Relentless Inquiry

This morning we got up early (for us, on a weekend) and went to Hobee's for an early breakfast. We brought stuff in the truck to exchange at OSH, but I'd left the receipts at home– forgotten that I'd cleaned out my pouch before the Catalina trip. Wups. We were able to return the cart that couldn't handle cement blocks though– it had a wheel rip off when Mike took it over a curb, loaded at only a fraction of its rated weight.

I got a couple of hanging baskets of white double-ruffle 'Wave' petunias to replace the little hanging flowery bits whose name I don't recall. Those bits don't like wet feet, and I water the baskets every other day or every 3rd day, spilling extra water into a clip-on liner that goes outside the basket. The pink 'Wave' petunias thrive on this treatment, and have expanded to an 18-inch by 24-inch mass that billows out from the 10-inch hanging pot. When I saw that they had two white baskets of the fancy ruffle type, I made a snap decision to replace the other stuff.

Today was Human vs Nature day in the garden. Not only did I spray various things with the 3-in-1 antifungal/anti-nastybug/antibacterial stuff (“Garden Safe” brand, like the band “The Original Artists” one presumes), but I broke down and got Snail Death when we were at OSH. I want beans and don't see a way to get them without much gyration otherwise. I have read that the snails are attracted greatly to the Snail Death stuff itself. I have used the bottoms of plastic fizzywater bottles and some planter saucers and set out caches of the stuff in the garden near points of extreme snail damage. If it works, snails will come eat the stuff, keel over, and I won't have to get metaldehyde building up in my garden soil. We'll see.

All of the tomatoes are going insane, and they are all named Houdini. Oy. I had to do not only some very delicate re-routing stuff, but also cry alack-a-day and prune some perfectly good out-of-control suckers that turned into unsustainable side branches. Went over all the tomatoes for suckers, don't want to prune more branches! Peeked at a sample beet by poking in the dirt around the top. Golf ball and a half, another couple of weeks and should be good to go.

At one point this afternoon, we took a break from the things we were each doing, and sat on the porch. We ate strawberry smoothies with spoons, dipping bites out of the chunky blue-glass goblets we bought in Tijuana. The smoothies might have been margaritas if we were slightly different folks, but because we are us, they were the simplest kind of home-made smoothie– a whole pound of frozen strawberries, plus milk and half a sugar packet. Almost as thick as gelato..at least at first, until the strawberries melt.

We sat on the screened porch, on Mike's old couch, comfortable in the breeze. Today was the first time we'd had a chance to work on 'fun' projects in a while. I cleaned up the back yard area from all the random blown-in debris and dirt left over from potting projects. Now everything is clean and tidy, the grill is hooked up to a new cylinder, and we're ready for spontaneous BBQ.

Mike was finally given permission (by yours truly) to take apart my car and install the mobile radio 'properly'. This is the Alinco DR-135 which replaces the one stolen out of my car last August when I was up in SF. He did a really pro job, snaking the lines under the carpeting and even vacuuming the car out as a bonus. He did the rig installation yesterday (power hookups) and the trunk-mount antenna today. I kindly did *not* make the joke that it was like the time when Dr Mai needed to do both an endoscopy and then a colonoscopy on him.

Now it's time for dinner. There were 3 yellow 'butterstick' squash and 2 green zucchini large enough to pick, so I did. I went out with my kitchen shears while chopped shallots (not from my garden) were simmering in olive oil and snipped rosemary, savory, lemon balm, basil, and thyme to add, and made a ragout of new squash. There wasn't enough to 'feature' it, but the additions of sliced mushrooms, canned chickpeas, and canned dice tomatoes are yummy, and at the last minute we tossed in the little bit of the kippered salmon left over from earlier in the week. Spoon over gnocchi and serve. With raspberry-lime spritzers, made from 2/3 sparkling lime water and 1/3 raspberry-juice spritzer.

As soon as Mike gets offline, we can eat. Or is he waiting for me to get offline? Oh. He says he is 'kinda' waiting for me. Bye!