puny garden, crazy hair, rain!, and other stuff

My spring garden hasn’t done diddly squat this year. The tomatoes bloomed but didn’t set fruit and the ones that did set more than half rotted before they ripened.

Still have some green ones on the plants but they aren’t making new ones. I got two or three yellow squash off three plants which have all died. Green beans did well enough but they’re about done. Cucumber finally started blooming but none of them are fruit bearing flowers. Of the other five plants two more finally started growing but not blooming. Onions seem to be doing alright but they won’t be ready for a while yet. Growing flowers is easy, growing food is hard! I finally went to the market down the road today and got enough local, well, hill country, tomatoes to make one batch of tomato sauce. I’ll be able to get some sweet corn from my neighbor’s brother soon which I will put up in the freezer for the rest of the year. Sigh. Growing food is going to become more important. My paltry amount of groceries this week cost $115 (excluding the tomatoes). 

Paisleigh was here Sunday, more chalk art. She likes for you to draw around her hands and feet and she colors them in. We did her body too and she helped with her crazy hair. And hearts, always hearts. I didn’t last long in the heat even though we were in the shade. I’d already worked on the fence some and we had played in the shop with all the Barbie stuff before we came over here but I don’t have any toys in the house and she was ready to see her daddy so I walked her back across the street and then came in. It is horribly hot and still only just May. I’ll need to get some toys for her to play with in the house. 

Rain! We finally got some much needed rain! It got very windy Monday afternoon and a small shower followed. Cooled it down enough to walk Minnie. It has been so hot and there is no shade until much later on the streets I walk that I just haven’t. And then Monday night a tremendous thunderstorm came through, lightning, thunder, hard rain; about 3” worth so said the rain gauge this morning. Of course that also means I got no sleep last night because of a certain neurotic little dog but I did make good progress in the book I’m reading.

Took my shower this morning to see a new resident in the bathroom. It’s a wolf spider and even though it’s missing a leg I expect it to earn its keep. I’m more curious about how it got in there than freaked out. Spiders don’t bother me and wolf spiders are way less annoying than all the little jumping spiders and daddy long legs that think my house is the perfect place to live.

Some more of the local wildlife though these were outside: a red underwing moth and an anole cruising on a tomato plant.

Of course yesterday, Monday, was Memorial Day and I did not, like I did not all through Trump’s first term, put out my flag because that man and his MAGAts make a mockery of the American flag. I do honor those who gave their lives protecting this country and fighting to preserve our democracy and our Constitution but I will not do that by putting out a flag that represents a man and administration that does not honor those men and women; a man who mocks our fallen and calls them losers; a man who never served because he used his father’s wealth and influence to escape the draft; a man who uses his speeches and social media presence not to honor those who gave their lives so that we may live in peace but to brag and lie about himself and air his petty grievances. I cannot put out a flag that no longer represents what that flag has stood for. I don’t think that country even exists right now.