Tuesday Tomatoes and More

Bumper Crop of 'maters this year---as with just about everything else in the garden.   I picked enough yesterday to cover the bottom of the box.  Some moved over to the neighbor's house, though. 

That was after some moved over to the Meserve Preserve. And that was after some moved to the wrong Dolsby house.  But the right Dolsby's found 'em.  Turns out there's two Dolsby condos down there at Westwood.

Last night the neighbor I can't understand (he's the chef from New Yawk) called and asked if he could bring his beer-batter bread over and bake it in our oven.

That was about 8:30, pretty darned close to snooze time for me.  In fact, I was half snoozing when the phone rang, so he had to tell me three times who he was.

Finally, when he said, "I'm the one you can't understand," I knew who was on the other end.

When he asked about baking bread in my oven cuz his wasn't working, I kinda gulped and responded somewhat like I was in snooze mode, to which he accused me of being a Southerner and going to bed early.

Well, I waited until he came to the house five minutes later with his two bread pans to tell him I was NO Southerner, but that my husband,  who stays up later than I do, was.

And, my husband likes his Luzianna dishes, which our chef friend has learned to do quite well. 

So, while Mike and Bill talked "roux," I gathered about half the tomatoes from my box in a bag and handed them over to the man I cannot understand. 

He understood tomatoes and said he'd take them home and make some sauce AND that he'd give Bill his gumbo recipe.

I proceeded to stay up while the beer-batter bread baked in my oven, sending wonderful aroma throughout the house.  

Kinda tough to bake someone else's good-smelling bread and not get to sample. 

Anyway, tomatoes have been leaving the Lovestead in droves, and tomatoes keep ripening, so I'm gonna put a brief halt to the tomato migration and chop some up for salsa. 

This time I'll try to make some that doesn't blow the lids off the jars.  Maybe that man I can't understand can give me a good salsa recipe and some tips on keeping it under control.  

Of course, if he does, I'd better listen pretty close and make sure I get it right. 

In other news, I read a quote this morning on Twitter:  Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.  F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote that wise observation.

I'm kinda agreeing with him, even though it hasn't exactly gotten crispy yet, I felt pretty renewed yesterday, walking around, enjoying the cooler air and not seeing ONE bee until almost dark last night. 

That was when I did not see the garden fence I'd pulled out of the manure-pile garden and laid out on the lawn to clean off the weeds later.  Well, it was close enough to dark that when I ran the lawnmower over that segment of garden fence, things got noisy.

I hardly cussed---just disengaged the blade and drove the lawnmower over where I could get it off the ground enough to see just how twisted that garden fence was as it wrapped itself around my blade.

Then, I went to the shop, bringing various tools out to begin what will surely be a lengthy process of getting that segment of garden fence from beneath my mower.

While making the first attempts and breaking a sweat on a relatively cool evening, I started hearing a buzz. 

Then, I saw the first damn bee of the whole day and decided the twisted wire could wait. 

To be down to a one-bee day is a good thing, though, so we're almost to the crispy part of fall and getting that new start to life.

I wanted to get a photo of "crispy" or even "foggy" this morning, but failed cuz it was a bit too dark.  The sky was pretty, though, with all the clouds.

And, I took a photo of my purple and lavender petunias in the manure spreader.  They were looking pretty sickly a while back, so I threw in some more potting soil.  

That seemed to do the trick cuz they're vying for attention now.  Petunias seem to renew themselves in the fall, and they're among the toughest of the flowers cuz they last well into November. 

Anyway, we have another cool, not quite crisp day ahead, and I'm feeling like continuing my life start-over.  If I'm lucky, today could be a "no bee" and a 40-more tomato day. 

Also, maybe the man I can't understand will give me a taste of his beer-batter bread when I take it over to him this morning. 

And, that will be nice.

Happy Tuesday.