Summer hits with a hammer this week

What goofy weather for N Ca.  We had a half an inch of rain at the beginning of the week, unheard of for June in our desert climate.  Temperature is going to be over 100 F for the weekend.   Fortunately I can go home tomorrow and get ready to set the hose on drip and just move it around all weekend.

I took a flat of the first apricots and plums to the Food Pantry in the next town over on my way out of town yesterday.  They evidently had to move on short notice, so I had to go find the new place or keep a flat of fruit in my trunk for a few days (EEEK!).  They are clearly scrambling to keep the door open, which is too bad because there are always lots of kids underfoot and women clutching their proof of residency.  The woman who runs the place and I seem to be the only one who speak English, but there are smiles and polite gestures to chairs all around as I wait to drop off my bags of hotel toiletries (lots of those after a few months), and fruit.  The Pantry will be closed until Tuesday for the long hot holiday weekend, so I shall go home, pick fruit tomorrow, carry it around to the neighbors, and make plum and 'cot jam all weekend.  By Tuesday, the house will be perfumed with ripening fruit, I will carry the flats back over, and start all again.  Maybe some zucchinis can make their way over this week.

I haven't really liked any of the plum sauce recipes I have found.  Do you have one for me?

The march of the Killer Zucchini

They're BACK!  They are marching into the fridge drawer and down the street to the neighbors.  My garden is HAPPY and we are going to have a LOT of zucchini.  I may have to go to the food bank with them.

kitty warmer

I had a little shoulder repair on Thursday.  If I sit VERY still with a cold pak, there is no pain.   Fortunately, I have a kitty warmer.  He has been enthusiastically guarding this new-found piece of real estate.  I normally sit at a desk chair during the day, and this lap is clearly superior to the less-recumbent thighs he usually has to resort to perch upon, and only when I am not too busy to try to type around him at that. 

It is raining a surprising amount for June in California.  My garden is ecstatic, and growing like Jack's beanstalk.  I have picked a good weekend to veg out in the chair.

Time for garden pics

That's Louie in the catmint - look for the little pink tongue

The first hydrangea

Tootsie is helping me sew today

Water for Elephants, the book report

I was out of town and dangerously near the end of the book I had brought, so a quick trip to the mega-mart drug store found me leaving with a new book.  Water for Elephants  Rosie-the-elephant only knows Polish, but then, the protagonist does too.  A really fun read about a depression-era lad who runs off to join the circus.  I so love it when the villains get their just rewards, even if the end is a bit predictable. 

Return of the old friend

Remember the lost erring from last year?  It surfaced with a PING! from the weed wacker.  Slightly the worse for wear, it earned a trip to a jeweler's to be reincarnated back into an erring.  I get to pick it up tomorrow - I'll be glad to get it back.  Yippee!