In Between Summer and Fall

The summer sun continues to move south, casting longer shadows in my back yard. I officially ended my pool season. My lounge chair is back in the barn. The last book of my summer reading season remains unfinished.

But the garden hasn't figured out that its season is passing. I'm still canning, freezing and pickling until the wee hours of the morning. I have plenty of pickles now - dill pickles, lime pickles, sweet pickles, pickled okra, pickled onions, pickled peppers and hot pickles.

With four days of rain on the way, I dug the last of my onions. I also pulled some of my funny carrots. Their pastel shades are interesting, but I think I'll plant the Burpee Rainbow Carrots next year. I like their vivid colors. I hope to dice those peppers for some zucchini relish. I made some last year and it was beautiful and tasty. My mother ate it with a spoon, no hot dog required. I found the recipe in the Ball Blue Book.


My ridiculous cucuzzi squash continue to THRIVE! This one decided to go wading in the pond on a hot afternoon. A friend and I are wondering if we can feed it to her dog. The large pup is now on a gluten free diet. His expensive special dog food contains vegetables. She may start cooking for him. I have lots of squash to experiment with.



I had a visit from my old friend, the box turtle. She likes tomatoes and cucumbers. This tomato lasted her three days. I'll put a new one in her reach today. Or maybe I'll leave her an overgrown cucumber.

This is my hardy bibiscus. The blooms are as big as saucers. I moved my plants last fall. The bushes are small, but the blooms are still big.

I'm watching The Hurricane Show on the weather channel. Ike is blowing Galveston away. Looks like he'll head for Indianapolis and arrive just in time for motorcycle races at the Indy 500 track on Sunday. Unlike the Indy 500 and the Brickyard 400, motorcycle races will run in the rain. The Moto GP races will be the first motorcycle races on the track in 99 years. They reconfigured the Formula One track to add more turns.