All In a Day's Work

Good morning, my friends. Mike and I have been working feverishly since we got back from our trip. He's been trying to get the fifth wheel buttoned up and put back in its place. The repair of the electrical system turned out to be a bigger job than he anticipated. The repair was easy enough. Getting to the problem was difficult. Now, cleaning up afterward is equally difficult, but in the opposite direction. As for me, I've been trying to keep up with the vegetables. I spent the morning and into the afternoon making two batches of zucchini relish yesterday. My yield was 8 pints.

With my previous batch, I have 12 pints now. That should hold me for a while.

It took longer than I thought it would. Meanwhile, Smitty's treat bowl was empty. 

WTF, Man?

Sadie wondered why the door hadn't been opened to free the cats onto the unsuspecting small mammals.

This is an apawminable dereliction of duty.

Well. The door opened when I'd finished with the last jar. It was time to hoe the garden. While I was patting myself on the back about getting through so much of the zucchini, half a dozen more grew on the vine. The one on the left almost got away from me. It was growing kind of half under ground. The stem end was yellow and twisted. 

I cut that off and sliced it the long way on my mandolin. We ate it for dinner last night. In fact, next week's menu will be all zucchini all the time. Those suckers cannot defeat me. Stay tuned for my "ways with zucchini" week. To quote a certain unnamed enterpolitainer, "Will be wild." (Yes, actually, I did just make up that word. It's defined as an "entertainer" who becomes a "politician.")

Also, I harvested two more pickling cucumbers, bringing my grand total to four. I'm keeping them in the refrigerator, hoping I can collect enough to make pickles before they begin to shrivel. If I'm forced to, I can do something else with them.

Also, a handful of green beans. These were growing down low on the plant, and there are many more small ones coming. If I can get a few more, I'll have enough for a side dish. When they start coming in abundance, I'll can them as plain old green beans.

When the weeds were hoed and the vegetables collected, I still had housework to do. It was after 3:00 p.m. by the time I'd finished everything on my list, and I was too tired to sew. Mike was tired too. We both sat in chairs and vegged for a while before it was time for dinner. Except for showers, nothing else happened for the rest of the day.

Meanwhile, we had both avian and feline visitors to the field. I looked out to notice this hummingbird valiantly protecting his personal feeder from intruders.

This morning, we looked out to see the local bobcat in the field. I wish I'd gotten a better photo. This one was taken through the window, in dim light, and from far away. Every summer, we get a visiting bobcat. This was our first time seeing him this year.

Sadie barely looked up from her lap-warming duties.

Smitty missed the whole thing.

So, there was no time for sewing yesterday. That's the second time in a single week. It must be some kind of world record. Happily, the most time-consuming parts of my week's to-do list are finished now. Today I'm doing some cooking. We have dinner guests coming tomorrow. I'm making a Luscious Lemon Cheesecake for our dessert and a 7-layer Salad as a side dish. I'm also making up some sauces and marinade for the chicken Mike will grill for our dinner. The only thing I'll need to do tomorrow are some cottage fried potatoes. Oh yes, and I'm making something ahead for tonight's dinner. When that's all done, I expect to have the afternoon free to sew to my heart's content. The busy-ness of the week is winding down now, and not a minute too soon.

The sooner I get started, the sooner I'll make my way to the sewing room, and so the day starts now.