Good morning to you and a happy Sunday to you all!

Here, in Zurich, in the middle of what seems to be the Jetstream looping out south, we enjoy a couple of wet days. Warm wet days. Not that I really love the idea of jogging in rain or biking in rain to the factory, but warm wet rain early May is like a turbo booster for nature here. Right now I hope that the rivers here and there have still capacity to take all that water that comes down now.

My urban farming thing (salads, radish, tomato, and soon cucumbers and more) thrives and especially the salad grows like crazy. Nice! As I put the salad on the roof of our little tool house it sits in snail safe territory, too. Actually, I planted the salad right into earth bags, like you buy them at home depot: I just cut little holes into the earth bag to put the seedlings in and two holes to water. Seems to work…

Although last week was a bit too much, I managed to fiddle with scents. Well , I guess it is more BECAUSE it was so busy, I really needed the balancing ZEN of working with scents. In the focus last week was patch. For Patchouli. Patch is very versatile. I have a couple of different qualities for production and for experiments. There is one quality , enriched in Patchoulol, one of the ingredients of patchouli, that I love to use when the patchouli note is supposed to be somewhat modest, hiding in a way. Then there is one quality that is patchouli at its best, with its natural camphoric notes: These I do not appreciate that much. It is these camphorous notes that bring patchouli actually quite close to incense territory. I think it was Guy Robert, although I am not sure about that and did not double check this, who put patch and incense in the same family or olfactorial class.

But there’s more. I love the natural chocolate notes in patchouli. The dark side, with the woody lines remembering fine vetiver, the amber gris lines, the powdery aspects. It is all in there and when working with patchouli this is the challenge and the blessing. You can go in all directions. Add fruits and you got your fruitchouli. Add amber and you got your oriental. Add vetiver and you got your woody gent’s dream.

I guess I have the best job there is on planet earth: When things get rough I can procrastinate with scented matter. What else to ask for?