My Life in a Cartoon

Found this in a Dognition tweet this morning. Pretty much sums up my life...

Remembering Tag and Hooper

It's been one year. I think about them every day.

Never forgotten.

The garden

More pictures. 

Zinnias. These poor things had a hard time getting started. They are in unamended soil (our soil is awful) and temperatures have been unusually cool, so they were slow to get growing. Then they had to overcome the earwig attacks. Some of the seedlings didn't make it. This is one that did and I love that it produces flowers of different bright colors.

This blueberry variety is Chandler and the berries are huge when fully ripened. If I had room for more this would be the one I'd go with.

Couple of dahlias...

Sky high tomatoes in the greenhouse. We need some warm sunny weather to encourage ripening. I found a variety of basil that doesn't bolt and it's growing really well (on the right at ground level). I'm making basil pesto to freeze.

Just some huge poppy seed capsules.

More bigness. Look at these raspberries. The duck's pool water gets dumped into them every day and the combination of duck poop fertilizer and water produced a great crop. Last year, during the drought, they were small and lots of work to pick. 

Three Amish heirloom sauce tomatoes. I will need lots more of them to put up sauce.

Flower power. Lots of color around the patio. Bees are busy here, but noticeably fewer of them this year than last. We've noticed some ground bees nesting in dry areas of the property but far fewer bumble and honey bees. We don't use pesticides or herbicides but pretty much everyone else around here does, insisting on golf green lawns and perfectly manicured yards. I guess that's more important than the survival of bees to them, sad to say. I'm happy to have a less than perfect yard.

Garlic, Tomatoes, Onions

Despite all the strange weather we're managing some good things from the garden. We've had a bumper crop of raspberries, blueberries and strawberries (even though the rats were eating them too), and artichokes are still producing. Now the tomatoes are starting to color up and I harvested a load of onions and garlic and they are spread all around the garage to cure for a few weeks. 

Cipollini onions, the best! Sweet, mild, delicious.

We bought four types of garlic and I didn't bother to keep them identified, but they all look good. We have three bundles. Looks like Walla Walla onions hanging to the left. The giant ones will be perfect for big onion rings like the ones sold seasonally at Burgerville.

Hattie with the first big tomato of the season. She ripped a dew claw off a front paw yesterday while chasing a ball. 

Cherokee Purple, my favorite tomato, just waiting to be sliced for a sandwich.