Life and love are life and love, a bunch of...

Life and love are life and love, a bunch of violets is a bunch of violets, and to drag in the idea of a point is to ruin everything. Live and let live, love and let love, flower and fade, and follow the natural curve, which flows on, pointless.

D. H. Lawrence

Reader Comments

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Name: Park

2012-06-21

Thank you for sharing these strioes, David! I work in mental health as well, although on the government program/policy side of things and one of the best things to happen to mental health in the province of Ontario has been the use of a new standardized tool to help both clinician and client work toward the CLIENT'S expressed goals. Before, we used to have such a paternalistic way of viewing clients with mental illness and advocating for their recovery only as clinicians and practitioners perceived it. Now, we have a tool that allows the clients themselves to tell us what elements in their life they are interested in improving: relationships, housing, vocational skills, activities of daily living, and the clinician works as a team-member with the client rather than trying to enforce compliance from him/her. It's such a simple thing but a crucial shift in understanding what really matters to people who struggle with mental illness.Thanks again for sharing these.

After making the fir

Name: Vladmir

2015-10-02

After making the first batch, I decdied to keep harvesting violets. I figured that since they're only around for a short time I should shore up my supply. I now have 1.5 litres of syrup in the fridge.I want to note that, following the recipe, I encountered a problem: each flower contained a violet-coloured water bubble after being steeped in water for 24 hours, and I had use the back of a spoon before proceeding with the sugar, lemon and boil stages of the recipe.So, for the last two batches, I tried something different: I crushed the flowers with a pestle before steeping, as shown in the video above. I think this makes a difference because steeping whole flowers didn't get all the violet goodness, at least for me.If I have the gumption, I may go for a fourth batch. Maybe. If the violets stick around after the coming week of rain.