Living the 7th

Today Julia and I joined a crowd od 12+ volutneers who came out to cope with the set up for the big used book sale down at First Unitarian.  The Green Elephant Book Sale is going to be good! I already bought 7 books!

The whole room was filled with tables. We had boxes up at the stage and we were supposed to just grab books and rough sort them into categories. With that many people, we had it nailed in about two hours so somewhere in there I took a book break and wheelend out the drinks and snacks cart.

Sam made me laugh when he said, “Cat, you are such a good provider! Yay!” (Last time Sam and I were volunteering together he was really excited I’d showed up with bread and cheese to make toasted sandwiches. )

Volunteers usually work cheap. The main thing is to feed us a cookie or something.

Last weekend Julia and I took a quick minute to put out two trays.  Basil, yellow tomatoes, yellow peppers.  Labeled them with old plastic knives and Sharpie.  I have some room yet to consider some other seedlings and there are some things I want to direct sow.

It was just nice to spend some time doing garden stuff.  Been so busy with other things.

Today we are spending at home. I have a long “to do” list and while I’ve knocked most of it out, neither am I killing myself over it either.

I have enough work going on tomorrow. I’m still beat from yesterday. And the trouble with being an active volunteer and being a SAHM is that your days blur together and you don’t really get a “weekend” like other people with a less fluid schedule do. Unless YOU put the brakes on and declare it so, you won’t get that “weekend” feel.

Well, it can’t be helped that I was working over the weekend. I had movie nite and coffee hour going on and I’m pleased that both went over nice, friendly, and low key.

But today?

Today is for the home.

Julia and I slept in a bit, got ourselves together and put in a load of laundry. She’s off playing know while I take a journal break but we just got done harvesting my crazy herbs. The basil bushes are running rampant!

Julia held the bowl while I hacked it back. We got a large bowl or green sweet basil and a large bowl of the purple opal.

I’m not crazy about the purple opal. Gorgeous color, but it really didn’t do as well as the sweet basil in terms of growth and it seems to attract stink bugs. What’s that all about?

Last fall when we harvested basil, we pureed it in olive oil and preserved it that way. I don’t have time for that production today so we went simple and did bunch drying.

Julia played with the discards that I snipped off and she colelcted in smaller bowls at my feet. She said she was making a “bug house” from them.

Meanwhile I stipped lower leaves off stems, tied the bunches with yard, rinsed them, shook them and then just clipped them to my kitchen curtain rod. I dont’ think I will be eating any of the purple but Julia wanted it so I hung it to dry all the same. It looks pretty and smiles nice even though I don’t find stink bug nibbled basil something I want to eat when I have so much perfect green basil to get through first!

Paul was kind enough to do the mowing and weedeating on Saturday so this week I hope to put some time in prepping for the fall season planting in late August or early September. I know I have to start seeds either tonight or tomorrow. Where does the time fly?

All the tomatoes are old and dying off but I did get a nice crop form the yellows. Some are still ripening out there.

The Purple cherokee were a bust. Nice to look at, but too fussy for my style of guerilla gardening.

Julia’s African daisy is taking over her bed and sports a wicked looking spider. I figured out from this link that it is called an Argiope florida. It is not harmful to humans.

Her little plot has the final tomatoes coming.

And a nice little crop of jingle bell peppers. She harvested two already.

My eggplant is tall but I have to get rid of the old eggplants I didn’t pick to eat so the new ones can have more space and plant energy.

Lots to do.