Queen Anne’s Lace was my favorite flower as a child. It grows wild in the Willamette Valley. Some years plentiful, some years scarce, but always it grows. The center blossom, usually, a dark blue or purple. Occasionally, a scarlet center (those are the ones with extra magic, you know.) I loved those blossoms for their delicate nature, their bold center, and their stubborn stems. More than once I would try and pick one only to end up on my butt in the dust with the flower only slightly worse for wear from the battle.

Even the fact that eventually it meant picking cockle-burr after cockle-burr from my socks when the petals turned to seeds didn’t turn me off to their brass nature cloaked in dainty appearance.

And so, when one carrot, the largest carrot, the center-most carrot, decided to shoot to three feet tall overnight, I let it.

It lacks the bold center and the gentle upward curvature, but hits the soft spot in my heart all the same. My hypothesis is, I didn’t plant cockle-burrs to get carrots, so perhaps, if I’m lucky, I’ll have smooth tiny black seeds in a little while. My first saved carrot seeds. If I’m lucky.