Look What I Found for GBBD

I found this bloom today. It looks sort of like a day lily. The foliage looks a little like a rain lily. Guess what it is. Zephyranthes grandiflora or giant rain lily. Pretty cool. The flower is smaller than a day lily, but much larger than a rain lily. I have absolutely no idea where I got it or when I planted it. It rained today and it bloomed.

Thanks again to Carol at May Dreams Garden for hosting Garden Bloggers Bloom Day.

Zucchini Chips

I made zucchini chips this morning. They are all gone now. I ate two medium zucchini all by myself. These chips were good.

Slice zucchini into 1/4 inch chips.
Place on a food dehydrator and sprinkle with seasoning
I used Cajun spice seasoning
Dehydrate until crunchy

I am going to be eating a lot of zucchini.

Look Fast I'm Not Doing This Again

Here I am and it is only for a good cause. That thing on my head is the scarf I made for the scarf initiative planned and organized by Kathryn at Plant Whatever Brings You Joy. This scarf will join 64 others from around the world and be sent to Askole, Pakistan to a girls school for refugees. Thanks for the great opportunity Kathryn.

The map in the background is actually Teenage Monkey's wallpaper in his room. Cool huh?

Here is VP modeling her scarf

I was going to talk about Gulf frittilary butterflies. I saw two laying eggs on my passion vine this afternoon. When I went back out to take some pictures, they had fluttered off. I will get back out there tomorrow.

Due to a lack of butterfly pictures, tonight I will blog about my fall veggies. These are actually late summer veggies. In the above picture shows okra, tomato, zucchini, purple hull peas, and a bowl of assorted peppers.

I am the kind of gardener that counts. I counted more than 80 tomatoes on the tomato vines today. I counted 17 zucchini on three vines. I counted 12 little okra on the okra plants.

My summer production was pretty pitiful because I did not get the plants in early enough. We get hot fast around here and the plants just can't produce in the heat. With a little rain and cooler weather my plants that lived through the scorching summer are now giving me food. I am glad I kept them alive.

The real fall plants, cabbage, broccoli, broccoli rhaab, Swiss chard, lettuce, spinach, garlic, onions, and beets are slowing being planted as I can make room. In a few weeks it will freeze. At that point, I can turn the whole garden over to the cool season crops.

Additional Sock Issues

Things have gotten a little messy around here. The kitchen need cleaning and organizing. A bunch of papers need to be recycled. My desk looks like a bomb went off on it. The laundry is clean, but needs to be folded and hung up. Finally, the truck is full of monkey paraphernalia. Instead of making myself crazy, I decided just to work on it for a couple of hours and get done what I can get done. No blogging, oops, here I am blogging, but this is important.

Like I said, the truck is full of monkey junk and we do have someplace to go this afternoon. I think I will actually get the truck cleaned out. It is full of shoes. Why oh why do my children take their shoes off everywhere? There are also lots of papers; papers from school, papers from master gardeners, unexplained papers. Finally, there are all kinds of gardening supplies; compost screen, fiber edge, a cobra head tool, a couple of pairs of pruners, and a bag of potting mix. So this is a big job.

I started with the front seat and pulled out a pair of monkey sneakers and a pair of socks. Wait, these are my socks. They have pink heals and toes. I don't remember taking my socks off in the truck.......HEY WHO HAS BEEN WEARING MY SOCKS. THESE ARE GIRL SOCKS NOT BOY SOCKS. KEEP YOUR STINKY MONKEY FEET OUT OF MY SOCKS.

Seriously, somebody help me. Please come help me.

The Origin of The Banana Split Dinner

Joy at Garden Joy 4 Me posted yesterday about donuts for dinner. She reminded me of our occasional banana split dinners and their origin.

I am the oldest of seven children. My youngest sister is 18 years younger than I am. Mamala had three babies while I was in high school. A pregnant mom was the best birth control ever for a teenage girl. I didn't have my first child until I was 30. It worked really really good.

Grocery shopping for a family of nine was an ordeal. It took two carts and a keen eye for value. It also took volume. There had to be lots and lots of food. Three of the seven were boys, and boys eat a lot. It was also impossible to take along anyone under the age of four to the grocery store. Someone had to stay home with the creepers, crawlers, and toddlers. I opted to man the second cart and leave the rug rats to sister#2. I'm thoughtful like that.

One afternoon Mamala and I went shopping and left Sister#2 with the runts. On a whim Mamala decided we would have banana splits for dinner. I think, "She has finally lost her mind, but cool." We loaded up on the banana split ingredients praising ourselves on surprising the clan.

When we arrived home everyone over the age of 3 runs out to the station wagon to unload more than 100 pounds of groceries. Everyone except Sister#2, who stayed inside with the urchin

Side note - I mean urchin in the most loving and gentle way, but hey there was snot everywhere. Sisters, before you leave me a nasty comment remember, I changed your diapers. Love you, mean it.

Now that I have called off the pack of rabid sisters, back to the story

We managed to get everything put away before noticing, Sister#2 had set the table with the good stuff as a surprise for Mamala. The nice plates, cloth napkins, and the good crystal were perfectly displayed on the table. Mamala thinks this is exactly how an ice cream dinner should be served and we ate banana splits off the good china. Life was excellent.

About once a year I give the Monkeys banana splits for dinner and remember how sweet it was.

A Fine Fall Day

It is beautiful today. The weather is in the mid 70's with a light breeze. The sun is warm without being hot. Very nice.

It is so nice my black eyed Susan vine decided to bloom.

I moved it from the deck to the front porch. It seems to like the shade. Who knew.

Here is a closer look.

And closer yet.

The pepper harvest is in full swing. My Chili pequeno is loaded with little hot bombs.

How's your weather.