Thursday, Friday, and Saturday were very busy days so I've been missing hereabouts. Thursday, of course, is my volunteer day at SHARE and man were we busy. It was a food delivery day from the food bank in Victoria, we were down several volunteers back in the food area, we had 33 requests for food with 8 or 9 of them being the largest families when usually it's one or two or none, and an equal amount of the next largest families. We gave away a lot of food. Including two huge cartons of watermelons.
Friday I wrote my last post and then was greeted with ants in the pantry for the second time in several days. The pantry is an add on, built against the wall in the kitchen.
The trim on the outside is tight so I have no idea how the ants were getting in there but inside there was about a 1/8 to 1/4 inch gap between the side boards and the wall with other smaller gaps wherever two pieces of wood met. First time I threw out all the food they had infiltrated, crackers mostly, and sprayed orange oil to kill the little bastards but two days later they were back, infiltrated more crackers. So I emptied the entire pantry, cleaned it thoroughly and then set about to caulk up every damn gap and crack in it floor to ceiling.
before and after
Yesterday was the Farmer's Market and this month's EarthLab at Hesed House. I thought the program on hibiscus started at 10 AM as all but one of them has and so I pulled into the nearly empty parking lot and my heart just sank. No one is coming. I was walking up just as Stephanie came out to let me know the program didn't start til 11. So I went to the market to get my honey, tamales for Marc, and another of the blue daze plants while I waited. As it turned out, it was one of the most attended programs with an enthusiastic audience with lots of questions and lasted nearly two hours as opposed to the one hour they usually last. And look what they brought with them!
They let us take home the ones we wanted if we wanted to. Other people selected some first but these are the ones I brought home.
In other news, we've been spending money like drunken sailors. Marc bought a new riding lawn mower yay!
and I bought an air purifier for my bedroom like the one in Marc's, two extra filters, a six pack of rice milk, and three jugs of Palmolive dishwasher soap through Amazon. The last two items I have not been able to get at either of the two stores that sell groceries here for months.
Today, I finally accumulated enough tomatoes for making tomato sauce so after breakfast I did all the prep and they are now in the oven slow roasting. All four of my plants are represented...beefsteak, old german, big boy, and black krim.
Still have some for eating and more coming along on the plants.
Those flowers are STUNNING! Are there actually gray ones? The one looks to be gray with yellow trim! They are all just beautiful!
ReplyDeleteYes ... the tomatoes look good, too! LOL
yes, some of them so look gray but they only ever referred to them as brown.
DeleteGlad to say I still recognize my old stand-by's, beefstake and and big boy. I sure hope your caulking job gave the ants no further way in. You are one neat caulker. I guess the fine line painter in you has found another outlet!
ReplyDeleteSo many varieties of hibiscus. I had no idea. Your tomato harvest is looking very good. That will make a five star sauce.
ReplyDeleteIf I buy too many watermelons here I will wind up having to go to the food bank of necessity! They were $12.95 each in the store the other day. Needless to say, I didn’t buy one.
ReplyDeleteThose hibiscus! When I lived in Roseland, they were everywhere but not generally the really fancy varieties. We surely loved them, though.
ReplyDeleteWe're finally get tomatoes. I'm so glad. Yours look a lot better than ours though.
Beautiful hibiscus! What a variety.
ReplyDeleteWe have an "ant season" here in northern California. They hate winter and try to come indoors for some warmth and comfort. We stop them by making a mixture of vinegar and water and spray it around the areas where they get in. They really don't like that stuff at all.
ReplyDeleteYour hibiscus flowers are so beautiful. I love that you are harvesting tomatoes already. We're just now celebrating the first little flowers on our plants.
Such a beautiful variety of colors in those hibiscus! Thanks for sharing those, Ellen.
ReplyDeleteGorgeous flowers! I'm so glad the program was well attended. We got a new mower too, which is why I've started mowing again. Our other one broke last year & Mike had been bringing his dad's over, but he got tired of that. Yay me - I like to mow (WAY BETTER than I like to vacuum!). Oh and those tomatoes look amazing!
ReplyDeleteNothing more beautiful than a simple bloom. Beautiful tomatoes too! I recently have a notion to make a tomato pie. Hmm, wonder where that came from?
ReplyDeleteThis is me, shoreacres, trying the google account thingie again. I'm so envious of those tomatoes. I need to find out if there are any in the local farmers markets around here.I know they're coming in for people, but I haven't run into any. The hibiscus are beautiful, but that mower is just as beautiful!
ReplyDelete"Friday I wrote my last post..." Sounds apocalyptic, though that would have involved playing it on a trumpet. I am pleased that you made it through the night and were able, as it were, to blow Reveille. Or do you spell that Revally?
ReplyDeleteIf only one could train ants to do something useful. Like filling in your tax returns; working in groups of six, jumping on the keys of the laptop. No... wait... something artistic: An ant ballet! Ticket-holders loaned magnifying glasses to appreciate the finer detail. No go? How about synchronised swimming in a beer glass?