Prepared Yesterday, Mowed Today

Yesterday I juiced out a couple of watermelons.  I put them in the freezer.  I brought it out this morning and put it in a sieve resting on a bowl.  My theory is that watermelon juice would melt out first and leave the water as ice in the sieve.  It didn't work out the way that I thought it would. The liquid in the bowel had no taste and pulp in the sieve tasted awful.

The first of the month always brings the bills.  Some I pay with bill pay, and others I write a check.  There were two that required a business check.

After lunch  I mowed the lawn.  The lawn has not been mowed for several weeks because of the snow and rain.  It dried all morning.  I had to go slow because the grass was to tall.  There was a hose laying in the tall grass and part of it I couldn't see.  It took about an hour and I had to dump the catcher three times.

We then drove to Fillmore to get gas for the car and for the lawnmower.  I made a deposit at the credit union and we got ice cream cones at the "Ice Burg."  They served fast and we received the biggest cones ever.

I took a walk around the garden to check out any frost damage. below are Topaz melons.  I picked four of them that looked like they may be ripe.

 Another picture of the Topaz melons.

 The cucumbers in the north garden froze.  Yesterday Carol picked a few large ones.  She took them to the post office.  They were all gone tonight.

 The outside leaves of the tomato plants froze.  The inside leave are still good and there was no frost damage to any of the fruits.

 Bean plants have some frost damage.  There are some of the beans that are still good.

 The cucumber vines on the cow panels are badly frozen.

 The cow panel bow which has Italian squash, luffa sponge and pole beans sustained a lot of frost damage.

The rains and snow that we had last week caused the germantion of winter annuals.  Below are mallow weeds seedlings.  An indication of how many weed seeds are in the ground.  There are other weeds in other places.

This still a little more time before supper.  I cut the strings holding the summer squash and cut the vines at ground level and hauled them over to the new compost pile. The stakes are laying at the left.  I had to run water down the row to soften the soil before I could pull them out of the ground.  I still could not pull them out. With a shovel I wedged a shovel into the stake below the surface of the ground and levered it out.  I then cut down all of the corn.  Tomorrow they will go to the compost pile.  There were a couple of good ears that I had for supper.

I also picked a bucket Anaheim peppers and sweet peppers, and a small bucked of jalapeno peppers.  These are for the post office tomorrow.

Comments and questions are welcome:

A Lot to Do

We had some cucumbers and tomatoes left over from yesterday.  Two of the cucumbers were quite large.  Carol took them to the display box at the post office.

There were two T-posts used to make a place for the ducks that we had several years ago.  I removed the plywood that was there which left the two posts.  I dug them up and was able to pull them out of the ground.

The furnace piolet light went out sometime yesterday afternoon.  I worked on it for over and hour this morning and could not get it lit.  I could not turn the valve to piolet.  finally I called Andrew Brown who is a furnace man.  He will come tomorrow afternoon.

I picked Anaheim peppers, jalapeno peppers and egg plants this morning.  I put them in separated totes.  One of our cats came by to get in the picture.

Here they are at the post office.   I made labels for each.

 With frost in the forecast, I moved the tender plants back to house two.  below is the pomegranate bush, three lemon trees, and three lantana plants in front.

Below is the Dracaena  that is nearly six feet tall.  I pulled up the geraniums that were growing around the base of the plants.  I used the ball and burlap cart to get it to house two.

The Dracaena would not stand up straight.  I blocked one side up so it will sit straight.

Yesterday, I picked a watermelon.  It is pretty much ripe, but seeds has not turned black.

Walking through the garden I took a picture of this crookneck squash plant that I have been training up a post.  It is over five feet tall.  This was planted in mid-July.

 I filled this clam-shell container with Sun Gold cherry tomatoes.  The weight was 2 1/4 pounds.

I worked for a little over an hour pulling weeds out of the pots.  The blossom from the Salvia pachyphylla plant looked pretty nice.  Here is the picture.  It is one of my favorite native perennial.

Below are the Round Leaf Buffalo berries.

 Fremont Barberry

 Bristle cone pine seedlings.

 Monroe Globe Mallow

Luffa sponge that finally produces fruit.  This one is about six inches long.  It should have been that size back in June.

 The next two photos are in house six.  The tomato plants have been neglected during the last month.  The weight of the vines have broken the twine that hooked to the overhead wire.  The are just laying on the ground.

Comments and questions are welcomed