The Tomatoes Are Finally Ripening

Black tomatoes, an heirloom variety, either Krim or Black From Tula.

Better Boys, my insurance tomato.

Sun Sugar, best cherry tomato ever.

Backyard Grapes

Not ripe yet, but soon... soon...

Who Needs a Pot of Gold?

It's just a little glimpse of a rainbow,

but somehow it makes everything seem better and brighter.

The world needs more rainbows.

How to Make Friends With the Neighbors

It rained big time yesterday. About eight-tenths of an inch in 15 minutes. Not at all typical for Utah. It was windy too. One of the big quakies couldn't stand all the excitement and dropped over -- right on the next door neighbor's house.

She's a lovely, seventy something widow. I really did not want to drop a tree on her house. She didn't answer her phone, and when I called her workplace she'd just left. Darn!

So I called my tree guy, who, because Murphy rules, had just been out the day before working on the trees.

"Rick! Tree emergency! One of my big quakies just fell on my neighbor's garage."

He was right in the middle of cutting a tree off of a poor squashed car, but when he was done, he sent his guys on over with the cherry picker.

Then my neighbor called me and said she'd gotten home a little bit ago. Her garage door was only partially blocked, so she'd driven on in and parked. She hadn't called until her work had called her cell phone and let her know I was looking for her because, "I wasn't worried, I knew you'd take care of it." She's a good (and trusting) neighbor.

While the guys were waiting for Rick, who had the chainsaws in his truck, they roped up the tree so it wouldn't do any damage while it was coming down and cut off as many branches as their loppers could handle.

They waited...

Patiently.





Then Macho Time!




I don't think this technique would be approved in chainsaw safety class.










Don't chainsaws bring out the testosterone in a guy?

Fortunately, the tree had toppled over slowly and there was no damage whatsoever to the neighbor's house.

The same can't be said for my tree. Here's all that's left of it.

Men and Towels

These are my kitchen towels. The Engineer is forbidden to touch the white one. I bought the black one for him so that I could pretend I don't know the truth. Every time he comes into the house, he walks straight to the kitchen sink and washes his hands. Such a cleanly fellow. Then he goes to the kitchen towel and dries them. Before I got the black towels, he turned all the white ones gray and brown and black.

I think what men do is only wash as far as the wrist bone. They get wet farther up their arms, though, and go ahead and dry the whole area, thereby placing all of the dirt above the soap line onto the towel.

Ick!

What I haven't figured out is how he does it to his bath mat. The only time he puts his bath mat on the floor is when he's taking a shower. As soon as he's dried off the towel goes on one rack and the bath mat on another.

So why does it have these big orange splotches on it? And, yes, I have tried bleaching it.

The more I wonder about it, the more I don't want to know.

There is a solution. I've already put it into effect: brown bath mats.

And don't think about it.

Soft Blue Lupine

Tiny Yellow Flower

Silly Human

I was surfing the web and my computer got a little slow. Then I realized my hard drive was making that dreaded thrashing sound.

Evil Language! Had I picked up a virus or something?

So I shut down all of my processes and turned off the DamnMachine (that's my computer's name.)

The on light went off.

The noise continued.

What the heck?!?!?

So I synced my ears and my brain and actually listened.

It was crickets.

Guess I'm living up to my blog's name...

The Creek

Making Friends

I was all alone in the cabin one afternoon when I heard noises. Though I got up and walked around, looking for the source, I couldn't figure out what it was. I returned to the dining table and my book, but after a while had a creeping feeling of being watched. Turning my head I saw a chipmunk on top of the drop front desk a few feet from me.

He looked back at me and said, "Tail twitch, whisker wiggle, scamper," and scooted away.

Less that a minute later, he was back, staring at me with bright beady eyes and flicking his tail.

I got up from the table, retrieved my camera and a couple of blueberries, then returned to my seat. I leaned over, put a blueberry on the desk and chirped.

A few seconds later, the chipmunk appeared again and pounced on the blueberry. He nibbled on it a bit before running off to stash it.

I put out another berry and chirped. He came to get it.

By the fourth berry, he came running as soon as he heard me chirp.

I suspect I wasn't the first person to bribe the little guy.

He had a nice grooming, a little nap, then a big stretch and rib scratch before two of the other women staying at the cabin showed up.




He seemed to find that quite exciting and started darting around the cabin floor. I was afraid he was going to run up my leg, so I lifted my feet from the floor and he zoomed off in another direction.

Unfortunately the other two humans did not like him and chased him out with a broom.

Sigh. I know chipmunks chew stuff, but he sure was cute.

Blue Butterfly

Over the Creek

past the pump shed and through the woods

to Grandmother's cabin we went.

I made a new friend while I was there.

Nibbled Gaillardia