Friday, June 18, 2010

The Surprise Garden

I asked my sweetie to dig a garden for me this year since I had not turned over the soil in several years. Instead, he put in two raised beds, 4' x 16'. He even had topsoil delivered. It turned out to be about as much work as digging up the garden, but much better looking.

I put in lots of tomatoes, onions, zucchini, eggplant and peppers. Lots.


We usual don't see our first ripe tomato until July 4th or so, but we have one already.

OK, so it is the size of a ping pong ball and squishy on the back side, but it is RED. There are hundreds more that are larger. I can just se myself elbow deep canning in a few weeks.




I missed a zucchini yesterday when I picked the others.............



This one is about the size of my forearm.

The onions are ready to pull up and dry and the japanese eggplant is producing.


We planted the fig trees about 5 years ago. Can't wait to make jam again this year.
Buster and Rupert (my granddog) helped me yesterday. We had fun in the garden. Buster was exhausted today.




It is hard to get a picture of a moving target.

Monday, June 7, 2010

Buster's First Camping Trip

Soon after Daisy died, we went to the SPCA to get another dog. Our Vet (and I) agree in following the "overlapping dog theory". That is to get a new dog soon after the old one dies, but before the last one goes. We know we had to hurry in getting the next dog because Rhoda already had cancer.



Buster is exactly what his name implies. He is just bursting with life, enthusiasm and the urge to chew anything anyone cares about. Sort of like a cross between a toddler and a shark. He is actually quite affectionate when he is tired!



Now that Buster is getting a little older, we thought we could take him on a camping trip. Here he is in front of our camper.





He is just a little guy. Cute, huh?



Anyway, this was more of an adventure than we expected. Since we only had the weekend to spend, we went to a campground about an hour from home. It has a lovely pool and water park for the kids, piers out on the river, mini-golf, camp store and just about every amenity you could hope for. For the hard core campers out there, yes, I have done "real" camping and had the 42 spider bites to prove it. We now camp with our own hotel suite on wheels and love every minute of it. But I digress.



If you have ever been to this part of the country, you have met the crowd that slips the term "our place on the rivah" into every conversation. Wow! you think, a house on the water! Well that is not exactly what they mean, thought I never knew until this weekend.



This is what we found.






This campground had 600 "weekend" spaces and 400 "seasonal" spaces. The seasonal spaces are campers that are permanently parked with room additions, decks and screen porches. They are about two feet apart and sport all the gift shop decorations they can hold. Each owner has a golf cart. Here is the good part. They spend all of their waking hours on the decks and porches drinking beer and hollering at passers-by. When they tire of that they hop in the golf carts and cruise up and down the paths between the campers drinking beer, smoking cigarettes and hollering at the folks sitting on their porches. Yee-Haw!


We couldn't get the hang of things, so we went for a ride to another campground nearby. They were having a lawn tractor race. I wish I had taken my camera. A bunch of teenage boys tearing up a lovely grass field doing donuts on their lawn tractors. No kidding.


So if you ever run into a good ol' boy or gal and they start in about their "place on the rivah" just smile. Lindy already told you all about it .


We did get some practical information during this. All you need to make a lovely fire pit in your yard is a couple of old car wheels. Honest!