Surprise

 

The other day I showed you flowers on the cucumber plant.  Today I have tiny baby cucumbers to show you.  It happened to so fast!  It's right under the flower and about as long as three grains of rice end to end and pale pale green but it's a cucumber.  I'm going to have to keep my eye on them so they don't get too big.  I need to go out and cut back the mint so I can see what's happening in cuke world.





All of the potatoes have sent up leaves now so there must be baby potatoes starting to grow.  I won't get to find out until the leaves die back late in the summer but I'm hopeful.









The last poppy has bloomed.  It's not as big and blowsy as the others but it's still pretty.

More of the Stella d'Oro day lilies are blooming.  I'm actually surprised that so many of the plants I planted last summer are blooming.  I expected a few flowers this year since perennials "sleep the first year, creep the second year, and leap the third year" according to the old gardener's lore.  The Black-eyed Susans aren't doing as well because the rabbits keep eating the leaves.  Grr.




Mr. and Mrs. House Finch brought their latest clutch to the platform feeder today.  There were four drab little birds enjoying the daylights out of the seed in there while mom and dad dipped their beaks in the grape jelly dish.


 


The blueberries aren't doing very well.  I think they need more fertilizer but one of the bushes has a few green berries on it.  We'll see if they manage to ripen.





21 June--Barbara Malcolm, Tropical Obsession. 

That was one thing that Sam and Maxi especially liked about Bonaire, few of the dive sites were in heavily populated areas so most of the time they were the only divers in the water at that site.  A few of the more popular sites like the wreck the Hilma Hooker had pickup trucks parked higgledy pigglety on the rocky shore near the row of three mooring buoys for the wreck, but they had gotten used to being on their own.  This dive trip was a departure for the couple.  They had gone to Grand Cayman and to the Florida Keys.  On both of those trips they had signed up for boat dives and so had been led around the sites by a divemaster.  A professional had checked to make certain that their gear was assembled correctly, and he had been the one to check the current and conditions and set the pace.  But one afternoon in Grand Cayman they decided to take tanks and go off and do and shore dive.  It was a revelation.  They agreed before entering the water how deep they would go and how long they would stay.  They held hands entering the water to keep their balance on the rocky bottom, then they put on their fins and masks in the shallows while discussing how they wanted their dive to be.  Once submerged they watched to see if there was a current and then giving each other the OK signal, they swam off into deeper water.  They each paid close attention to their depth and the dive time and were conscientious about checking their air consumption. 

They explored patches of reef, looking into holes and niches to find spotted moray eels and tiny shrimp; they followed schools of yellow tail jacks and soldier fish, and hovered to watch the play of the sun light on the white sandy sea floor.  Excitement, at their independence, at the confidence boost diving alone gave them, flooded the air as they left the water.  Lessons learned to trust their compasses and to pay attention paid off when they emerged very near to where they meant to and that is what led them to come to Bonaire, the home of some of the best shore diving on the planet.

After all the dives they had done in the last ten days it did not take them much time to assemble their gear, put on their wetsuits, help each other into their scuba units and get ready to go diving.  They made sure to leave the windows of their rental truck open and not to leave anything in it that they did not want to lose.  They were certain that their vehicle had been rifled at least once while they were on a dive so all they brought was a big bottle of water, a bag of trail mix, and some stained and torn t-shirts to put on for the drive back to their bungalow.  Getting hot standing in the blazing sun in black wetsuits, they quickly crossed the single lane asphalt road and began to descend the stone steps down to the cool turquoise water they could see below.

Today's toss came from upstairs.  I had a small pile of socks, a purse, and a few other items culled from my stuff so I found a grocery bag it all fit in and hauled it out to the car.  I'll drop the three days' worth off at Goodwill after my oil change tomorrow morning.  I feel so daring going to get my oil changed.  I'm only 3 months late but I haven't been driving around much so I think I'm okay.
--Barbara