winding down

Well, now there are fifty tomato bags in the freezer, and the onions are in the root cellar. I've roasted, peeled and frozen all of the anaheim and ancho peppers, a small crop of them this year, on purpose, since we are still loaded with them from last year. Other things have been done in the last week, but mainly I spent hours and hours peeling tomatoes and processing them for the freezer. It's great to have them done. In the photos I'll attach you'll see that there are more tomatoes, and more, and more, but they will have to go to other houses (Marty's done her bit) or to tomato heaven, plowed under. Next year we'll plant half as many. We seem to have gotten the knack of tomato production, so we can cut back on the number of plants. And if we have a failure next year, we'll live through it. (Oh God! perhaps I should put in another 50 packages! Never mind, the freezers are stuffed.)

Dinner tonight is pie. Apple, from the first ones of the year (actually a galette), and chicken pot, from the store. I could not cook another thing today, after spending a huge part of the day peeling peppers (roasted yesterday afternoon) and making a complex pot roast noon Sunday dinner.

Ben and Marty came out today, and I attach photos.



You can see that we are in tomato glut. We've been eating them day and night, and they are wonderful, but what to do with all these romas??

I am fascinated by the way football has taken over Gvlle. It makes me realize that dirtballism (not football, but tailgating and all the other stuff) has really taken over. As far as football goes, we are delighted to have the real thing back, but had to keep flipping back & forth between the Bears/Packers game and tennis.

Our departure date is Friday, Fri night in Mpls near the airport. We fly out Sat 16th, return Sun 24th. Will be just like last year's trip and we assume as successful.

First fires in the fireplace the last two mornings. I can't express how wonderful it was yesterday to come downstairs to hot coffee and a fire! Charlie went to play golf (it was cold!) and I settled down in La Fuma in front of the fire for two hours with a bio of Q. Victoria (I've been reading it off and on for a year) and total bliss. I wanted to play golf, but not enough to leave the fire!