cherry trees - holding on to it's blossoms for dear life.

After the torrential downpour and mini hurricane the sky parted and the sun poked through for the first time in days. It actually looked ominous but those few minutes of sun made me feel hopeful.