Number Three

 I found cucumber number three and saved it from certain death.  It was growing in a space in

the chicken wire that backs the garden but I was able to ease it through and save it from strangling itself.  Good thing, too, because I finished number two for supper tonight.

I stopped at the Sunny Hill farm stand in the Ace Hardware parking lot today on my way to pick up my repaired sewing machine and got myself a couple ears of sweet corn and a pint of blueberries.  This corn is so good I don't even put butter on it, I just cook it in the microwave and gobble it up.  Had one for supper with my cucumber and tomato salad.  A perfect summer supper.

The lilies continue to make a liar out of me.  The orange tiger lily keeps blooming...

and this red day lily peeked out of the weeds down on the renters' side of the retaining wall. 

The mints are blooming too and these cool orange bugs were on the flowers.  I think they're box elder bugs but maybe not.

There were little bees on the butterfly weed flowers too.  Very buggy in the garden these days.

 

I had a Zoom appointment this morning with my financial advisor and I'm proud to say that I understood what she was talking about--most of the time.  I definitely understood when she said that I won't run out of money if I keep watching what I spend.  I am grateful that Durwood insisted that I go along when he met with her.  It took quite a few visits but eventually I started to understand all that talk of stocks and bonds and dividends.  I'll never be a whiz at it but at least I don't embarrass myself.

11 August--Barbara Malcolm, Better Than Mom's. 

Fay went back behind the counter and served the codgers their biscuits.  They ate them so fast she would have thought they put them in their pockets if she had not seen them chewing.

 “I guess Naomi makes good biscuits, huh?” 

Raymond nodded like a bobble head doll gone mad.  “These are by far the best biscuits I have ever eaten.”  High praise indeed from a man so hard to please.   “Do you think I could get a half dozen to take home?” he asked. 

“Me too,” Leo said. “These are even better than my mama used to make and she was from Georgia.” 

Fay pulled out her order pad, wrote it down, and said, “I will ask.” 

She poked her head in the pass-through to find Brady and Naomi, heads together, going over the week’s menu plan. 

“If you two can tear yourselves away from each other for a minute I have an order.”  She waved the scrap of paper at them.  “It is not a big one,” she said as Brady walked over to the griddle and snatched the order out of her hand.  “Naomi’s biscuits were a big hit with Raymond and Leo; they each want six to go.  Are there enough left?” 

Brady smiled.  “There are plenty; Naomi made about three dozen.” 

“Great!  Let me hand you a couple to go boxes and you can put six in each for the guys.” 

She stood leaning on the pass-through’s counter watching Brady carefully slide biscuits into the boxes with a spatula when she heard a loud crack behind her.  Brady dropped the biscuit he was holding and his knuckles whitened on the spatula handle.  His head came up like a bird dog that has spotted a pheasant. 

“What the hell was that?" Brady said.

Fay whirled around to search the diner for the source of the sound.  She saw the woman get up from the booth, her hand pressed to her left cheek, and hurry to the ladies’ room.  The eyes of the remaining codgers and everyone else in the place followed her as she walked the length of the building to the bathroom behind the till.  The man sat in the booth and stared at his empty plate.

Today's toss was a pottery plateau, an oil bottle with a spout, and the last 2 quarts of cherry bounce that Durwood made about 40 years ago.  I poured it out and put the cherries in the trash.  I wasn't brave enough to taste it.  It smelled alright, I guess, but I wasn't about to drink any.  Too much sediment.

I took last week's tosses to Goodwill this morning, then I got a call that my sewing machine was fixed and ready to be picked up so I went over there and got it.  I feel better having all my toys back home.

--Barbara