The bad thing about taking a week off just before a major holiday is that Georg and I both had to work today. Well, Georg would have had to anyway, and it was a short day for me.
Bizarre for an anti-social type like myself, but I somehow got invited to three parties today. One is our neighbor across the street, who came over while we were working in the vegetable garden to invite us. I'm so unused to being friendly with the neighbors that when he started talking about a party, I assumed he was going to ask if his guests could park in our driveway! D'oh! I was mentally framing an excuse about how we needed to get our cars in and out so that wouldn't work, when I realized that he was inviting us. How nice! He also complimented our garden and Jane, which is an easy way to win favor with me.
Speaking of the garden, it's looking good. Which sounds vain of me, but really isn't because the garden has been growing on its own, with no help from me in the past couple of weeks. Lisa watered the plants while we were away, and when we got back we were amazed by how big everything had gotten. The tomatilloes and summer squash went nuts. They are huge! One of the summer squash is about to spill over onto the driveway, and it had squashes ready to pick! I meant to take a photo of the squash on the vine, but I forgot. Next time for sure.
The tomatoes aren't humongous like the tomatilloes and the squashes, though almost all of them are fruiting. Only one isn't growing as well. I think it's Marianna's Peace but unfortunately I forgot to write down which tomato plant was which before I put them in the ground. I can't remember how long tomatoes take to ripen, but I'm hoping that we'll have edible tomatoes by the end of the week. The squashes sure ripen fast. Last night Georg made this insanely yummy stuffed squash with our first ripe zucchini. They're special round zucchini called Eight Ball. They're coming in slowly now, but I bet by late summer we'll be foisting zucchini off on everyone we know.
So what else is going on around the homefront. Jane is great. Sweet as pie and shedding like crazy. I've been combing her every day and still, if I rub her sides little clouds of yellow hair drift off her. It's so gross!
Thirteen is about the same. At first I thought the swelling on her leg had gotten worse while we were gone, but I think actually it just looks bigger because her fur is starting to grow back. She's panting a lot, even when it isn't hot, which gives me some concern. But she seems happy and her limp isn't any worse. Tomorrow morning we have our first appointment with the canine acupuncturist.
Here's what I do for shedding-season hair removal--go outdoors, get your hands damp, and then rub your hands over your dog for as long as she'll let you. Re-dampen hands as needed. Your damp hands will pick up lots and lots of hair--much of it will stick to your hands but it will come off easily when they dry. Or: take your dog swimming, and then pet or brush them like crazy when they dry to the damp stage.
Also, the thread-leaf coreopsis is in bloom and I can probably dig some up for you soon.