The Best Hostess Gift Ever

You will forgive my silence here, I am sure, when I tell you that my sister and her family arrived on Sunday for a brief visit that ended today. My sister is a frequent visitor to Blackrock--although, considering her activities during previous visits, I really can't imagine why--but her husband and daughter have never had the dubious pleasure of a visit to our lakeside estate*.

They made themselves immediately popular, however, by showing up with a cooler of food.  Specifically, three pounds of carne asada, a dozen green corn tamales, and salsa from their favorite Mexican restaurant.  Well then!  Come on in!  And come back anytime!

In return, I sent them home with three quarts of pears (for my sister), a quart of pickled jalapenos (for my brother-in-law), a pint of strawberry-rhubarb jam (for my niece), and about a quart of pesto (for all three of them and fifty of their closest friends), the last of which they helped me make.

I'm not sure it was a fair trade on my end, but all parties seemed pleased with the arrangement.

* The only labor I required of them was harvesting tomatoes and stripping basil branches for me.  So maybe they'll actually come back.  My niece also spent much of her time playing with Cubby, which was just about the best thing ever.  He already misses his fun cousin.  Adults are so boring.

Lest I Be Accused of Favoritism . . .

A photo of Cubby, just to make sure Charlie doesn't get all the airplay around here. (Plus, is this not cute?  Not the fish so much, but the boy in the tiny life vest.)

The Return of the Sheepskin

Different baby, same sheepskin.

I Know Where Those Hands Have Been

This past Sunday's Family Fun involved fishing.  For A. and Cubby, obviously, not Charlie and me.  MY fun was getting a milkshake before the fishing.  I'm much more into ice cream than impaling worms on a hook and dealing with flopping fish.

ANYWAY.

After watching Cubby play with the worms for about ten minutes, and then fondle the bluegills that A. caught--including minute examination of the eyes and opening and closing the mouth--I was very reluctant to take his hand to walk back to the car.

Yesterday I turned around in the garden to find him squishing a slug in his fingers.  Lovely.

Soon Charlie will be right there with him, with the filthy hands and the mud on the pants and the dirt on the cheeks.  I don't suppose it's just a boy thing, but I bet it mostly is.

Sharing Is Caring

And isn't it just so sweet that Cubby cares enough about his baby brother to share his drippy, nasty cold with him?

Here he shares the joy of this wretched musical toy given to Charlie by our very nice neighbors that plays perky little songs over and over if you so much as look in its direction.  Irritating as it is, it's still better than two children with a cold.

And because I care so much about you, allow me to share this very pretty photo I took of the curly maple bowl made by my dad the (not amateur) carpenter extraordinaire--and expert bowl turner--on its maiden voyage as a food vessel.

I'm sure my formerly vegan father is relieved that it is holding tomato salad and not something like lamb hearts.  A not-impossible thing to find in a bowl at Blackrock, unfortunately.

Have a lovely day, poppets.

All of a Sudden . . .

Fall is in the air.  Or at least, the end of summer.  Low humidity, lower temperatures, bright sunshine, and a bit of a breeze.  It's about damn time.

How's the weather where you are, poppets?

Nothing To Do with My Kids

(It's so unusual these days to talk about anything other than those little dictators of my every waking moment--and the non-waking ones too--that I felt the need to announce it right up front.)

I may be jinxing things here by telling you this, but . . . we have chicks again.  There are three of them, and since these chicks were hatched in the coop, we have a much better chance of keeping them from becoming feral cat bait.  And before anyone comments to this effect. . . no, I do not have photos.  Maybe later.  If I manage to get the camera outside at some time in the near future.  I make no promises.

The tomatoes are starting to ripen in significant numbers.  Because I didn't really stake them properly this year and many of the tomatoes are actually resting right on the ground, I'm losing quite a few to insects and slugs, but I'm still harvesting a respectable number.  I froze a sheet pan full of whole paste tomatoes today.  That's what I'm doing this year instead of canning them.  I also froze the tomato juice I made the other day.

The freezer is my best friend this year.

Speaking of the garden, a couple of days ago I went in there to harvest tomatoes and AHHHHH!!! Dead bunny staring up at me with lifeless eyes from right in front of my tomato plants.  If the dogs had killed it, they would have eaten it, so I have no idea how it died and ended up splayed out in my tomato patch.  Maybe it died from overeating.  My bean plants.  Little bastard.  One down.

I think that's all.  Back to our regularly scheduled child-centric programming . . .