Sunday, July 18, 2010

It's Been Hot...

It's been hot, real hot. And humid, don't forget that. When possible I've tried to stay in the house and declutter and decide what goes and what stays. However, I have had to leave the house occasionally and have spent a good amount of time outside this week.

On Tuesday I took my young friend, Jade, for our long awaited visit to Commerica Park which is still Tiger's Stadium to me. She had been looking forward to going since I told her about it last fall. We headed to downtown Detroit and found the stadium with no problem. It was just Jade, me and two business men for the tour so we got lots of undivided attention. She got to see the visitor's underground batting cages and she got to sit in the dugout where the opposing teams sit.


We visited the broadcasting booth and The Champion's Club where she got to see the real Champion's trophy. She had a brief walk on the field but since they were working on the turf we couldn't go far.



She had a good time and learned all about the Tiger's and their history.

Wednesday I was out at the garden and harvested a few more things. A couple of my potato plants were dying back so I pulled them up and got a couple redskin potatoes. I harvested another head of lettuce too but about half of it was rotten inside.



This is the garden looking toward the community part and the corn. It was planted in two plantings so it's different heights and can be harvested a couple weeks apart. Last week a rain storm and some strong winds came through and we all got an email saying to come check our plots because the corn had been blown over and was horizontal. Today it looked just fine so I guess they got it all propped back up ok. The tallest portion already has tassels.

Even though it was hot, I took the pups up to the field most days. I had to be careful that they didn't overheat though. Zoe will run until she drops if you let her. When we get back home they are pretty tuckered out.

On Friday my friend Cheryl and I headed out to the Lavender Festival. Thankfully we had a little cool front come through on Thursday so even though it was hot it wasn't quite as humid and we got in and out of there before it got too hot.

Saturday morning H and I had to get up early for our turn working the farmer's market for the community garden. We made it out there by 7:30 and soon our table, tent and veggies were delivered. Before long it had gotten pretty hot out there! We were mostly selling squash with a few eggplant and cucumbers thrown in. We had mass quantities of patti pan and zucchini squash. I had never really heard of patti pan squash before and apparently not too many people had either as they kept asking us what to do with it. H googled it and was able to give people some ideas about how to cook it. We only made about $35 for the garden but the best news was, we put in 9 hours of our 10 hours of garden time. I had already put in another hour weeding onions so at least this year I have made the goal of 10 hours of service to the garden! Yeah me!!

Saturday afternoon I went to a graduation party for the daughter of the special ed teacher I worked with last year. It was held at am American Legion post and I wasn't sure what to expect. When I finally found the place they had a beautiful outdoor pavilion right on the LAKE!! It was very nice and breezy there which felt great after sweating at the farmer's market all morning. It was so nice to catch up with a few of my co-workers and hear all about their summer. One friend just got back from a trip to Alaska!

Sunday morning H and I worked out in the front yard trying to save our evergreen trees from possible death. I had an expert come out a week or so ago because the branches are losing a lot of their needles. We thinned out what we could but it was hot work as it was really humid. Poor H had to wear a long sleeved shirt so the branches would stick him and when he came out of the middle of those trees his face was bright red!! It wasn't especially hot but it was so humid. You would drip sweat just standing there! From there we started cleaning out the basement which hadn't been deep cleaned in a long time. We moved things, decluttered and vacuumed behind and under things. One of the more interesting things we found was a bone one of the dogs had hidden under a bed and it was covered in this strange powdery mold! Gross!! From there I vacuumed the main floor and then the top floor too so by the time I was done I was really done. I took a shower, 4 Advil and then a nap!! Since I was too beat to fix dinner, H ordered pizza for dinner which was a real treat. I can't remember the last time we had pizza!

I tried to get this post ready for last night but just couldn't make it. Which turned out to be a good things because I really wanted you to see this!!

This morning, after taking the pups to the field and delivering the farmer's market money to the parks & recs dept., I went out to the garden and worked for a couple hours. I needed to pull what was left of the radishes and harvest what was ready and do some weeding. While I was there another gardener came by to tell me she had just seen a SKUNK in the garden!! I kept waiting for it to come down to my plot but thankfully it never did. I thought skunks were nocturnal!! But the really exciting part of this harvest was the potatoes!! I harvested 7 redskin potatoes!! Just look at them! They are so beautiful!! I actually grew potatoes.


And then I discovered I had grown carrots too! I grew carrots!!! Look how cute they are!! And they taste good too! I am so daggone impressed with myself!!

The zucchini is still going gangbusters. What do you do with all that zucchini?

Make zucchini casserole, of course! Did I mention, Zoe loves zucchini??


I put up 4 bags of chopped zucchini to make for her this winter. She will love me so much!

No comments: