Friday: Outdoor Day

The weather folk are forecasting 31º tonight, and 25º tomorrow night.  Yikes!  I mean, Yippee!  This means summer is over.  Officially, no more uncomfortable sweat, dried up gardens, grasshoppers the size of a giant chili pepper, and such.  It was a pretty miserable summer.

So what does the forecast mean?  Well, to our farming neighbors, it means harvest is at hand: soybeans.  To our ranching neighbors, it means calves are being birthed.  To our North Dakota friends, it means harvesting sugar beets to the beat of the falling snow.  REALLY?!  To me, it means cover up the geraniums and bring the in bananas and bromeliads.  And the orchids.  Ok, ok, haul in the passion fruit, the bougainvillaeas, the amaryllis, and the peace lilies.  Oh!  I discovered four hyacynth which are shooting up shoots again.  What's that about?  I thought "forced" bulbs were tantamount to duds the following year.  But here they are...sprouting as if it were March all over again.  Stay tuned a few months on this story...

I took old sheets out to the Darwinian Garden this evening.  Darwinism would say that the tomato season is over.  But, I contend, there are still hundreds of pretty good-sized tomatoes out there, and yes, I have a dandy green tomato recipe, but if I could eek out just a few more days or a week's worth of sunshine, we could still be hauling in the red things.

I covered my second round of pumpkins: yes! I planted pumpkin seeds in August, and the blooms are there: if they don't freeze, we may STILL have pumpkin pie for T'giving instead of pumpkin ice cream in July.  (After all: these ARE New England Pie Pumpkins!)

Gillian & I had a delicious and garden-fresh lunch this afternoon:
Salad of you-name-it greens out of the garden, not ten minutes beforehand: lettuce, collard, kale, horseradish, and nasturtiums. And a nice butternut squash ravioli.  And kalamata olive bread.

That Spouse o' Mine is out of town.  Tonight I cautioned him that our household will be in disarray upon his return.  (but...when is it not?)   Gillian is gainfully employed at a museum, having completed her Masters and scooted off to China for the summer, and now she has been back home (to our house) briefly, and BAM!  She has a job, and an apartment, and all things Gillian are now front and center in the household, awaiting the week of moving, just a few days from now.

Exciting time for her.  I remember those days in my own youth!