Let Us Have Lettuce

The lettuce is as beautiful as I've ever seen it this year.  I guess our cool summer agrees with it.  This head is at least the size of a basketball.  The rest of the garden is doing pretty well too.  I harvested quite a few more beets this morning, and there are still more coming.  Today's harvest will be for roasting and eating with garlic salt and brown butter.  I think I've made enough pickles to suit me, for this week at least. 

My sad Brussels sprouts are starting to get some height to them now.  I'm hoping that means I'll be seeing some actual Brussels sprouts soon.  With this being September 1st, the air definitely had a fall chill to it this morning.  It always surprises me how quickly the seasons change around here.  And it happens every year.  About the time the garden starts looking like an actual garden

the temperatures turn chilly and it's sheer luck if things ever ripen.  I have lots of green tomatoes.  The San Marzano sauce tomatoes are looking especially tantalizing right about now.  The only question is whether the rain will hold off long enough.  I'm only just now getting the first of the zucchini.  It's that time of year when you want to keep your doors and windows locked, just in case one of your neighbors gets the idea to use your house to unload some of their zucchini harvest.

The zinnias are finally blooming.  They make such great cut flowers with their colorful blossoms, and they last a long time in a vase.

George bugged me all morning until I agreed to walk down to the wild area with him.  He's been acting so strangely since I let him start blogging.  Something about "mouselims" and our neighbor cat, Uno.

We did see more flowers opening up, however, and lots of these poppies.  I'm so happy about the poppies.

While I was composing one of my shots, a honeybee flew into the frame.  That is sort of the whole point with the wild area, and so I'm glad to see the bees taking advantage of it.

Now I'm off to make chicken pot pies.  My neighbor was recently diagnosed with breast cancer.  Her cancer was caught early and it's small, but she has the breast cancer gene, and so she's scheduled to undergo a double mastectomy next week.  That's a pretty tough break for a nice person like my neighbor.  On the positive side, she's been promised by two doctors that her cancer is NOT life-threatening.

I volunteered to make some meals for her and her husband.  So far, I've made them a batch of chili and some muffins to serve with it.  Today, it's chicken pot pies.  I'm also planning to make beef bourguignon, grown-up macaroni and cheese, and some of my stuffed pasta shells.  That ought to keep them going for a while.  I've messed around long enough this morning, so it's time to get to it.