I Love My Garden and How it Changes My Life

Yesterday (Friday) I was going out to the garden to see if I had anything to harvest and to see if the almost continual thunderstorms and tropical downpours had damaged the plants.  So I'm in the garage, about to open the door to the deck.  Fwump!  I fall and end up on my knees.  I had tripped on a hose (which I still have to move.)  I'm fine. Really.  Although quite a few places hurt, there was no blood and (believe it or not) no bruising.

I was carrying my camera, which didn't hit the floor and the kitchen shears to deadhead some of the flowers. It's a good thing the kitchen shears didn't impale and kill me.  By the time anyone would have found my db, it would have been well into decomposition.  Yuck.  Smelly.

After I went into the house and cleaned up, I retraced my steps, collected six (count 'em six) cherry tomatoes and went off merrily to work.

It's Saturday! Woo hoo!  Yay!

Alright, alright.  I don't normally arrange my breakfast into a smiley face.  But Yaoyao just called and it was so nice to talk with her.  That is hot Italian (chicken) sausage with the eggs.  I toweled them off with paper towel before putting them back into the pan.  I also made this at the same time (trying to beat major heat).

It's more of the sausage in with pesto penne.  No, I didn't have enough basil to make my own pesto -- it's a dried mix.

My second load of wash is in so now it's time to get dressed and head off to the Farmers' Market.  Whoops, I have to water the indoor plants first.  Later.

Miss Emily (Dickinson) was at the Farmers' Market.  It must have been 90 degrees in the broiling sun for this intrepid statue.  She is handing me a tiny one inch high scroll with a line of her poetry on it because I put some money in her basket.

After a quick zip through the market, I got some Swiss chard and sugar snap peas from Phyllis.  Then I got some lettuce from another farmer for Sunday.  The lettuce had been picked in the morning and the farmer had the heads in ice water.  Smart guy!

Finally, I decided on a nosegay from Sunset Farm (where Phyllis works).

And then I brought the nosegay to Bennie, a.k.a. Bernarda, who lives at Applewood.  Luckily, she was home and was delighted to have company.  What I didn't know is that Bennie's roomie is a gorgeous fluffy grey and white cat named Deli Cat.  Bennie who is 93 years young often volunteers at the Library on Friday but I hadn't seen her in about 3 weeks so I thought I'd stop in.  The cat and I got along famously until she started to eat the flowers.  We wrapped them in Saran Wrap and put them up high.

Sunday

I just got back from seeing "Chef" with Deb, Emily, and Paul.  It was a good 'feel good' movie.  It also made me hungry, but I enjoyed it.

I had made "do it yourself" salads.  I tore the above lettuce and added thinly slice summer squash and a bit of onion that I had marinated in balsamic vinegar dressing.  Then we could add (or not) sugar snap peas, chicken strips, penne pasta, hard boiled eggs, avocado strips, good bread and butter, iced tea, and hard cider.

Emily announced that the lettuce was bitter. That surprised me because I don't like mesclun for that reason and it didn't seem bitter to me.  Later on, she said the hard boiled eggs weren't cooked enough.  (I had cooked them for 7 minutes at a rolling boil.) So I guess she wasn't too thrilled with lunch!  Oh, she did like the homemade banana bread with walnuts.

And that was my weekend.  I'm going to watch the last of "The Killing" now on Netflix. I'm going to miss it when I'm finished.

Ciao.