Christmas (Basil) in August

All winter long Sr. Maria Teresa would tell us, "I'm going to grow pesto in it's raw form!" Well, what she really meant is that she wanted to grow basil so that she could make homemade pesto! Sr. Maria Teresa has been lovingly and devotedly tending to her little patch of Sweet Basil and Christmas Basil. Christmas Basil, she found out, smells good (maybe like, um, Christmas?) but it doesn't taste as good as the Sweet Basil!

Tonight Sr. Maria Teresa was watering her basil when she heard squeaks! Wait a second, let's tell you about her pesto first!

The season of harvesting the basil is upon us and it seems like every time you turn around Sr. Maria Teresa is either picking leaves off the stems OR getting someone to help her do it. "I'm teaching them how to do it," she insists! Tonight at supper dishes (of course!) we caught her in action making a wonderful batch of pesto which we look forward to enjoying Sunday. But there is so much, that probably we will also be enjoying during the cold winter months!

Now, back to the squeaks! After Sr. Maria Teresa stopped watering she tried to find the source of the squeaks. After a non-successful search, she got Sr. Joseph Maria out of HER garden to help but but Sr. Joseph Maria retorted, "you just heard crickets!" But Sr. Maria Teresa was adamant that they were NOT crickets so she started watering her basil again to provoke the squeaks. So, Sr. Maria Teresa began rummaging through the weeds (yes, we got 'em!) and....

Lo! a whole nest of squeaky baby bunnies that were disturbed by the water! They were so cute! The sisters carefully covered over the nest and we just hope that Sabina doesn't get into Sr. Maria Teresa's garden.

This blog post was supposed to be just about Sr. Maria Teresa's basil and pesto but she came upon Sr. Blogger as this post was being written and there you go!