Um, so anybody know any good cucumber recipes?  I have 10 quarts of pickles in my fridge and about 50 lbs of cukes on the counter, PLUS probably another 3 dozen ripening on the vine.  I’ve made (obviously) pickles, cucumber raita (which I love with samosas, tamarind chutney and naan, btw!) and I am thinking maybe some cucumber mojitos would be nice and refreshing……..but I am seriously buried in cukes here.  Please send cuke ideas!!!!!

The tomatoes, while so promising at the beginning, are doing less well.  In fact, I am having moderate luck with the cherry tomatoes, but the Mr. Beefy are going bad before they turn red.  They just get huge and green and then……die.  Between the weather and the slugs and goodness knows what else.  I picked a few good green ones and have them sitting in the window in the kitchen.  We’ll see how that goes.

I do have 2 big pumpkins out back getting bigger by the day and the zuke and yellow squash will no doubt be over producing before too long.  And the bail has provided me with much opportunities for pesto, thanks to Ruby the hen eating all of the beetles for me.  The bees seem to love the basil as well, but we leave them alone.  They’re the good guys.

And speaking of chickens, our rooster has begun crowing.  At first he sounded like a cat being strangled, but he’s been finding his voice more and more and getting more of the “cock-a-doodle-doo” sound.  It cracks Oona up, and it cracks me up when she imitates him.   So far he only does it during the day, which makes me quite happy, thank you very much.  I don’t want to bug the neighbors.  I do find it amusing to listen to and am surprised to find I rather enjoy the sound.  He is kind of a territorial little brat, though.  Today I went to get Ruby for her daily bug eating and when I grabbed at her Mr. Roo pecked my hand pretty hard.  It didn’t hurt too much (it’s kind of like being pinched) but it left a mark.  Then he proceeded to crow the entire time I had Ruby away and didn’t stop until I brought her back.  They still all run from me when I go to transfer them between tractor and coop.  Dummies.  Their herding instinct is pretty good, though so they don’t wander too far and always head for the safety and familiarity of the coop.

Right now the older girls are with me in laws so Oona and I are on our own this week.  It’s been lovely and quiet.  I’ve completed a few sewing projects (will show in a future post) and begun cleaning the bedroom of horrors since Emily and Neve aren’t here to stop me.  I also went and bought their school supplies today.  And no, I don’t mean their clothes and backpacks.  I mean the $200 list of supplies the school demands we send in with each child every year (crayons, tissues, paper, glue, hand soap, scissors, dry erase markers,  ziploc bags, you name it).  This of course does not include the many times during the year they’l be hitting me up for more money and other items.  What actually makes me mad about this is that on top of this the school board still doesn’t pay the teachers enough and all of the special programs and extras (like music!!) keep getting cut out and everyone keeps voting “no” to raising school taxes even though the school gets very little aid from the state. Ah, don’t get me started.   Let’s just focus on the fun part of today – I brought home a new dvd – “Coraline” in 3-d.  Hooray!!!