Rapscallions

Someone is stealing our ripe, juicy, delicious tomatoes. Someone rascally with sharp teeth and no footprints. Apparently our dogs aren't doing their job, but are hanging out lazily in the garage sleeping all night. Beetles and bugs, fungus, torrential rains, horses, ice storms, and thieves; the gardener's battles never end. I was going to try canning today. Very small thank you to the rapscallions for getting me off the hook.

The Farmer in the Dell (a clever reference to where we live)

Uncle Doug told me on a recent visit that Greg and I would have been good pioneers. The death of both our air conditioning and our washing machine in the past couple of weeks have proven this to be false on my end--it wasn't pretty. It's a different story for The Farmer. After 14 years of marriage, I'm finally seeing him in his true element, spending every spare minute out on the property. He can't stay away.


His hard work in the garden has been paying off.

Most of the ingredients in the dishes we've eaten this week have been from it. Zucchini pie, zucchini quiche, stuffed zucchini, zucchini bread, zucchini sticks, green salad, sauteed green beens, green been casserole, BLT's, cucumber balsamic salad, cucumber tomato salad, sauteed kale, kale butternut stew, just to name a few.
Here's tonight's dinner for example--all from the garden:




I don't know if he's trying to make it so the children will never allow us to move, but here are some of the boy-friendly enhancements he's created:


Tire swing.

Rope swing.

Sand box.

The tree house is apparently next.

He gets many shoes and clothes dirty.

He also gets many chigger bites.

I've got to go. The Farmer is pulling his fresh-baked bread out of the oven.