The fruits and vegetables of my labor.

  Freshness in my back yard!  I had a salad yesterday made from my first cucumber of the year.  Picked off the vine that I planted and nurtured.  Tossed with fresh herbs that I also grew.   There is nothing so rewarding as to know that if I have a patch of dirt I can grow something that is good for my body. 

  We can’t wait for the tomatoes to start ripening.  Rusty is very protective of the first tomato.  He watches to see which one will start to turn first.  Then he becomes Gollum/Smeagol, from Lord of the Rings, protecting his “Precious”.  It cracks me up  to watch him looking out the back door to discover the ducks checking out the bright red fruit.  Out the door he goes yelling and waving his arms to frighten them away.  It’s a never-ending battle to keep the Goblins away from his “Precious”.  As soon as it gets ripe off the vine it comes to be sliced for Rusty’s first tomato sandwich of the year. It has to be on Bunny bread with Blue Plate mayo.

   I started composting last year, and what a difference it makes to the plants.  It has also attracted earth worms that we can use for fishing.   I have been  using an old plastic can that I drilled holes in.  I strapped the lid on and just lay it on its side to roll around the yard.  I think I am ready for a more advance model.  The trash can has gotten so heavy that one day it got away from me and almost rolled into the pond.

  I have been picking black berries which is something I hadn’t done since I was a kid.  I remember the afternoons I use to walk with my grandma in the fields picking the sweet berry that I knew would soon be turned into a cobbler.  And if Daddy knew we were picking blackberries he would stop to pick up a gallon of vanilla ice cream on his way home.  I found some bushes behind the building at work one day and came home with about 2 cups.  I really hadn’t thought about what I would do with them until  I got home and Rusty asked if I was going to make cobbler.   Yea, I think I will.  With some homemade vanilla ice cream.  I bought an ice cream attachment for my Kitchenaid mixer.  Boy has that spoiled us.  As I eat my ice cream and blackberry cobbler,  Grandma I will think of you!