Tiny Tomatoes

This afternoon I went out into the garden to beat back the mint that was encroaching on the bales.  I pulled and tugged, uprooting it and filling my basket with it to be thrown away.  Now the cucumbers can breathe and the parsley and tomatoes aren't overshadowed by mint.  It's not perfectly weed free but the cucumber plants don't have anything but the trellis to hold onto.  Besides it started drizzling while I was weeding out the mint so I cleared it out and came in.



There are two tiny tomatoes!  They're about the size of my fingernail but pretty soon they'll get bigger and start turning red.  There are lots of flowers on there so I should have a good harvest.







Lots of the Stella d'Oro lilies are blooming.  I love the way they look and the bright yellow gold color of the flowers.







Only one hawk showed up today.  It was sitting on the top of one of the trellises and looked very interested when I went out to take its picture but it didn't fly away.




I went to ALDI today for a few items and picked up a 3-pack of bell peppers that I diced up, froze on a tray, and bagged for future use.  It's so handy to have a quart of them in the freezer ready to be added to recipes.  I don't dice them as small as Durwood did but they're small enough for me.  I'm just not as precise a chopper as he was.

22 June--Barbara Malcolm, Tropical Obsession. 

About halfway down, the steps took a right turn to cling to the cliff face and there was a small landing where there was enough room for people to pass each other or to stand and catch their breath on the long, hot climb.  Sam had been making Maxi laugh on the drive up from the bungalow by telling her that he was certain that there could not possibly be one thousand steps down to the dive site, so he was counting the steps.  Maxi had her head down and was slightly hunched forward to balance the heavy, awkward tank on her back.  When she reached the landing, she turned to look back at Sam and that was when she saw what she thought was a snorkeler in the water below them. 

“Look, Sam, there is a guy down there snorkeling in a shirt, shorts, and sandals.” 

Sam came down the last couple of steps to stand beside his wife and he looked down, anxious to get down there himself and cool off. 

“Look at all the fish around him, honey,” Maxi said.  “Do you think he is feeding them?” 

Sam lifted his mask with its corrective lenses to his eyes and peered down at the floating man.  “Uh, Max, I do not think that guy is snorkeling.”  He put out his hand and turned his wife away from the ocean.  “I think we need to call the police or the rescue squad.” 

She started to turn back to look again but Sam held her tightly.  “Do you mean…?”  Her eyes widened in horror. 

He nodded. 

Before he could answer she had pushed past him and climbed up so fast she was almost to the top by the time he moved his feet.  “Come on, Sam, haul ass up here and let’s go get help.”

By the time Sam’s head cleared the top step and he could see across the road, Maxi had already shed her scuba unit and had unzipped and begun to take off her wetsuit.

 “Come on,” she said, “what is taking you so long?” 

A thought struck him as he crossed the road.  “Do you think one of us should stay with the body?” 

She shook her head.  “Uh-uh.  No way am I going in there with a dead body.  I mean, I like seeing sharks and barracuda but not when they are eating the guy next to me.  No way.  We are both going.  Saddle up.”  As she was talking, she was stripping Sam of his scuba gear and wetsuit. 

He was amazed at her strength and the speed with which she moved.  It seemed to him that she had planned every move during the minute it had taken her to climb back up.  Before he could protest, she had pulled his weights out of the pockets of his vest and tossed them into the truck bed.  Then she twirled him around and slid his buoyancy control vest off his shoulders, tank and all, and then turned and laid it gently into the tank rack next to hers.  He was fumbling with the Velcro at the top of his wetsuit zipper when she pushed his hand aside and unzipped it for him. 

She made shooing motions to get him to strip off the suit quickly.  “Come on, slowpoke,” she prodded, pulling the truck keys out of the dry box she wore on a cord around her neck.  “You want me to drive?” 

He nodded, surprised because she had been reluctant to drive on the narrow island roads since their rental truck had a standard transmission.  Today, however, it appeared that getting help overcame her lack of confidence. 

She slid into the driver’s seat and turned to him.  “Didn’t you say that there is some sort of oil depot or tank farm up ahead?” 

He pulled the map out of the glove compartment and unfolded it while she backed out and jammed the truck into gear.  “Yeah, here it is.”  He held the map toward her then he realized that she was concentrating on the road ahead.  “Just go straight and keep to the shore road when you come to an intersection.” 

“Got it.” 

            Later Sam thought it was a good thing that no big trucks or any vehicle at all was coming toward them that day.  Maxi cut every corner and slid through every intersection in her headlong dash to report finding the body.  Sam was certain that she took the turn into the BOPEC Petroleum property on two wheels.

I got the oil changed in the car today and, of course, he found that the transmission line is leaking a bit so it needs a new line.  I have an appointment on Thursday.  Today's toss was a food dehydrator and two boxes of additional trays.  When I pulled them out I saw another dehydrator behind it.  Why did we have two of those?  I do not know, but after tomorrow I will have none.  The second one will be tomorrow's toss.
--Barbara

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

Rainy Day

 
It rained today, almost all day.  I'd hoped to take a walk but I'd have ended up drenched because I don't walk fast enough to have gotten around in the time between showers today.





I looked out at the garden between rain showers today and saw bits of yellow on the tomato plant.  Flowers!  On the tomato plant!  So I dashed out before the rain started again to snap a photo.





The cucumber vines have blossoms too.  I had to untangle them from the mint that's growing alongside the bales and wind them onto the trellis wires.  When the rain stops I'll go out to yank out a lot of the mint to give the cukes room to roam.





Now that I have my good camera back I took a closeup of the spiderwort flowers.  They were open most of the day since the sun only came out for about a minute late in the afternoon and I'm convinced that the spiderwort flowers don't like the hot sun.






The hawk was back in the birdbath this afternoon and I managed to capture it taking its little sitz bath.  The water is so shallow it's a wonder it gets wet at all.  It has to contort its neck to get a drink too.

 20 June--Barbara Malcolm, Tropical Obsession. 

Sam and Maxi parked in the lot across the road from the dive site Thousand Steps.  They had been on the island for nearly two weeks and were systematically diving their way up the coast from south to north.  Some of their friends from the dive shop at home had given them advice on how to dive the island but they had pored over a diving guide and pulled a dive site map off the Internet and decided that they were just going to take them in order, and they had. 

It was a good thing that they were experienced divers or the first day’s dives would have stopped them cold.  After their check out dive in the swimming pool-like area across the road from the Dive Inn, they put four more tanks in the back of their Toyota HiLux pickup truck and set out for the dive site near the extreme south end of the island.  Red Slave dive site perches on a small promontory like a pimple on the smooth chin of Bonaire.  Luckily the wind had dropped that morning and the waves had laid down some.  That meant they were able to enter the water over the jagged and slippery rocks without too much trouble and when they submerged the current was not very strong. 

As was his habit Sam picked out a coral head topped by a yellow sponge as the landmark to turn at when coming back to their entry point.  They had heard from some of the people at the restaurant last night that currents at Red Slave could be challenging but that day they were lucky.  All of their dives had been great, the weather was cooperating, fish were posing, and all of their gear was working well.  No problems, no surprises. 

Maxi had a gift for getting resort managers and property owners to grant them permission to cross their land or use their house reef.  She very courteously offered to rent their tanks before they could insist and most of the time her offer was waved off, so they were not even spending too much extra for tank rental.  Doing two or three dives a day for the last ten days had put them in pretty good shape so the prospect of carrying all their scuba gear including tanks and weights down the long stone staircase of the dive site known as Thousand Steps did not make them stop for a minute.  In fact, they were excited to finally be diving as such a famous site in such a beautiful and isolated setting.  

 

I was determined to start getting rid of stuff on the shelves under the basement stairs.  I packed up one box and then went down to pack up another one.  I'd forgotten how easy it is to get rid of one box worth.  I'll do it again.  Maybe tomorrow.
--Barbara

The Daily Hawk

There was only one hawk here today.  It surprised a squirrel at the patio table.  The squirrel cowered and the hawk loomed but the squirrel managed to dart away to safety before the young hawk had figured out how to attack.  I most enjoyed seeing it in the birdbath.  That's a lot of bird for that little bath.  It stared at its reflection in the water, took drinks, and at one point fluffed up its tail feathers and dunked its underparts in the water, kind of like a sitz bath.

I got a call from Camera Corner that my camera was in so I tootled on down there to pick it up.  When I got it home I loaded in a battery and the SD card--and it was still busted.  So I called and talked to a different guy who guessed that it might be an SD card problem and did I have another card around to try.  I did, and it fixed the problem, thank god.  I'm happy that it's working and now it's been cleaned and tuned up, no charge.



This morning I saw that the spiderwort in the garden is blooming.  This is a plant that thrives in poor soil and with neglect.  The perfect plant for me.  Its flowers open in the early morning and are closed by noon so it's only open for morning pollinators, I guess.





Tonight I cast on a preemie hat to knit on at Friday Night Zoom Knitting and finished it, except for weaving in the tails.  Once the tail is woven in I'll tie a knot in the top cord, which looks cuter, I think.





19 June--Barbara Malcolm, Tropical Obsession. 

A few more steps across the blackened rock, careful not to get tangled in the grasping branches of the sea grape colonizing the edge, and Jack could look down into the sea. Water the color of liquid turquoise lapped at the base of the rock where it plunged underwater, hissing and foaming in the spaces. The cliff face, all of the rock on this tiny island, was ancient reef pushed into the air by forces deep within the planet. Jack used his hand to shade his eyes as he scanned the shallows for his quarry. The water was so clear and the sand so white beneath it that even the smallest movement was visible. He saw schools of fish going about their business. He watched groups of Bar Jacks hunting, darting to scatter smaller fish when they struck. He saw the silver blade of a solitary barracuda patrolling the reef edge, waiting for an opportunity to pounce on the unwary. All seemed normal.

He turned to the cab driver standing nervously behind the open door of his van. "Are you sure this is where you heard Manning ask to go?"

As the driver nodded, licking his lips to moisten them, his mouth suddenly dry from the thread of menace in Jack's voice, neither man noticed a hand reach up over the lip of the drop-off and slowly close around Jack's ankle.

Pulled off-balance and flailing in the heartless air, Jack fell silently onto the tumbled boulders at the base of the cliff, then his unconscious form rolled into the cool water. Manning clung to the ironshore rocks and sea grape roots for a moment to watch Jack’s body being sliced and shredded on the coral by the waves until he noticed the first predators vector in from the navy blue of deeper water. He pulled himself up onto the top of the cliff, rolled over the sea grape and stood up, dusting his hands on his shorts.

"Not a bad acting job, Bunny," he said, clapping the driver on the back.

Bunny gave him a mute look, went around the back of the van, and lost his breakfast in the thorny scrub, drawing an interested audience of lizards. Manning climbed into the driver's seat and turned the key.

"Mount up; I'll drive. I think we could both use a Polar, maybe a whole six-pack."

Bunny emerged from the bush dragging a shaky hand over his mouth, got into the van and slammed the door.

Manning jammed through the gears and drove south in a flurry of gravel, leaving only a small dust cloud to mark Jack's passing.

It was so hot out today that I barely went out.  Instead I went downstairs and found some things to recycle and toss.  I need to start getting rid of things on the shelves under the stairs, a little at a time so it isn't such a big job.  Now is when I could use a dumbwaiter to haul stuff upstairs.  Or a conveyor on the stairs.  That'd be good.
--Barbara

Knitting in the Park

Tonight a few members of Bay Lakes Knitting Guild met in a downtown park, arranged our chairs in a big circle, and spent a couple hours knitting and chatting.  It was a glorious evening, just the right temperature with a little breeze to keep the skeeters at bay.  We'll do it again next month.



Despite all my determination to stick with the WW plan this week I went right off the rails for supper tonight.  The Gourmet Corn truck was at Zambaldi Beer so I went over and got Garlic Parmesan Corn




and Shrimp Ceviche.  Both were delicious and I'm proud to say that I only ate enough of the chips to scoop up the ceviche.  I ate all of the corn.


I got a haircut this morning.  I was kind of nervous to be with a stranger but she wore a mask, she's a one-woman salon, and I wore a mask too--until she was cutting the front of my hair and it fell down behind my mask until it felt like I was breathing through a teddy bear.  A prickly teddy bear.  I took the mask off to stop inhaling hair.  Yuk.  I didn't think my hair was bothering me until I walked out with my usual pixie cut and felt like my head was floating.  Ahhh.



This little washcloth is the only project I have on the needles right now.  The colors are much brighter in person.



18 June--Barbara Malcolm, Tropical Obsession. 

             Mona walked slowly between the craft market booths set up on the town square across the street from the Town Pier. Whenever a cruise ship was docked, the little band of artists and entrepreneurs set up their tables and laid out their wares. Mona wasn't a cruise ship passenger, never had been able to face the prospect of being trapped in what amounted to a floating hotel with a couple thousand strangers for a week, steaming from island to island striking each a glancing blow, spending just enough time on each one for a hot cab ride to see the highlights and take a quick tour through the upscale shops that line the ports. The whole cruise culture seemed so artificial to her.

             She had endured dinner conversations with avid cruisers who insisted they were familiar with nearly every Caribbean island. Judging by the majority of the people around her and the things she overheard, the packaged view of an island they experienced was just that--packaged. The real life of the island went on around the Disney-esque sanitized experience that was trotted out before the ship docked and carefully folded away until the next ship was due. Even worse, Mona bet that ninety percent of what was for sale around her was made in Taiwan. Pathetic.

           And where was Jack? He was supposed to meet her at City Cafe for lunch.

           Manning cursed as he looked at his hurting foot. A thorn from one of the cacti nestled in the rock had pierced the side of his shoe and worked its way into the soft flesh of his arch. He carefully scrutinized the next boulder he came to before sitting down. It took a moment for him to work up the nerve to begin gingerly working the devilishly sharp clump of thorn out. His breath hissed between his teeth and his blood flowed fresh and red to splash on the rocks where it immediately was absorbed. Manning tore a strip from his khaki shirt to stanch the blood and act as a temporary bandage. Blistering the hot, still air with curses, he retied his shoe and, limping only a little, resumed his climb.

I don't have a hawk photo today but this morning one of them was on top of the fence eating something.  The other one was about ten feet away watching intently.  The one without the food moved closer and closer, the one with the food moved away until they both had moved about fifty feet down the fence.  The one with the food finally took its food and flew away.  They have to be nest mates; no way strangers would hang around together like this.  They're too young to be courting.  Fascinating.
--Barbara

No Pictures of Vacuuming

Today's "do something" was vacuuming the carpets and mopping the floors.  I did not take pictures of the vacuuming or the mopping, although there are YouTube videos of people doing just that.  I know this because my littlest grandson, IT, was a big "dacuuming" fan when they were here at Christmas so a lot of videos were watched.


When I went out to get the paper I saw that the red daylilies have started blooming.  It's not a red red, like the roses, but when you buy a red daylily this is what you get.





The peonies are blooming too!  These are transplants from our first house in Green Bay.  They're in a shady spot and kind of crowded by the ferns but they come up every year and make a little showing.


 


This afternoon I went over to Zambaldi Beer to drop off some shorts I took in for LC and to drop off some cookies.  While I was there I got to watch DS string lights around the patio and even got to help a little bit.  More doing something!



Here's today's hawk picture.  This is the smaller, darker one.  I think it caught something this afternoon, didn't see what it was, but I saw it eating something.  I've decided that these are nest mates.  Neither of them has the adult red tail and they're hanging together like they're used to each other.






 17 June--Barbara Malcolm, Tropical Obsession. 

            They stood looking at him as he drove off the paved road onto the barely visible track that wound through the cactus barren to end at the caves at Onima. Jack had come to hate the wild donkeys that roamed the island; their wise dark eyes that stared down the brown furry muzzles seemed to be judging him. The rigid posture as they stood motionless radiated disapproval. Foolish women tourists cooed as if the beasts were cartoons come to life, but Jack had rounded a curve in the coast road late one night and his headlights illuminated a pair of stallions fighting in the center of the road. The little mare had stood coyly on the roadside fluttering her long lashes as the males reared and whinnied, gnashing their yellow teeth at each other’s neck. Jack had sat in his SUV watching the primeval battle unfold in his headlights, shaken by the raw power of the fighting males. These were no petting zoo residents content to nibble donkey chow from an outstretched palm, they were wild and dangerous animals.

He stood facing the cliff, sweat already trickling down his spine even though he had only walked from his Jeep which was parked in the shade about fifty feet away. Manning was glad he had worn thick socks and hiking boots. The ground was pocked with holes and littered with ankle-twisting rocks that had fallen from the cliff face. Tucked in unexpected places were the globe shaped Turk's Cap cacti, their vicious yellow thorns poised below the ridiculous-looking red and white pad on top that had earned it the name. Manning thought the possibility of impaling himself on those thorns would be worse than losing skin to the rough limestone itself. He also knew he would have to be exceptionally careful when he was climbing. The Turk's Cap had a nasty habit of growing babies in every cranny; the young thorns emerged thick and sharp and would pierce leather gloves.

When I stepped on the scale on Monday I had regained the weight I took off the week before.  Grr.  I think I'm working hard to stick with the WW plan but admit that the last couple weeks I've been, uh, flexible in my food choices.  I've had a terrible sweets craving that I just can't shake.  That's why I made cookies the other day, so I can have one a day and not go all nuts making and eating a whole pan of brownies (which I so could do).  So I'm working to stick closer to the straight and narrow this week.  Next Monday will show me how I'm doing.
--Barbara

Did Something

The weather guessers are saying that as the next couple days pass it will get hotter and more humid so I forced myself to get out and mow the lawn this morning.  Taking walks around the block every few days the last couple weeks made it a little easier on my legs but the uneven surface was still jarring to my shoulders and arms.  (I know, wah, wah, wah, but I have no one else to complain to and I do love to complain.)  I couldn't figure out how to take a lawn mowing picture so I gathered my lawn mowing tools, minus the mower, and took this.  I was amazed how much noise these little earplugs eliminated.





Both hawks were here this morning before I mowed but they flew away when I went out.  The darker one came back in the afternoon and spent quite a bit of time surveying the garden.  I don't think it caught anything.  I'm sorry to keep posting hawk pictures but I get such a thrill to see them that I can't help myself.





The lantana is happy in a hanging basket.  I'd hoped for the red and yellow variety but instead got the pink and yellow one.  That's okay, butterflies and hummingbirds like the flowers no matter what color.



And the zinnias are blooming.  Next year I'll plant seeds so that these planters are full to overflowing with flowers.  Butterflies like these too.


16 June--Barbara Malcolm, Tropical Obsession. 

               It was quiet in the museum in the afternoon. That was why Bunny went there then. In the heat of the day the un-air-conditioned display rooms were empty of tourists who roamed from case to case quickly reading the little labels and feeling superior. He hated to see the sour little smiles on people's faces that told him that person thought that where they came from was somehow better than Bunny's adopted island. Just because there were a lot of rich educated people in America or Europe to pay money for scientists to search and to build fancy museums didn't make them better. In fact, Bunny thought, he liked Bonaire's dusty and sparse displays better because the people who found the shells and pottery, who saved the old photos, and wrote down the old stories did it out of love for their own history not because they would get fame or be paid well. The things in these dim and dusty rooms were real, Bunny thought, not like the glittery trash that Manning and Jack kept arguing about.

            Jack sat in the shade of the ruin of the plantation house up on the hill overlooking the dive site called Karpata. Since early morning he had sat there watching the trickle of diving tourists gear up and enter the water in pairs. He had thought when driving up from the villa in the pale dawn light that he would conceal his pickup somehow but nearly every dive site he passed had at least one pickup parked there, windows open and no one in sight. On an island this full of tourists, he realized, it was hard to tell why someone was parked where they were. And with the number of divers on the island and their habit of independence, it meant no dive site was empty for long. Sooner or later someone was bound to drive up and park, ready to dive. Jack figured that very randomness was his ace in the hole for staying alive.

It was rare to find a seashell on the beaches of Bonaire. There was plenty of coral rubble especially after the latest hurricane wave had swept over the leeward shore and rearranged so much, both above and below the water. The Gaudy Natica shell that winked up at Mona in the early sunshine was a special find. Whole and unfaded, it looked fake but when she held it up in the strong sunlight she could see where a shorebird had pecked a hole right into it to devour the original inhabitant. Thinking that it had to have happened recently she raised the shell and gingerly sniffed, but the clean smell of the sea told her that any traces of that unlucky mollusk had long ago disappeared.

Lots of things have buds on them.  I'm looking forward to the daylilies, daisies, and bee balm.  I picked two more asparagus this morning and had them for supper.  Speaking of supper, I've got ten servings left from the last investment cooking session.  Time to start gathering recipes and making a shopping list.
--Barbara