if you have black eyed susans in your neighborhood, you might want to pick some & put them in a vase with water & keep them there until they dry. black eyed susans are bright & cheerful in the wild & in a vase. when they dry, they are sweet & adorable.

i discovered this by accident – i have a habit of keeping flowers long past the time when most people would toss them – and then i went and picked two more bunches. i can just picture their dear little faces smiling sweetly at me in the dead of winter.

(just so you know, they do drop a lot of pollen, even when they’re dry, but i decided it’s worth it. and after they dry, i move them to their new home, which has no water in it.)