late summer

Thanks for the Lynn Johnston update, Suzy. Sad that her marriage has broken up, particularly at this juncture. Very interesting article! I've really been enjoying the hybrid strips.

I, too, was devastated by the end of Netley. Only I listened to it in the car, and I had to keep driving!

Ben did not run screaming from kindergarten. Finally on Thursday night I called for news. He was in the tub when I called, so I first talked to Marty. She said he really liked it, but that it was making him very tired at the end of the day. They'd been out to dinner, and he was too tired to deal with it. Then Ben called me back, and said, "When you play outside, they blow a whistle and then you have to line up!" Made me smile, since lining up is a big part of elementary school that I see often. Teachers are judged by their ability to walk their students down the hall in a neat, orderly line (I was terrible at it). He also talked about hot and cold lunch, but I didn't get that part. Although he talks quite clearly in person, he mumbles on the phone; he always has. Anyway, I hope to see him soon and get more news. I stopped by at 4 yesterday afternoon, but he and Nate weren't home yet.

The world has turned to tomatoes here. I have 32 bags of diced tomatoes in juice in the freezer and don't plan to stop until I have that many more. Also making sauce out of Romas, using Mom's great tomato grinder. I've now also borrowed her giant crockpot for that purpose.



We've been eating well, tons of vegetable things punctuated with small meat items. Example: Thursday night: mashed potatoes with sage and white cheddar, tomates à la provençale (JC Mastering I), cucumbers & onions, and a grilled hamburger. Delish. Last night, since Charlie'd had me buy a very nice bottle of wine when I was in Stillwater yesterday, I bought part of a rack of lamb, which I served with local wild rice, fresh canellinni beans (a first) and fresh green beans. (French people always serve beans with lamb.) Dessert: panna cotta with the last of our blueberries and a Colorado peach. We've been eating outside on the deck for the last few days, Charlie's idea. No bugs, really, and very pleasant. Beautiful weather here, made more glorious by recent rain. We are appreciating the green while it lasts.

This photo is only partially posed. I'd finished picking all of those tomatoes and was waiting for Charlie to come back from a few holes of golf (before going to work) to help me pull the too-heavy cart up the hill. I took rare advantage of the chair in the garden to read a little (we're rereading Pullman), and I took a camera down so he could take a picture of this unusual scene.



Fall crops of spinach and lettuce small but giving some hope. Fall sprouting of the dill/arugula/cilantro (and weed) bed coming along nicely, though minimal cilantro. Leeks still not harvested, and the edamame is ready to pick and freeze, too. Still lots of green beans, though I'm through freezing them (32 packages). Very, very few peppers this year. Ground too fertile, so the plants are all leaves. We planted them on the south side of the garden, and since they are also at the bottom of the slope, much of the new manure's nutrients must have leached down. Too bad. Pretty plants, though.

O.K. Tomato time, and it's nearly time to hang up the first load of laundry.

One last photo:

Kids feeding cows at the pique-nique: