Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Signs of Summer

Summer is full upon us.  One of my neighbors has a fine crop of sunflowers. I inadvertently cropped off the tallest ones, which were past the eaves of his house. I wonder if the stalks will become part of their fantastic Halloween decorations. I knew someone who felt sunflowers were very frightening, with their giant faces looming over you.


I have a meager crop of peaches. It won't be Peach Week, maybe just Peach Day or Peach Afternoon. There might be enough for a very small pie if they stay on the tree long enough. They are still hard, but thanks to the ability to search my blog I can tell that Peach Hour should be coming pretty soon. Or Peach Minute.


We can only water 2 days a week now. Tuesday and Saturday. This is my front lawn. We're trying to keep the hedges alive but that's about it. I hear people calling their brown lawns "golden." Nope, it's just brown. 


Our Fourth of July celebration consisted of hot dogs, since it was the day of Nathan's Famous Hot Dog eating contest. I could only eat two. We stuck with traditional styles. I found an article in a recent Sunday paper (and here is another one with more tasty variations) which had Tijuana, Greek, French, Vietnamese and Californian dogs. They all sound good to me but the guys prefer the classics: chili or mustard/relish. Frank gave me a hard time because I will eat hot dogs but not chorizo. (I thought I had a post about that but I can't find it.)


Speaking of the newspaper, I wonder why I still bother to get it. It's tiny. And I have to hunt for it every morning. Keeps me sharp, I guess. The previous deliverer used to fling it under the back of Frank's car. The new one rubber-bands it into a tight little baton and flings it into the garage door, where it bounces and comes to land who knows where. This morning it was on the hood of Frank's car. I asked Frank, who lives above the garage door, if he hears a noise in the wee hours when the paper is flung, but it is not loud enough to bother him.


Handy has the week off and we are on a staycation. We thought about going to San Francisco but adding up the cost for just a few days came to about $2000 so I'd rather save that towards the massive tuition payment that is coming due right quick. And in 2 weeks he is going to Shanghai on business. Shanghaied to Shanghai.





[shang-hahy, shang-hahy
 





verb (used with object)shanghaied, shanghaiing. Nautical
1.
to enroll or obtain (a sailor) for the crew of a ship by unscrupulousmeans, as by force or the use of liquor or drugs.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Shangheied--what a word!
We watched the hot dog eating contest--those announcers sure LOVE their hyperbole!
That is a brown yard. Sorry you have to deal with that. *sigh*

Strictly Jen said...

Even one peach pie is something to be proud of!

Gary's third pottery blog said...

I love sunflowers and grow them too...our rains have been so heavy for so many weeks that it is killing our garden though! There's irony, you have no rain and we have too much....

Common Household Mom said...

Home-grown peaches - they look lovely and I can't imagine having peaches in one's own back yard!

I wish we could send you our rain. Because I don't have peaches, but you do.

As for the newspaper and its delivery - ours gets smaller and smaller, too. But all of us read it and I still prefer it to online news. We agreed to have newspaper company install a box for delivery. For a year, they ignored the box, and flung it onto my garden. Now they carefully put the paper in a plastic bag and then put it in the newspaper box. I absolutely hate that I am accumulating all those plastic bags. But my garden is saved.

Cassi said...

When I first read this post, I thought you had "inadvertently" cropped off the head in real life! I was wondering how one accidentally cut off his neighbor's sunflowers :-)

I'm sorry you guys are getting such little water --it must be hard to see that dry crunchy grass. I hope the peaches ripen and are extra sweet.

slow panic said...

I can't bring myself to water the lawn and we aren't on restrictions. Although I'm pouring ridiculous amounts of water on my flowers to keep them going. The sunflowers are beautiful.

Karen (formerly kcinnova) said...

Our sunflowers are that tall, but we are lucky to not be on water restrictions... yet.
Thanks for reminding me of that upcoming tuition payment. *Yikes!*