Five Green Peppers

Me: "Do we have a machete?"
Jim: "No....why?"
Me: "Well, I was thinking I might weed the garden."

Yes, friends, this summer's attempt at growing a vegetable garden has been a surprising mix of success and ridiculous failure. The lettuce went crazy, but the spinach never showed up.

The tomato plants grew from seed, but they haven't yet produced one ripe tomato.

The squash and the zucchini went berserk,

and I ended up with zucchini the size of watermelon.

The watermelon vines produced three watermelons...at least that's all I've found, after I tripped over them in the foot-high grass on the edge of the garden.

There may be more, for all I know, but I'm not going in there without backup.

The cornstalks are taller than I am this year, which is exciting, because they're the only things taller than the weeds.

Who knew you were supposed to pull out ALL the weeds? Or, that stomping them down wouldn't keep them down? I pulled out most of the little vines, but left a few of them, because I was pretty sure they were morning glories. They are now strangling the corn stalks, and the beans...and the tomatoes.

I did plant peas, of some kind, but I can't find them now.

I stumbled across a pepper plant yesterday and was overjoyed to find five green peppers, just waiting for me...perfect consolation for all the rotten cantaloupe I stepped on. Ugh.

Last year, I don't remember seeing monster weeds, or zipper spiders,

or losing my owl statue to a jungle of vines...

but then again, last year we had a drought, with a ten-day heat wave. Even the weeds gave up after that.

I did pull out the weeds early on.

I even threw down grass clippings between the rows, and around the tomato plants.

I picked lots of lettuce, a few squash, a few dozen zucchini.

And it rained a LOT.

I thought I had it made. That was May.

Then I left town...for most of June, and part of July. Gardens don't do well without supervision. You need a gardensitter. (25 year-old sons with jobs and girlfriends don't count.) You need someone to go out every day, pull the weeds, pick the zucchini, and maybe even cook some of it...

and mow the grass while they're at it,

so your watermelons and canteloupe don't get lost.

I'll have to remember that next year.

Furthermore, I will remember to pull up ALL the morning glories, while they are little,

because no matter how pretty they are,

they will turn your garden into one giant trellis,

just for fun...

and, maybe one zucchini plant would be better than eight.

Now, I'm going to go buy myself a machete.

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Flower painting #2 - Sunshine Yellow - 4"x4" oil on gessoboard

     This has been a year of so many new things, new people, loves, and losses. I loved this hibiscus plant we found at the nursery back in the summer. I took pictures of it before we decided to buy it. I had to paint it.  I've heard that anything yellow, with shadows, is difficult, because it isn't just 'dark yellow' - it's something different altogether. I found this to be true. It was fun experimenting, and mixing colors until I got is right.  I think I did, pretty much. I really like the way it turned out.
     Sad thing, though, about what happened to it.  Have you ever had a moment in time that you wish you could take back?...change something?...listen to that small voice inside your head?   I've had a few in my lifetime, some more impacting than others.  This one, not bad enough to cry over, but still....
     I took this little painting, along with a few others, onto my front porch one afternoon to photograph.  I was just about done, and had just set it down next to another small painting when my camera refused to work. It needed batteries. ..sigh...so I went in.  For a split second, I thought, 'don't leave it there...pick it up, and bring it inside...' and then just as quickly, thought 'No, I'll be right back...and besides, it's not going to rain 'til later, and there's no way the dog could pick it up off the porch...'  Well, being highly distractible person that I am, I forgot all about the paintings.
     Eight hours later, after the wind and rain had stopped, my youngest daughter came in from the front porch, and said 'hey, look what I found by the front door!'  It was my little sailboat painting.  It was dirty, and had a chip out of the side.  Then I remembered.  OH NO!  I left the yellow flower painting out there, too!

    Yeah...it wasn't there. I felt sick.  It was nowhere to be found.  We looked a long time.  I thought maybe the wind had blown it off the porch into the bushes, but no.  My husband found it later, in the yard.  Never underestimate a dog's ability to get ahold of something it wants - and chew it to pieces.  Oh, I wish I'd listened to myself to begin with!  This is what's left of my sunny hibiscus painting.

     I may try to repaint it one day.  I have a brand new year to work on that...starting tomorrow. Happy New Year to all my friends, and may you be blessed in 2011.

Cold Kentucky Rain

This has been the strangest July in Kentucky. Cool. Rainy. Then cool and absulutely clear, like an October day in Florida. Then rain again. Then just plain cold. I consider 55 cold. Anything colder than that is completely unnecessary. But in July? They say it's been the coldest July on record, for as long as they've kept a record... more rain, too, than ever before. It's raining right now. It makes me wonder who's prayers are being answered. I was in Florida back in May, and all the lakes back home were drying up. Muddy puddles left in the middle of fields... docks standing out in scrubby grass, dry as a bone...big, hundred-year-old trees literally dying of thirst. A friend of mine raises cattle, and she and her dad were having to sell off a bunch of cows because there wasn't enough grass for them to eat, and they didn't want to keep buying feed for them. I prayed for rain; enough rain to end the drought, and fill the lakes and ponds back up. I admit I asked God to refrain from sending another hurricane, if possible; I figured that's probably what it would take at that point. I wasn't sure, so I left that up to Him. It started to cloud up the day I left, and I mentioned casually that I hoped the rain would hold off until my flight left. Dad laughed. It hadn't rained in weeks, he said, and it wasn't likely to start now. The following weeks in Florida proved to me that God answers prayers when and if He wants to - I'm sure I wasn't the only one praying for rain down there - and with a sense of humor. The first rain in weeks was something just short of a 'tropical storm', but they weren't sure what to call it, because it was too early in the season for a hurricane. It dropped rain all over the state, flooded some areas, and just kept on churning for about 4 days. I haven't kept track of exact details, but I don't think it's stopped raining, yet. I hope the lakes are filling up, and the old fishing village at Lake Pasadena can resume renting boats, and selling bait, and the cows can continue to graze peacefully in San An, and that the old treehouse tree will be around for another hundred years or so. And whoever is praying for rain here in Kentucky needs to stop.