A Beautiful Morning

 

This is my friend, Mr. Bluejay. He is my companion along with the dog and the cat. We make up quite the odd bunch. This morning, I pretended to be fooling with the water as I turned on my camera. Normally, when I turn it on and point it in his direction he takes off. Today he just sat there. As I walk around looking at things, he is never further than about 5 feet. I noticed him flying from tree to tree as I turned off water. I wasn't paying attention to him, until he broke off a dead branch that dropped at my feet. I looked up and there he was with a sparkle to his eyes and a grin.  I have noticed, that the birds will stay very close until I look at them directly. They don't like to be stared at.

 

My largest tomato plant, the only one with blooms so far. I was thinking as I was taking pictures of my garden, it is kind of looking at a new baby. Only the mother and daddy see the beauty. I think my garden is like that right now. I see all of the beauty and promise, but I am sure it won't look at pretty to you as it does to me. I thought I would share anyway.

 

This is where the tomatoes and peppers are and the tomatoes are little. I think Ron said we have 42 tomatoes and 44 pepper plants here. We went around with a bag of Diatomaceous Earth  and sprinkled on every single seedling. Ron is going to be using Neem Oil to try and stay ahead of the bugs we have out here. We are going to stay as organic as possible, as I was on my hands and knees I did already find those stink bugs so I know we will have to be proactive if we want anything to grow. After all of the years of drought and heat we have had, this will be a tough year to get any kind of crop.

 

The egg plants never missed a beat, I already know we are going to have more egg plant that we can ever eat. I hope with the tomatoes to make lots of spaghetti sauce so we can have it with Egg Plant Parmesan.
I have found that out here the vegetables from the nightshade family do better as they seem to really love the heat and bugs leave them alone.

 

We have never grown okra before. When we met Nik, one of the first things he asked was if we grew okra.
I said no, as my memories of it is eating it  all summer long in lots of creative ways. I remember the real all time low was when my Mom served it boiled. She could fry it pretty well, and I could choke it down with lots of ketchup. So we planted all of this and every one came up. I do hope Nik likes okra that much. I might pickle it as I do like pickled okra. When I was a kid, my Mom and Dad only had one car and my Dad used it for work, in the summer  we stayed home, that was why, we only ate out of the garden in the summer. We learned to eat lots of things because there were no snacks. Only if you picked it off a tree or a plant or  the pinon nuts from the pine cones. We spent many happy hours pretending to be Indians collecting food.

 

I know you can't see all of the pumpkin plants coming up, but there are so many. I really get excited seeing these lovely things coming up. I planted such fun things such as a Knucklehead pumpkin and one called Warty. There are some Cinderella and some Moon Shine. There are lots of Jack be Littles. I planted a row of sunflowers with jack be littles and I hope they will climb the sunflowers. This morning as I was like Silas Marner counting my gold, in my case pumpkins, Ron said, " You know you should really thin those pumpkins." The voice of reason, to my greedy heart. I know I should too, but I really doubt if I could.

 

I made my first batch of boysenberry jam. There is nothing more wonderful than the smell of that jam and the sound as the jars pop as they seal. I thought as I made this, I am throwing my hat in the ring. I am back and it is so wonderful to be alive and enjoy the golden light of the early morning and the colors of the berries that are dusky purple to warm red to so purple it looks almost black. I am so thankful to finally be through this last trial, and how thankful and blessed I am. God is so good, in that what I thought was bad, and turned out to be such a blessing. I wish I would learn that about everything. My fear I admit wins most of the time.

 Emilie and Nik just had their first Anniversary. I am so glad I only have boys left.
Well, Monday is here, lots of work to be done today. Summer is here. The boys are out of school. Their friends are home from college so my house gets lots busier. I hope you have a wonderful week.

~Kim~

---Fear is the darkroom
Where negatives are developed."
Author unknown.