Produce and Sweat

My tomato ripening table has overflowed.

Our goal on Flat Top these days is staying cool, or at least properly timing our sweatier activities. But for the most part, any activity is sweaty. Too much information? Let's just say. ... Nope, anything I say will be too much information. Let's just confirm that it's been damn hot here.

The vegetable garden has officially won the race to wear me out. After the first few batches of pickles, the cucumbers got away from me. So far, I'm staying on top of the tomatoes and basil. The highlight so far was yesterday's homemade pizza, with kick-ass homemade sauce from my Juliet paste tomatoes and a few Black Krim thrown in for kicks. The Yukon Gold potatoes are like buried treasure; I love digging them up! I've also been a pesto machine; I freeze it and enjoy it all winter. And tomato salads of every kind -- for me, not Mason, of course. Tonight, though, Mason will get a debut of my first attempt at salsa. I expect great accolades!

Mason has been busy rebuilding the front porch, which was slowly rotting away. And now he's tackling the upper deck off the loft. If it involves a saw, he's pretty damn productive. He's also tackling Robert Caro's latest LBJ book, so there are lots of afternoons on the porch. (I just finished Robert Gates' memoir; now onto lighter fare ...)

Meanwhile, my main task every day has been watering. Watering. Watering. And watering some more. (Oh, and pissing and moaning about the deer, which have been exceptionally pesky this summer.) But the past few days have finally brought some relief from our extreme drought. Just now, we had a hell of a storm that dropped 2 inches of rain in about an hour.

What 2 inches in one hour look like.