See How My Garden Grows

 

It's midsummer and the garden is hitting its stride.  The Strawberry "thanks for the tomato cages" cherry tomato plant is still ripening tomatoes for devouring.  This handful will be headed to Durwood tomorrow.

He'll be glad when I show him that soon this first Early Girl big tomato will be ready to be picked.  I'll bet it'll be the first one I take to him in his new assisted living digs.  I dropped off the application for residency today, talked the executive director of the nursing home off the ledge when he called me (while I was getting a haircut) to ask what they'd done wrong since I was taking Durwood out of there so quickly.  I assured him that they'd done nothing wrong, that the hospice nurse had told me that he didn't need skilled nursing so moving him to assisted living would save us a boatload of money every month and he'd be able to regain some leg strength and balance because they'll encourage and help him to walk more.  There are fewer people needing help there unlike at the nursing home where it's too easy to just leave people parked (path of least resistance, you know).  While waiting to talk to the LPN at Grancare Gardens, the assisted living place, I met the other two male residents who are over the moon to have another man moving in.  



I was sad to see the only baby butternut squash has fallen from the vine.  All of the other flowers are male flowers that I can see right now but I have faith that more squash will appear.  (you can tell because between the flower and the vine the males just have a stem while the female flowers have tiny baby squashes)








The purple coneflowers and the butterfly weeds are blooming so there are butterflies fluttering around the yard.  I see lots of monarchs and today I saw a black, blue, and orange one in the garden but since I was all the way across the yard in the house I haven't got a clue what kind it was.



 








The red-skinned potato plant is going gangbusters and the sweet potato vine is taking its own sweet time growing but it is growing.  I can't wait until it's time to open the bale and see if we've grown
potatoes.







July 25--Paul Cezanne, Great Pine near Aix.  Gabe hiked up the valley.  He took the same path he had taken since he was a boy.  When he rounded the house-size boulder he was relieved to see that the tree was still there.  That pine had been his refuge when things got too crazy at home.  When Dad and Leona got to fighting, throwing plates and pickle jars and cutlery at each other, he and his mongrel Amos would slip out the front door and head for the pine tree.  It was just big enough to hide a ten-year-old boy with a medium size dog until things cooled down at home.

We just had a short, fast moving thunderstorm.  I do love me some thunder.  Thunderstorms make the garden happy too and I like that.  Time to fire up the dishwasher and hit the hay.  

I've got 6 days to gather up things for Durwood's new place and to make sure that all of the hospice people and the oxygen people and the transport people deliver their assigned parts in good time.  I'm hoping to find a sturdy small kitchen table at Goodwill so I don't have to buy a new one but I will if I have to.  I found out today that hospice will provide him with a wheelchair and hospital bed so that's off my list of things to buy.  I'm happy that TVs are reasonably priced and he's got a tall dresser that will be perfect for his clothes and as a TV stand.  My mind's like a hamster in its wheel right now. Yes, I have a list.
--Barbara