The Garden Begins To Produce

Finally. Big yellow squashes that I can slice thinly along with a big onion or two and fry down to a medium brown wonderful southern mess. Oh. My. Goodness. And one tiny tomato. I have some leaf issues out in the garden which worry me but I am going to think positive thoughts. I sampled all of the ripe sun gold tomatoes. So. Good. Please, Tomato Gods! Let them all ripen.

My restaurant Lexan container. Yes, 8 Quarts. Sliced, big zukes. Onion, red pepper, garlic and the few bitty jalapenos from my plants. I included the seeds and ribs because there were so few. Need the heat. This has been salted and iced and will be sitting quietly for three hours. Then I will be making Zucchini Bread & Butter Pickles. So much better than the cucumber versions. It wouldn't be a hot, sunny day in July without the canner boiling on the stove and hot sticky sweet syrup all over everything. I have been having vintage pickles on my veggie burger @ lunch. Everyone admires my lunch.

This is what the sliced zucchini, onion and peppers look like before salting and icing. I bought a $29 mandoline from the Chef's catalog. All one piece (no parts) and it can go into the dishwasher. I got two. One for me and one for my daughter. Easy Peasy. Sliced all this zucchini in less than 3 minutes. I did the onion by hand with my chef's knife. I can do a neater job on the onion. I didn't buy one for my son because he enjoys knife work as much as I do.

I got three or four mosquito bites (damn) while foraging in the garden for any additional zukes. Found three, so I sliced up seven total (I had four in the kitchen). They were all good sized.

Some times things just work out exactly as they should and then I feel so content and in sync with the Universe. I wish I could say the same for the contents of the fridge. I would appreciate being in sync with it's contents right now.

G stopped by the library last night to pick up the next Harry Hole (Jo Nesbo) Norwegian mystery for me. I am loving them. The author refuses to allow the books to be made into movies (I have to thank Diane for the link to an video interview). Wow, would these rock as movies!!! I may have to order the last remaining one available locally. And then find out where I can get my hands on the three newest books if they have been translated into English. Or find a new author. Perhaps one from Denmark. I didn't read them in order and that's too bad but that's the way it goes. The one unordered is the first one. So, I read #5, then #4, now #6 and will order #3. The same thing happened with Wallander. I had to read those books in the order I could obtain them also.

Yesterday and today the day temps are in the 80's with drier nights. Better sleeping. I turned the fans to lower speeds (less noise), no AC and I slept very well. Even used the covers. I am thankful to not be working for the next two days as the boss is returning from three days away today. He will be a dynamo of "projects" and busy work. More than half of everything in the perennial yard is past bloom and 25% have no descriptive tickets in the pots. Who knows what variety they are? I don't. We have wandering children who like to collect the identifier sticks out of pots. I set three of them to work (a few weeks ago) picking up sticks off the ground instead of pulling them from pots and I made them return them to me. Mom wasn't amused. Hey, I'm NOT amused either!!!

My second to the last customer was an older woman (perhaps 10 years older than I) who had me push her cart, read all the labels, go back and forth from Rudebeckia to Shasta Daisy to Coneflower and then asked if I would write up descriptions and plant heights for her (information off the sticks in the pots). Then she asked me to come plant them for her. I smiled and said "oh, I wish I had the time to do that!" Right. the final customer waited until five minutes to six (closing time) to dither with selecting a pot, wanting fencing, soils, etc and then proceeded to sit in the parking lot (we couldn't lock the gates) talking on the phone.

Finally, "A" knocked on the car window and asked her to drive out of the lot so we could go home. It took her awhile to get moving and then she waited to turn out into the street. Still talking on the phone. I'm sure she will call today to complain to the boss on our lack of "customer service". We are not allowed to hurry customers at closing. No announcements.

I am going to have some more coffee, find out why the dog is grumbling and then vacuum the floors, make the bed, fold the washed and dried dog towels, brush my teeth and wet my bed head hair and think about doing some garden chores like weeding or planting the new stuff I bought last week. Fertilizing the orchids. Sweeping off the back stoop. Watering the front containers. Writing checks for the pile of bills on my desk. Lots of things to do here at home.