Odds and Ends

Tomatoes from my little tomato garden. I have two varities...looks here like I have three, but not really. I have 4 Roma plants (the top three) and 4 Juliet Hybrid plants, which are like little grape tomatoes, but slightly bigger. As seen on the right, they're usually shaped like the Roma, but smaller. Though I've discovered they can also appear very plump and round like the ones on the left.



It looks like another pot of creamy tomato basil soup is my near future! Candy gave me that tomato on the top left, from their garden. It was in a thoughtfully put together care package.

She wanted me to try some of her homemade vegetable soup, a couple of tomatoes from their garden, and a jar of her blueberry jam (made from blueberries that I gave her). So, rather than just share those three things, she provided a whole ensemble of things that would go with them to make a meal... the soup is a meal in itself, but with the tomatoes she provided bacon and lettuce for BLTs, and with the jam, she provided a little jar of peanut butter... and of course for both, a loaf of bread. I thought that was sweet of her.




My pretty Zeila! Love that girl.




Eeek. A giant green bug (grasshopperish, but bigger than I've ever seen) hanging out by my front door.



And these bees (at least they look like bees) have been hanging out in my thyme pot. Usually there's a dozen of them crawling all over the pot, inside and out. They don't seem to be eating it, though, and they don't care whether I'm around, or not. And... they only like the thyme. They leave the basil and parsley alone. Peculiar.




Tahra and Tom hanging out together (there's a lot of hanging out taking place in this post). Unfortunately, they chose to hang out near the ugly burn pile... and that's our ugly burn barrel (tipped over so it doesn't collect rain and rust worse... could it possibly rust worse?!) Yes, so they're so very ugly, but all mountain people have them. (And that's what we are now, you know.) ;-)

And you know what else? (This reminds me...) We don't have garbage service... none whatsoever. No "regular" garbage pickup. No recycling pickup. No horitculture pickup. Nothing. We have to put our stinky garbage in the car and drive it 11 miles to the industrial park... And we have to collect our yard and garden clippings in an ugly burn pile, as seen above. Geesh.



Frozen vanilla yogurt topped with fresh blueberries and homemade chocolate sauce, anyone?


It's Monday... new week - hope it's great!