Harvest Girl

Oh dear. Insert your own melon joke here.

We're in full harvest mode here on Flat Top. This year we only had a few experimental crops in the ground; the veggie garden still isn't finished being properly fenced against our neighborly deer. But at just half-capacity, we're not complaining. Even Mason, who'd take a hamburger over an heirloom tomato any day, has been enchanted by the rewards of growing stuff he can eat, especially the jalapenos.

That's our first watermelon, above. I know, sorry about the juxtaposition. We'll crack her open tomorrow. We've had so much rain here, I'm not sure she's going to be super sweet. But if she isn't quite ripe, I'm still eating her -- maybe with the help of the blender, a little honey and some rum. We've got four more melons on the vine; we just need a little break from the damn rain. (Sorry, rain-starved California readers ...)

The tomatoes are in full production, though I don't think it will last too much longer. Damn blight. Yesterday, I had three meals featuring my 'maters. It's impossible to decide which was tastier: the breakfast taco with microgreens and cherry tomatoes, the BLT or the panzanella salad.

Refrigerator pickles; the cucumbers were picked fresh today!

And tonight, I made my first batch of refrigerator pickles! We'll get back to you on whether they were a success.

Snake: It's Not What's For Dinner

Dead snake No. 8 for the year.

There's a 39-inch rattlesnake in my freezer. 

Yes, you read that correctly.

I'm saving it for my neighbor. 

Yup, you read that right, too. But it's not for her dinner. She skins 'em and decorates walking sticks.

Seriously, folks, how far from my sterling silver upbringing on the Palos Verdes Peninsula can I get?

So today, I'm gardening (of course, because what else do I do on my days off?) and Mason's down the driveway a good ways, weed-whacking the overgrown greenery encroaching on the road. I'm tossing tree roots into the firepit when I notice a good-size snake winding its way across the driveway and into the north lawn. (Yes, we have a north lawn, as well as a west lawn, a south lawn and a back lawn, which is really the east lawn, but we don't want to sound snooty, so we just call it the back lawn.)

I quickly haul my ass down the driveway and flag down Mason, who conveniently has the snake pistol on his hip, because when you're weed-wacking the driveway, odds are good that a snake may be in  there.

Now, a few weeks ago, we were talking to a weekends-only neighbor about how many snakes we'd killed this year (6 copperheads and a rattler that I almost stepped on). Explaining her walking stick art project, she asked us to save our future kills. Sure, no problem.

That's right; we measure our kills.

But we failed to ask what the best way is to save the snake. Today is Tuesday, and she won't be back up on the mountain until Thursday evening. So we froze the snake. It's in a Ziploc, behind the Boston Market frozen meal that Mason will eat for lunch when I go back to work.

The gross part is that snakes still do a fair amount of moving despite decapitation; once we got half the rattler into the Ziploc, the back half  just curled itself right on into the bag. Then we double-bagged it, for good measure.

SO, that's our snake story of the day. In other news:

My Little Lime hydrangea is an absolute winner. Buy one, people. Buy five of them!

A frog has taken up residence in my watering can. I dump him out; he moves back in.

My hardy begonias are blooming. Love those veiny undersides.

Heucheras do really well here; this is Silver Scrolls.

I harvested my first eggplant; the babaganoush was delicious.

 

 

Past 24 Hours

OMG! Aren't my watermelons the cute-i-est?
 I've created a little hammock for this one so the stem doesn't break.

In the past 24 hours, we have:
1.  Dropped a 70-foot pine tree that was blocking evening sun from the solar panels.
2, Killed a copperhead snake hiding in a wood pile.
3.  Cut the tree into 2-foot logs to be split tomorrow for future bonfires.
4. Burned off all the tree's needley top in a bonfire. Snake carcass burned, too.
5. Cleaned the mold growing inside the house because it's been so hot and humid. Yeah, I know. Gross. Luckily, boat life prepared me for this.
6. Pruned the tomatoes and watermelons.
7, Mowed the lawn areas.
8. Prepared a steak dinner for Mason, veggie tacos for Nan.
9. Slept 11 hours.
10.  Designed a back yard for a North Chattanooga home.
11. Ate a delicious grilled cheese and tomato sandwich with tomatoes from the garden.
12. Mowed up by the lake.
13. Cleaned the chimney for the coming winter. (Involves a trip up on a VERY steep roof.)
14. Killed 16 Japanese beetles.
15. Pruned the watermelons, again.
16. Prepared a grilled shrimp dinner.
17. Watched "One Hour Photo" to honor Robin Williams' dramatic (i.e.: creepy) skills.
18. Walked the dog four times.

In all, not a bad life, I say.

Our Dinner Guest: Moo

My name is Moo; I'm a serious spitfire of energy.

Meet Moo. He's adorable. He's also only 2 years old and has more energy than the Energizer Bunny.

Moo and his parents braved our dirt road today to come see where Nick's crazy parents live. Thanks to recent visitors Ralph and Foti, we now can give folks a Google Maps address (not ours, but close) that makes the drive in much more simple, if not easier. Of course, it helped that Moo's dad drives a big-ass truck.

I met Moo's parents at the nursery, when I helped them design their incredibly gorgeous back yard. People, you have no idea how beautiful a more than 180-degree, 2,300?-foot cliffside view all the way to the Smoky Mountains is. After some chatting, I learned that Moo's parents once sailed the South Pacific (much farther than we did). Needless to say, we had something in common.

Nick has come a long way in getting along with others, and did quite well with Moo. He didn't really play with the pup, because Nick's "special" that way, but he did wag his tail a fair amount. And he only growled now and then. This is progress, people!! Nick even begged for loving from Moo's parents. (Yeah, that's right, I'm not naming them. I'm willing to give people a lot of anonymity up here. What happens on Flat Top, stays on Flat Top.)

After our guests left, we rounded out the evening with a bonfire, listening to an NPR music special on the music of L.A.'s Laurel Canyon. And now, "Silverado" is on the broadcast movie channel.

How good is this day? Seriously. Life is incredible.

Progress In the Veggie Garden

Ask Mason to pose for a photo with his latest achievement, and you get this:

Kilroy was here.

Isn't this better?

Hey, handsome!

But alas, isn't the new gate to my veggie garden cute? The fence isn't finished yet, and won't be till winter time, but hey, I have a really cute gate!  Especially since, before the gate arrived, we were having to duck under bird netting every day to water our plants. We also had to water using rainwater and watering cans until ... MASON RAN A WATER LINE OUT TO THE GARDEN!! Who's my hero?

That's my eggplant you see on the lower left of the upper photo; none of the flowers has set yet. Damn. But as I said before, I got started late. I've just started harvesting tomatoes, and the watermelon plant is now about 12 feet wide and several tiny little melons are charming us daily.

Wait! One more garden gate photo, and my happy place:

This is a trilobia rudbeckia ... Craig, what was the name of it again?

We'll be adding a pergola top to the whole garden fence, come winter. Patience, my friends.

We've invited new friends to come to the cabin on Wednesday for dinner. Pray for us, and for them ...

One Thing Leads To Another

You're looking at the new sliding glass door, downstairs, hooked up the the pulley system Mason built that nearly killed us both as we hauled it upstairs.

The new wall on the north end of the cabin only highlighted how terrible the south wall was, so summons the crowbar!! And while we're at it, out with the old crappy door and in with a cheap-but-good-enough-for-cabin-life sliding glass door that pours natural light into the loft. Can't wait for the reading season, winter, when I snuggle up with a book on the chair or bed up there!

But first, how do two reasonably strong people get a 180-pound, 6-foot-wide door up to a loft in a cabin? Mason to the rescue! He rigged up a pulley system, but Nan's upper body strength didn't live up to expectations. For 45 minutes, Mason lifted the door from the living room -- Russian-weightlifter style -- while I cinched up the pulley rope. I still can't believe we did it, though we felt the success in our muscles for the next few days.

For a couple of days, we had a pretty big hole in our wall, but give us a few more days, and we'll have the "after" photos for you.

Yes, that's a big hole in the side of our house (bedroom).

So, while Mason's been busy tearing down that wall, Mr. Gorbachev, I've been pampering my plants. The veggie garden now sports nine tomato plants, a 10-foot-wide watermelon plant, an eggplant, lots of herbs, some peppers and maybe 15 stalks of corn. Today, Mason dug a water line out the the garden area; he's clearly motivated by the first batch of pickled jalapenos he's enjoyed.

This week we plan to build a gate to the garden, which won't be finished until spring. For now we're using bird netting to keep out the deer and the bunnies. So far, so good.

My cherry tomatoes.

The underside of my Sum and Substance hosta.

What a Difference!

The new wall!

The painted ceiling.

Check another big project off the To-Do List, which is an awfully long list, I might add. This one entailed finishing painting the ceiling (which we started about ... oh, six months ago), and then rebuilding the upper north wall of the cabin. Ever since we moved in more than three years ago, the wall was a major eyesore, with exposed insulation, crappy wallboard and a fine nest of cobwebs.

Today, check out those trimmed windows!! Check out last week's photo and check out the difference in how much more light bounces into the room. Massive improvement, thanks mostly to Mason.

Next up: The upstairs wall on the south side. That will mean a new sliding glass door out to the deck and new siding on the inside. Yup, the fun never ends.

In the meantime, we've also been awfully busy out in the yard, growing vegetables and installing an outdoor shower. More on that tomorrow ...