Hello There Mr. Rob & Missy Cindy, How Does Your Garden Grow?

Slowly but surely our vegetable garden is coming along....... finally there is some Zucchini mature enough to pick, lots of leaf lettuce, tomatoes just barely coming, beets and potato plants are actually looking really good, onions and leaks are coming along nicely, and the pepper plants just look really stunted, as well as the bean plants despite the flowers on them.

It has been a tough year for our veggie garden, with so many other having "wonderful" harvests from theirs already in the way of beans, beets, tomatoes, cucumbers, potatoes and lots of good stuff.  Oh well that is what happens from year to year, something is on and something is off.  I will be happy with having Zucchini  and beets, and Rob will be happy with new potatoes.  Anything else we harvest will be a bonus. 

I was really hoping we would have lots and lots of tomatoes for me to preserve, as I use so many throughout the Winter months, and the canned tomatoes are so rarely on sale for a reasonable sale price anymore.  Unfortunately the Garden Center at our local grocery store apparently had the Cherry type tomatoes mixed in with the regular sized tomatoes, and we seemingly have more cherry tomatoes coming then the regular.  I was not a happy camper when realizing this...alas, there is always next year.....

"In the meantime, I am happy for what we have this year....really is there any other choice at this stage in the game?"

Then off course, now that I have to be elsewhere this upcoming week, the Zucchini are taking off like gangbusters!!!  Go figure ?  It is okay though, as I have that covered by making a phone call to my Cousin to tell them that on their way by to their cottage to stop in and "raid" our garden, as they love Zucchini as well, and there is so much lettuce, Rob and I would look like Bunny Rabbits if we were to consume it all (um, that wouldn't be so bad....Rob all soft and fuzzy, lol, I kind of like that idea).

Ha,ha,ha....if all my problems in life were as "simple" as those of my garden.

Rob and I had a busy morning right off the bat yesterday, with going down to attend to some business in the Saugeen Shores area, where we took a bit of time to drop in on Aunt Gladys and Uncle Basil momentarily, but long enough for Rob to go away with some of Aunt Gladys' "carrot cake".  I really am not sure if he has her under a "spell" or she just makes and gives him carrot cake so she doesn't have to hear him whine......LOL.  I think I will go with the latter.

Since there is a Walmart and a Giant Tiger store close by, we also took advantage of picking up some needed items much cheaper at these two stores then we would ever find in Wiarton, so we were on it !

By the time we got home it was going on to 1:30 p.m. !  Well that most certainly put a dent into my day.  Oh well, I got right to it by getting all the stuff from the reunion put away off my kitchen counters, my bed finally made, and some general straightening out before I went outside to attend to a bit of weedeating around my side flower beds that had been really buggging me.  Then I got a bit of cutting along the front flowerbeds, where Rob can't get in with the riding lawnmower, just before the mower died and two motorcycles pulled into our driveway.

I suppose that was my "Q" to stop.  Well, I did, and Rob and I had a nice little visit with Ralph and Bob over a nice cold gingerale. 

After our visitors took their leave, Rob had a couple of Taxi runs, so Bandit, Lexus and I had a feed of raspberries right off the bushes.  Someday soon I must take my camera out there to "capture" those two enjoying the raspberries as much as I do.

Once Rob arrived back home, we had a simple supper of salad and a hamburger...nice, easy and quick, as we were both tired right out.

After supper I made a phone call to the Grand River Hospital in Kitchener, where, Tim, our very dear friend, had surgery yesterday for a double knee replacement.  I was relieved to get through with no problem to find out the surgery went well; he was awake and responding as he should.  I can't imagine having two knees relplaced, never mind one, but it was very necessary it be done.  Now the battle ahead will be to getting them functioning to their full capacity, which I am sure will take some time, effort, along with much discomfort and pain.

In a couple days, I will be heading down to Bob and Tim's home to be there when Tim is released from the Hospital.  I am going to be there for them as moral support, and also to prepare some meals, since it would be too difficult with Bob's twelve hour long work shifts to do so.  My being there a couple of days will hopefully help until things get settled a bit and Tim is more stable, literally, on his feet.

Rob, Bandit and Lexus will have to just manage without me.  I can imagine their "shouts of joy" when I take my leave and head out our driveway......lol.  Not really, but it does sound funny....maybe not.....maybe I will come back to find our home has been turned into quite the "bachelor" pad !  Ha, ha, ha.....it will be interesting to see how much I am missed.

I will be able to still do my daily "blog" from Bob & Tim's, as they do have a computer, and I will be taking along my laptop as well.  It will be quite a different take on my life at my home away from home with pictures of new places that I have only given a "glimpse" of once before....LOL.

Despite the reason I am going, I am looking forward to spending some "quality" time with my best friends, as when I was there a couple of months ago, it was for such a short time, and had been also such a long time in years since I had been there before that. 

I certainly have lots to get done around here in the next couple of days before I am leave.  We bought two baskets of peaches yesterday, so I am hoping they are all ripened enough by tomorrow that I can prepare them for the freezer.  I also want to make sure my "Crabby Cabbie" has lots of clean clothes....I am really not too concerned about the "meal" department for him, as he will not starve while I am gone.  LOL, as long as there is propane for the BBQ, hamburgers and buns for days it is not raining he will be fine, and for those rainy days, eggs in the fridge, bread on the counter and hydro to turn on the stove, again he will be just fine.  No fear of my "Rob" going hungry !

On just loading the pictures from my camera to the computer, as I just came in from taking pictures of our vegetable garden, I had forgotten about watching a Hummingbird at the Bee Balm beside the pond yesterday.

"It took a very very long rest on the branch of the Mulberry tree."

It is that little "blob" on the end of the bare branch up and to the right of the birdhouses.  Hummingbirds simply amaze me....and they are so cute too!

Oh yes and the Wiarton Airport weatherman says....

Today:

Mainly cloudy. 60 percent chance of showers with risk of a thunderstorm. High 24. UV index 6 or high.

Tonight:

A few showers ending late this evening then partly cloudy with 30 percent chance of showers. Risk of a thunderstorm this evening. Low 17.

Rain, rain, and more rain.  I am sure the skies will be opening any time soon here with the rain coming down.

Oh well, just as well, as I have lots, as always, inside stuff to be done !

I can't believe I have been awake since 5:00 a.m. and up since 5:30, and here I am just finishing up my "blog" at 7:58 a.m. !  I suppose I have been feeling a little disorganized lately....lol.  It doesn't help either when I have early morning phone conversations with my son, which I would not miss for the World, and then to just have a phone call from my bestest heathen Newfoundland friend, Elsie, as I was attemtping to do a proofread, asking me if I checked my messages so I could see what she sent me to give me a "belly" laugh to start out my day with ....... omg, I am so blessed !

Here I go off into the rainy day ahead, having more then just one "belly laugh", "Just North of Wiarton & South of the Checkerboard".