It's July-- Bring On The Watermelon

Not hot today--we are in the clouds with a chance for some rain.  My peppers, tomatoes and other seedlings on the porch--are taking a well needed breather.  I can hear them sighing.  It's not burning hot today.  They don't need water every two hours.

Watermelon.  In chunks right out of the fridge.  Icy.  Right into the mouth and enjoying the juicy coldness.  The sweet.  And also into the Vitamix with lemon and mint for a AquaFresca.  Other wise called juice or fruit water.

I am drinking so much water.  Loving water, right now.  Which is so NOT me.  I usually have to force myself to drink water.

I have strawberries to make into a smoothie with a frozen banana, raw cashews and a scoop of yogurt.  My neighbor gifted me a quart basket of berries on the 4th of July.  So more berries for smoothies.  This is an exceptional year for strawberries.  Everyone has too many.

My blueberry bushes are loaded with green berries (not ripe yet).  Pretty soon I'll be out there every day picking a large bowlful.  Big beautiful blue berries.  And the blackberry bushes are full, also.  but this year I am marking the canes making the tiny wild berries.  And we will be removing them.  I only want the larger cultivated berries.  And the deep bleeding scratches on my ankles from wadding into the thicket.  Grapes. so many baby grapes on the vines.  Seedless concords.

My rhubarb is still growing but I have no need of any.  I am not "hungry" for it.

And that is my new dilemma.  My habits are changing.  I am less interested in my garden and more interested in the fruit production of my yard.  Plum tree is loaded with tiny green plums.  Strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, plums, rhubarb, service berries, one or two beach plums and one singular peach on my new trees.  I do enjoy zucchini production for the pickles.  But my peppers all were given away--I only needed so many for red color in the bread and butter pickle jars.

I am fatigued.  By the endless watering, picking, making of things or freezing of the produce. I am almost 71.  I am tired of it all.  Most of all, I am dreading the canning kettle with all the boiling water on hot late summer days.  The jars and jars of pickled things.  Jammy things with sticky sugar over every surface. and the endless cleaning up.

I eat very little of it.  G consumes all the pickles and the jams.  Though now, he is rather 'picky" about which jam or jelly he will eat.  Didn't care for the peach.  Not as enthused by the blueberry jam. But very excited to find a few more pints of grape.  It's amazing what one finds at the back of a store cupboard.  And more pickles.  The last two production kettles of pickled zucchini.  Which now is preferred over cucumber bread and butter pickles.  Crunchier.

But there will be no new pickles if I don't get the squash plants into the ground.  Oh, I am making myself fatigued just listening to myself whining.  Just get on with it........ plant the stuff, water it, collect it and use it.  Then take a good long nap.

Now I am