no AC, tomato windfall, flowering things

Losing track of the days. Wednesday we went to Costco to stock up on some things but not until after I watered the gardens some, we need rain and it was so hot and humid I came in sweaty. Took a half hour to cool off enough to take a shower. Later in the day it was 80˚ in the house with 80% humidity…in the house! Marc turned on the AC set at 78˚, which is our summer setting, mostly to offset the humidity. An hour later it was 81˚ in the house, another hour 82˚, coming back from yoga at 6:30, 83˚. Well fuck. This unit is only a couple of years old and fortunately still under warranty. 

Thursday I wore shorts to SHARE for the first time transitioning from capris which transitioned from jeans. Marc called the AC guys and oh fun, the motherboard shorted out. Part ordered on Thursday but in all likelihood will be Wednesday before it’s repaired and functioning again. Fortunately, last night a front blew in with minimal rain, boo, but has cooled it off considerably, 57˚ outside when I got up this morning.

We got a lot of frozen packages of ground beef and fresh vegetables donated to SHARE last Thursday by the Wharton County Farm Bureau…carrots, kale, sweet potatoes, cabbages, beets and then Walmart sent over two huge boxes of tomatoes on the edge, some big ones but mostly romas, some firm enough but mostly just good for cooking. We gave out as much as we could but it was a slow day for food orders. I picked out 11 pounds of the firmest tomatoes to make tomato sauce and some sweet potatoes. Other volunteers took what they wanted and the rest went with Cora who said her horses would eat it.

So Saturday I made the first batch of tomato sauce using half the tomatoes. I slow roast them with garlic and olive oil and basil leaves, salt and pepper, until the tomatoes are soft, wrinkled and bursting and then put it in the blender and hit puree. I filled 8 - 1/4 pint jars and three vacuum sealed bags of one cup each. The second batch done yesterday yielded 6 vacuum sealed bags of 1 cup each.

I tied fishing line on each of the new crystals with which to hang them. So these newest ones with the three I still had not hung and the five I acquired previously gives me 16 to hang. I laid them out in the order in which to hang them, maybe.

Garden stuff…I planted a pot of morning glory bush up against the front of Pam’s house yesterday. It’s from cuttings I took in the fall of ’22 that never got planted anywhere. I wanted to plant it where I just did but Pam didn’t want it. I also have a pot of a volunteer confederate rose from the same year that never got planted anywhere. While both of mine came back after this winter, Pam’s did not so I’ll plant it over there too. Also at Pam’s her catalpa trees are blooming.

The pink angel trumpet is blooming, not quite as voluptuous as last year but sitting on the driveway it’s not getting quite as much sun and it is pot bound so I need to get a bigger pot for it, especially since the one it’s in is broken from being blown over.

There’s more but I’ll save it for the next post as this has gone on long enough.