June 20, 2013

  • Garden Check!

    TALES FROM THE BRAT FARM

    I went out into the garden today to check on the progress of all our veggies and the strawberries.  The strawberries are large but not ripe yet.  My bush beans are full of beans that I will need to pick tomorrow and perhaps can them before I start on my vacation plans.

    The Beast's tomato plants are just full of unripened tomatoes.  Two of his plants are falling over because the cones can't hold them up, the tomatoes are that large and heavy.  He plans on getting a couple big stakes to help them out.  His tomatillos are just full of those and they are ripe enough for me to can them for future use in tomato sauce.  I ended up pulling out my radishes because they were going to seed.  I need to plant some more lettuce since we've pretty much used those up now.  There's just enough left for one more salad if I mix it in with some head lettuce.  The jalapenos are doing well.  I can hardly wait for those to be big enough to harvest.  I am definitely going to can some for use this winter.  I'll also use some of them for when I make my salsa.  That never lasts us at all because the Princess and Tara love it.  I make some special for Tara because she doesn't like it hot.  She prefers my mild salsa.

    The Beast's squash plants (only two this time) are going great guns.  I found some yellow mushrooms underneath the leaves and wonder if they are any good to use.  I'll have to Google them and see what I find out about them.  I've never seen anything like them.

    The strawberry plant roots (that's what they looked like) seem to be finally growing.  That should please the Beast.  He planted a bunch of them in one section of the planters as a test.  I hope they do well because about six of them are for those huge strawberries you see in the stores but never seem to find in any nursery for your garden no matter what they say.

    So, here's my schedule for next week.  I leave on the 25th to go to Marcus Aurelius's house to see my Marine grandson and visit with the family.  I hope to take them out to lunch.  After that, I will drive up to Mustachio's in Louisville.  We are having dinner with his mentor, Don and his office manager, Deanna.  Then I will spend the night with him.  I will leave early on Wednesday (which happens to be my birthday, BTW), stop off at Marcus's for a bit, then continue on home.  I will meet up with my niece, Tara, to have an early dinner as her gift to me for my birthday (you are so sweet, Tara.  Thank you ahead of time!).  On Thursday, I fly out of Huntsville with a stopover in Atlanta then continue on to Midway Airport in Chicago.  I arrive around 6:30pm and will pick up a rental car there.  I will continue on to my sister-of-my-heart's home and should be there before dark. 

    I will be there until July 3rd where I will fly back in a reversal of my flight up there and arrive back in Huntsville at 5:30 pm.  I will be able to spend the 4th with my family.  I'm hoping we might picnic at Lake Guntersville.  I haven't been there in two years but I think Chewlee would enjoy it.  I will make some potato salad and we can grill some hot dogs and have some watermelon for dessert.  Doesn't that sound like a perfect day?  It does to me. 

    I have no idea whether or not I will be able to post anything while I am gone.  I will try.  I have plans to meet up with several girlfriends of mine from high school.  I am also going to try to meet up with some cousins of mine that I have lost contact with since their mother died.  Since we have no land line telephone any more, there's no way they could even contact me by looking up our phone number.  I didn't have their phone number because I had their mother's.  I finally found one of my cousin's phone numbers so I will call him when I get into Chicago and see if we can arrange a time to get together.  These are the nephews and niece of my biological father.  They spent years trying to find me and finally did when I was around 35 years old.  Losing track of them now seems sad, don't you think?

    Okay, time to get this posted.  I promised the Beast some food when he gets home from church tonight.  I'm just going to fry up some pork chops and make some yellow rice with it and some corn.  I need to make the corn before it dries up and is only fit for feeding pigs or chickens. 

    Love you all.  Hope you have a nice weekend.