Returning Home

The Visit
Visiting Tommy, Elizabeth, Jason and Lyla was wonderful and exhausting as usual. The kids gave me a run for my money and I am sure I did not pitch in nearly enough to give Elizabeth a break. I do find that I am now able to hold a crying baby and just soothe her without feeling tense and stressed. And I can attest that it takes a crying baby who is being held and soothed about 50 minutes to nod off from crying burnout.

Tommy hath charms that soothe the savage breast

The Trip
Who says driving down the 5 in summer isn't fun? Oh yeah, me. It was a pretty good trip and the kids were better than they normally were at home fussiness and complaint-wise. We didn't even have to break out the built in car DVD until quite late in the trip and Lyla did a lot of sleeping and cooing. On top of that, there was a Starbucks at our last stop, so what's not to like?

The real highlight, though, was at our first stop where we went to McDonald's for 'dinner' and found a super long french fry. If that doesn't say party, I don't know what does. Below are three, count 'em three, length comparisons so no one misses the true import of our find.

1

2

3

Home Again
I hadn't seen Jean or the kids since June and it was fun to see them again. Keith is growing so fast I was a bit worried he would be looking down at me now. We got in at 12:26 am and I had the monumental discipline to wait until morning to see the garden. It was a mixed bag of out of control and very healthy. I spent the day bringing it back to some semblence of order and to get to know what was what. Jean has been doing stir fry all week with garden food so nothing was wasted. However she looked away from the zucchini for 15 minutes and there were a couple of very large ones. Below are the highlights.

I have zinnias! I have tried to grow them since I moved here 5 years ago. There are only a few, but they are alive, blooming and healthy!

My corn silks were eaten by cucumber beetles. I have great hopes that if they were already pollinated that they will ultimately be OK. I had one ear this morning for breakfast and it was everything a fresh ear of corn should be.

The pole beans have gone to seed. I am going to try to use those seeds as dried beans and see how they are.

I have learned how to salt sunflower seeds and am looking forward to harvesting these. They are quite the bee attracters.

Two weeks ago these were little babies. Now I have 5' tall pole beans and cukes that are already ready to be picked for pickles.

Because my pumpkins are on a trellis they need to be in a sling. I elected to use a grocery bag. Instant shopping. I had high hopes this would be ready by October. It looks now like it won't last that long.