We're home.

Tired, sore, but home. Will post more after the holidays.
Hope you all have a safe and blessed New Year.

*hugs* ♥

Caution

Sugar cane loading site.

That's not your every day road sign.

We're on the road. Got started about 2 hours ago.

It is quite foggy out. My camera is a brat, but I have managed a few pictures.

We've seen a lot of raptors this trip. I like that.

HAPPY FRIDAY!

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Home tomorrow

We're headed to our other house tomorrow. ;-)
Back to North Carolina.
We did manage to get the yard mowed. I know I took before pictures; I think I took after pictures...
I did of course manage to get bit by something.
My ankle itches.
Happy Friday and a blessed weekend! ♥

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A SAFE, BLESSED NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL. ♥ :-)

On the road.

What a pain trying to use blogger mobile.

Anyway, we are on the road, barely. Some idiot tried to cause an accident passing us. Hubby slowed down and headed for the shoulder, the oncoming car did the same.

Accident barely averted. God watch over the fool in the truck.

No pictures yet, sorry. With my eyesight I can't take good moving pictures; but we saw a big hawk just sitting in a freshly plowed field. I think it may have just caught mouse or maybe just missed one.

The weather is really nice today.

Happy Friday, everyone! God bless. :)

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Well, there is that.

We're leaving a day earlier. He just can't wait.

I'm not really complaining. Well, sort of, haha. But since I have to do most of the planning and packing, it would be nice if he told me these things instead of me hearing him tell his brother over the phone and then having to ask him what he meant. ;)

At least we're leaving in the morning, instead of after he gets off work. Hopefully we can get some sleep Wednesday night. We usually don't sleep well before a trip, no matter when it is.

Happy Tuesday, everyone! :)

Hoping that I don't jinx us

Shhh.... 7 days to our next trip. Hope you all have a wonderful Friday!

My December 5

Borrowed from Jojo.

It actually wasn't easy to narrow down my list. There are a lot of them that I enjoy watching. Some I would never. haha.
And since Jojo already mentioned How the Grinch Stole Christmas, I will bypass that for another favorite. ;-)

1.

Miracle on 34th Street. The original. In Black and White. With Edmund Gwenn and Maureen O'Hara.

2.

It's a Wonderful Life, with Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed.

If I don't see anything else at Christmas time, I watch these two. I even record them and watch them more than once...

3.

A Charlie Brown Christmas. I love the speech that Linus gives about what Christmas is.

4. This is a tie. Normally I prefer the original of a show, but I have to admit to liking one remake more than the others. So first:

Scrooge.
The original B&W version with Alastair Sim.

And second:

A Christmas Carol, with Patrick Stewart.

And not last, but not really last.
5.

Rudolph, the red-nosed Reindeer.
The original, sung and narrated by Burl Ives. Anything else, to me, is just not right.

I could probably have done 10 or more, but I think I'll leave it at 5.

Thanks for sharing your 5, Jojo; and inspiring me to share mine. :-)

Happy Sunday to you all. ♥

December

I am definitely not feeling it this year.
Don't get me wrong, I am very thankful for all the blessings God has given us; but there are so many things going on in this country that I have to keep my view very small so that I don't get discouraged.
I'm not going to say more. I'll just read blogs and do what needs to be done today.

Have a blessed weekend, all! ♥

They're here....

Actually, we're back. Did you see my wave, Mike?
I decided hubby needed to get out of the house. So even though we didn't go to the farm, we went to Florence South Carolina. Got a room Friday night at the Best Western. Was a nice room for the price ($77 including tax). Had a jacuzzi type bath - which felt good to hubby's back.

No stress to move on this morning. Had breakfast at Cracker Barrel. They asked where we were headed and we said 'we're here'. ;-)
We went to the farmer's market and the flea market they have there. Went to Agri Supply twice. Got stuff both times. Saw a real nice iron grill there. If I remember right it had a small smoker attached. At least that's what I think it was. Hubby really liked the grill. If they still have it and we're still here next summer, I expect we'll be getting one.

And, after all the turkey advice - which I really did appreciate - hubby surprised me by deciding to fry the turkey this year. Now I've been trying, on and off, for nearly 7 years to get the hubby to do this. I'm not complaining. I think for our first time it went really well.

We got a Carolina Cooker from Agri Supply. We had a 12 1/2 pound turkey. We put some onion and bell pepper and potato chunks in it. The only real problem we had was that the cooker doesn't seem.... strong enough? for the 28 qt fryer with a turkey in it. We got it back up to 325 F, but the burner just didn't seem to want to get back to that 375 F temp they recommend. (So some of the dark meat had to be microwaved.
But we will be doing this again. Overall we were very happy. The meat was not only juicy on Thursday; it was also juicy Friday.
And I made 5 cups of nice rich broth from the carcass. :-)

All in all been a really nice weekend so far.
I have to keep reminding myself that today is only Saturday.

Have a blessed Sunday, everyone!

R.I.P. Anne McCaffery

Her books gave me hours of reading pleasure. (Not many authors I can say that about.)
I know she passed the torch to her son. I hope he carries it well.
I think it's time to revisit Pern.

It's not nice to fool Mother Nature

But sometimes she does it to herself.

Hopefully you can see the new, bright green leaves on the pecan tree, and the other leaves that know it's almost December. ;-)

Launch has been rescheduled.

Probably for Christmas week, since he has to take vacation then anyway.
And we'll take the travel trailer with us.
I was really leery about a week in a hotel.
Especially with no plumbing in the farm house.
Except of course for emergency plumbing, i.e. the manual flushing system. ;-)

I thought about it while painting the bathroom. Thought about what he was saying last night, or what I thought he was saying and decided that now was not the time to go.
And he agreed. He also assured me that if he did not agree, he would have said so.
Good thing I already have a turkey in the freezer.

We (meaning me) will slowly move everything from the cargo trailer to the travel trailer. It will be tight, but I think we will be able to do it. And maybe a little more besides.

I am relieved.

That said, does anyone have a good recipe for roasting a turkey? I will be baking it in the oven this year and it always seems to not be cooked all the way.
Any tips from those of you who do turkey in the oven?

Hope you all have a blessed weekend!

T Minus 20 hours and holding.

Houston, we have a problem.

Well, to be honest, hubby's work has a problem. One that might keep us from going at all. But he didn't get off work until 1930 (7:30PM for non-military/gov't types) and didn't want to talk about it last night. Said he didn't need one more thing to think about right then.

And he has gone to work already as I type this.

The problem, among many, is he is the only one who can fix the problem. (He is also the only technician left in his office. All the others are <i>engineers</i>. Somehow, it was decided several budget cuts ago, that engineers are cheaper than technicians.
Go figure.

So they forced out or early retired all the other technicians.
(If only there would be an early retirement right nos.)

Hubby has seniority. They couldn't touch him before, but we're ready now. Even if he only gets 2 weeks to vacate like they did last time. We're gone.

And to be honest, it scares the crap out of his boss.

Because he is the only one who can do many of the things he does.

Now to give them the benefit of doubt, they do have 4 other people working on this particular problem with him.
This time.

But we don't (and may not at all) leave until the problem is fixed.

And we might not be able to talk about it tonight either.

I can deal with delay. I do not do well with uncertainty.

Not at all.

TGIF on a cold Friday morning.

4 days to go. :)

Yup. 4 days. I always get nervous before a trip. Afraid I'll forget something. Afraid we won't have enough money (though getting stuck in Louisiana is not necessarily a bad thing).
We're leaving at O dark thirty Saturday morning. (I would guess roughly 4-4:30 AM.) So that we can get to Florence, South Carolina about 10 AM.
They have a fairly large flea market there that we like to go to. We usually try to go one way or the other when going to the farm, but our travel days haven't been on the weekend lately. Since I talked him into leaving on a Saturday, we're planning on going on the way down.
And we'll get Popeye's Chicken for lunch. Just maybe not in Florence. As I recall, their chicken isn't consistent in quality.

Oh well. Happy Tuesday to you all!

About 9 days

Until our next trip to the farm. I know it's a farm in name only right now, but it's ours. Don't know when for sure because he's trying to get a couple extra days and that hasn't been approved yet.
I do know we get to pay the property taxes when we get down there this trip. Oh boy!

Wonder what the weather will be like?

We're taking the blue trailer and not the travel trailer, so we'll have to stay in a hotel. We haven't done that since his last business trip.

Nervous as always.

I want to say Thank You to any veterans who read this. I appreciate your service. Hope you enjoy your day tomorrow. And for everyone who has a three day weekend this weekend, hope you have a safe one!

Also, Happy Birthday to the U.S. Marines! Ooh Rah!

We had frost this morning.

I think that means fall is finally here. :) Going to warm up and get rain tonight though. The weekend is almost here and we get another hour of sleep this weekend. Yay! ;-) Hope you all have a blessed day. ♥

Happy November!

Hard to believe the year is almost over. Stay safe! ♥

Too Cute Tuesday

I stole this from Melodie over at Laughing Duck Farm, because everyone needs a smile on Tuesday. :) And yes, I know it's too big for my layout, but I am not smart enough to know how to resize it. And I don't care. It's just too cute. ;-) Happy Tuesday to you all! :-D

Our New Roof

House

And shed.

One less thing to worry about. Now to decide on paint.

Not much to say

Not much to blog about.
We finally decided on someone to re-roof the house. Insurance should cover it.
I'm procrastinating on painting.
And learning how to repair drywall.
We have been adopted by a stray cat. Would like to take it to the vet, but that needs to wait until payday. When the truck inspection is due, and the the road tax.
Have another cat with a vet appointment on payday and both of the cats we already have need annual shots. Be an expensive payday. As they all are.
Oh well. Could be worse, right? Don't get me wrong, I am very thankful for all we have and know I have no room for complaint.
Just need to say sometimes, you know? Have a blessed week, everyone!

Wordless Wednesday

Just a few pictures from our last trip to the farm

There are a lot of these bushes popped up all around the yard.

No idea what they are.

I also saw green berries out by the gate.

And black berries out there, too.

Yes, that is as far as my knowledge goes. I know they are not normal berries. Just food for animals and birds, I expect.

That bush by the gate oak that I cut down last year, has come back quite thickly.

And best of all, green pecans. :-)

In November, we're making a quick trip to take the cargo trailer back down and hopefully widen the driveway just a bit before we take the trailer back down.
I'm hoping we'll find a few pecans ready to bring back home. :-)

Hope you all have a Blessed week. ♥
P.S. If you want to see any of these pictures bigger, go to my blogger link in my list of photo albums.

Now this is what I've been saying for a while.

I feel this is why so many Americans are overweight and have health problems:
11 year old finds antibiotics in 15% of store-bought meat.

Now, if an 11 year old can figure this out, why can't the government?
Oh wait. That's right. The meat industry has a big union. No way the government can find fault with them.

I am not advocating stopping eating meat. Those who prefer not to, more power to you. But I love a good steak. Just makes me want to get to the retirement property earlier so I can have better control over what goes into my food.

Our Little Meadow: A Drug Problem

Our Little Meadow: A Drug Problem: Yes, I had a drug problem as a youth.  How about you? (click on the picture to enlarge if your eyes are like mine) 

Yes, you may see double because I stole this from Mike. :)

Anybody have any idea

what bug this is?

Those are Okra leaves. It reminded me of a tick, but I don't think it is.
Sorry about the size of the picture. Either I've forgotten everything, or blogger is a brat. Or both, haha!
If you want to see it bigger, look here.

Also, anyone know if banana pepper seeds can be eaten? I know okra seeds can be eaten. But they always tell you to take the seeds out when you clean peppers, so I was just wondering. Little banana peppers are a pain to clean is all...

Almost Friday! :-)

I think this line from Dickens' A Christmas Carol works well.

God bless us, every one. ♥

Red sky at morning, sailor take warning.

This was the sky from my back porch yesterday morning, looking roughly northwest.

It really was an awesome sight.
But a little over an hour later, no more billowy clouds, just a lot of gray. This one is from the front porch, looking East.

The next two are from the back porch again. No more bright light.

And sure enough, by another 30 minutes, we had rain. We had thunderstorms on and off and a lot of rain last night, too. Now Lee has sadly gone Northeast to places like New York which don't need any more rain.

Irene had blown all the flowers off my crepe myrtle, but as you can see, it is blooming again. :)

I pray all my friends in Texas, get some rain soon. And I pray those in the Northeast see an end to the rain.
A Blessed Thursday to you all. ♥

I like it when

hubby tells me "I can't think of any way you could have made dinner any better." :-D
I am not a cook. My mom didn't really cook. My dad did a lot of cooking. But he liked everything Very Well Done. So I do too, haha. It has taken me years of practice to not burn everything. And often times I still do. Hubby can throw stuff together and it often turns out quite excellent. I throw stuff together and it's often a disaster. ;-)
So, I was quite happy last night. :-)
Thanks for all the comments on my last post. Glad to know I'm not alone sometimes. ♥

Why is it that whenever you find something you like,

they stop making it?
I may have mentioned before, but I don't sweat. Sorry for the TMI, but I don't. Not easily. I get clammy, damp skin, but I don't sweat like most people do.
I do not like the heavy weight cotton shirts that everyone insists on making now. They make me hot. So, I am starting to run out of t-shirts because Fruit of the Loom stopped making their 50-50 Golden Blend t-shirts. :(
50% cotton and 50% polyester, they were wonderful shirts.

Today I saw a piece of the World Trade Center. It was a joint piece. I don't have a picture because I didn't have my camera with me.
I'm a little ashamed to say I was going out of my way to try not to see it. In a family with 3 cars and 4 drivers, I try to get all my stuff done first thing before the working driver of the car I use leaves the house.
SO, I had arranged my route in an attempt to not be on the same road they were moving the monument on.
But it didn't work.
My last stop happened to be on the road they decided to use. So I saw the police cars with their flashing lights. The motorcycle with their flags, and the fire truck, and I saw the flat bed with the piece of the Trade Center, and I cried.
They're escorting it to a park in New Bern that we drive by often, so I'll be able to see it when they get it placed; and I'm sure I'll see it on TV today, too. I think they are having the official unveiling on September 11th.

Blessed Tuesday to you all. ♥

P.S. Hope my blog friends in Texas and Georgia are well. ♥

Went fishing today

Wanted to check out our fishing spot on base to see if it survived the storm. And it did. Sorry for the quality of the pictures. Took them with my phone. Maybe at the end of the pier you can see the bittern that decided to join us for a little bit.

We didn't catch any keepers, but this year's hatch is getting bigger. Maybe by November there'll be some keepers. As we were leaving, I took a picture showing where the waterline was during or just after the storm.

That brown line shows where it was. The pier, and the steps leading to it, were completely under water. I told the hubby I'm glad I didn't see that, or I might not have felt comfortable fishing on the pier today, haha. Happy Sunday to you all! :-)

What to talk about today?

Hard to believe it's the end of August!
Been hard to post lately. Can't seem to concentrate on blogger and it seems blogger doesn't want to work right anyway.
As you know, our trip to the farm didn't go at all like we might have expected.
We didn't get there until about 1030 at night. I do not like night arrivals.
Even with the dark though, it wasn't hard to see that everything had grown like crazy. July and August are usually the hottest months anyway, and as those of you who live in the South know, this year has been exceptionally so.
I did take a few pictures in the dark.

Notice we have no driveway visible upon arrival.




This is a shot towards the trailer. The light is the security light that the electric company maintains. I think it costs around $8 a month. A fair enough price to not be totally in the dark.



The Johnson grass had gone crazy.



This is our Chevy 2500 pickup, almost engulfed by Johnson grass.



Yes, it was taller than our truck. Annoying and a bit depressing. Hubby said to not let it get to me, but ugh.

I'm guessing there is a backyard here somewhere. It's just crazy that this is barely 3 months' growth.



Here you can see the actual grass is not as tall as the Johnson grass.



That's the burn pile. We didn't actually burn last time because it was so dry. The Johnson grass seems to love it. :/
Hope you can see the pictures okay. I shrunk them all down because I don't have the option to shrink in the blog any more. I decided to just use Webshots for now, since that is where I keep all my online photos right now anyway.
If you can't see the pictures very well, just click on the album link for August 2011, and it will take you to my album where you can see the pictures.

That's all for now. Back to reading up on you all. :-)

Houston, we have power.

I'm going to miss NASA. But we have power! Got it back about 1 PM today. "Whew". I want to thank you all for your comments. Much appreciated. Those of you on the East Coast, I hope you are doing okay. Will take a few days to catch up on all your blogs. Happy Sunday and God Bless! :-)

common courtesy

Has gone the way of common sense; but the lack of courtesy is sad and more annoying.
Still no power. Miss you all. Hope you are well. God bless.
Not sure if this posted so going again.

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Power out

Posting from phone. Hurricane making landfall soon probably 20-25 miles away. Tornadoes around us but not here yet. Won't be able to read blogs till power is back.

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Short post about a short trip, but not today.

So, instead of doing the post I wanted to do, I can't because Google says I have used all my storage limit.
Those of you who post pictures on your blog, where do you store them? Do you use another photo website? Have you paid Google money for more pictures?

Just curious.

Sometime Sunday

There were green ones, too, but this is the only one that sat still long enough to get a picture of it.

God Bless, John. Hope the new week treats you better. ♥

Farm Friday?

Thank you all for your comments. I'll do a post in the not too distant future after we've relaxed a bit.
Hope you all have a wonderful weekend! ♥

Almost home

Having breakfast in Florence, Sc. Had to change the fuel filter on the truck yesterday. Another $100. Hubby hasn't been in such a hurry to get home, but we're tired of being on the road.
It wasn't the vacation we expected; but we're grateful it wasn't worse.
Sorry I haven't kept up with blogs. Been no time and this app won't let me read.
God bless! :)

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When it rains it pours

Not.
Not the good kind of rain, anyway.
Johnson Grass has practically taken over the main yard. Was not happy.
We arrived about 1030 PM. To no water. The pump was out. Went into town and got water and went to bed about midnight.
Hubby has done some troubleshooting. Some resister or something burned out. I am guessing we lost power at some point and the pump lost prime and that was the result.
We filled a couple buckets with water today so we have enough to flush the toilet at least.
Today, the A/C keeps cutting off. Don't know what's going on there, so probably will have to cut this trip short to bring the trailer back to NC to have that looked at.
Just hope we can get the pump working before we have to leave.

Oh, the trees we planted last trip? Well, they're sort of okay. They still have some green leaves anyway. And they have some brown. I'm hoping it's just all the hot weather has been hard on them, and they aren't sick or something.

Final oh before I go, haha. The old cub cadet we were using for a mule? It blew a fuse, too. Between all the hot temps here and him using it for a mower today (it is still a mower, just the transmission slips a lot when it gets hot. we had it fixed but it still does it); the hood (bonnet to some of you) warped from the heat.
Yup. You read right. It warped.
When the mower quit, he opened the cover to look at the engine and it just kind of bent in on itself.

What the heck.

At least the trip here was relatively painless.

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend. Have a blessed week!

Almost there

But it is dark so no pictures of our arrival. It is raining lightly here. Don't know about the farm.
Hope you all have a Blessed Sunday. Please pray for a friend's sick grandson, too. Thank you.

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Lizard's Thicket

Is where we are eating breakfast today. It's a nice place so far. Country food like black eyed peas and collards.

Then we are back in the road.
HAPPY SATURDAY TO YOU ALL!

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On the road again. Just can't wait to get on the road again...

I am guessing that shortly after 12 noon EST, we will be on the road to the retirement property. I will try to keep up, but there is no telling what sort of internet time we'll have.
I am just hoping that at least some of the weed killer worked.
Hoping not to see this when we pull into the yard.

Especially now that I know it's poisonous to animals (except mice, apparently) when there is a drought.
I mentioned it to hubby and he said he did know that it is poisonous when stressed, so we will have to work harder to get rid of it. There was some in the pasture, too.

Oh well. In a day or two we'll know. We might actually drive like normal people this time instead of driving straight through like he's been doing. We'll see about that, too. ;-)

Hope you all have a safe, blessed weekend!

Thursday thief

They do love that burlap. I'm sorry for the quality of the picture. Had to shoot through the door and the netting that has seen better days. The squirrel heard me trying to open the door, even though I was trying to be quiet.
But maybe you can still make out the mouthful of shredded burlap.

Oh well. Happy Thursday! We'll be on the road sometime tomorrow afternoon. Then we can see if the herbicide worked and if the trees we planted survived. :-)

Two (and a half) days until our next trip

I messed up my layout, but changed the comment thingy in a further attempt to help people make comments. Not that I know of more than one who had trouble commenting, but in case others have been having trouble I found another group of settings for comments. Why does blogger have to make things so difficult?
Anyway, hopefully this solves any problems people may have been having on my blog.

The sleep study went okay, I guess. I think I got all the pink stuff out of my hair that they used for the sensors they put on my head. There were about 20 wires attached in various places. The lady told me I did real well the first half of the night, but then the second half I kept holding my breath.

That was news to me. All I remember is the dumb machine trying to either suffocate me or drown me in air!

Later yesterday morning I had an appointment with the doctor who is treating my... Apnea or whatever I have. He told me a name of something that I will never remember unless he writes it down, and said it was basically nothing to be done for it other than to do what we've been doing. He explained though that when the nurse told me I was holding my breath, what she meant was that when I wake up and then go back to sleep I don't always remember to breathe. So I wasn't holding my breath, I just wasn't breathing.

The doctor also gave me Flonase because sometimes I have some congestion, but I pretty much always get an itchy nose when the mask is on. So hopefully the itching will stop.

Friday we leave for the farm again. Lots of mowing if nothing else. I was looking at the weather forecast for while we are there. Pretty much every day is going to be upper 90s with a couple 101s and a 102 thrown in. (38C for my non-American friends.)
That means I'll have to keep a watch on the hubby who likes to keep going until he gets dehydrated and then takes a day or more to recover.

I'll try to keep up with blogs while I'm gone, but no promises.

Happy Wednesday, everyone!

4 days to our next trip

Have another sleep study. This time at the hospital, since the CPAP machine is not the miracle cure for me that it is for most people. I find it annoying. The small mask is a bit too small, the medium mask is a bit too big, they both tend to leak and they really bother my eyes and throat. We'll see what the hospital comes up with, if anything.

Friday after hubby gets off work, we leave on our next trip to the retirement property to mow and see if the weed killer did anything about this.

Hubby really wants to get rid of the Johnson grass. The closer we get to retirement, though, the less I want to be using pesticides. Once we get there and can keep it mowed, that should hopefully take care of the problem more naturally. In this spot at least, tilling is not an option. The septic leach field is here.
Johnson grass is one of those things where people don't clearly think out all the ramifications before they do something. Like Kudzu, Nutria and allowing exotic species to be imported for people to own.
Ah well. We'll just keep plugging away and see what happens.

Hope you're all having a blessed week!

Funny Friday

Okay, these were actually taken yesterday, but it's Friday today.
Our squirrel thief came back. Sorry for the quality of the picture, but I had to shoot through the back door and the netting on our porch, and of course the squirrel was tugging on the burlap like crazy. :-)

And here is the little thief with the few shreds he (or she) got before they spotted me with my camera.

Happy Friday, everyone! Hope you all have a blessed weekend, and I hope some of us see cooler temperatures and get some well needed rain. ♥

Large Prayer Circle

As evidenced by people living in Oklahoma, West Texas and South Texas, and ever-increasing areas in other parts of the country, the drought condition

is reaching critical status; cattle are being auctioned; crops have burned up; and drinking water is becoming a concern. Please join us in this prayer circle.

Lets make this one of the largest prayer circles ever. It will be as though everyone is holdinghands around the world. Father, You said whatsoever any two or more come together and agree and ask in Your Son's name, it shall be given. We come to you, humbly, and ask that you bring down the rain to our parched lands. Our farmers and ranchers need it desperately, as well as our firefighters. We ask this all in Jesus' name, Amen. You may adopt this prayer as evidence of your participation in this gathering by simply passing on to your circle of friends! P.S. My apologies for all the text errors when I posted.

12 days

Could someone please tell me

just what is the purpose of mosquitoes? I despise the little buggars, but they certainly love me. I think I must have been bit close to a dozen times while trying to do stuff in my tiny garden this morning.
They don't notice garlic so I guess I'll try something else later. I think I read Listerine somewhere. Trying to find a natural deterrent.
I really wish they would all just die, but I'm sure that would bring some unexpected consequences if they did.

On another note, I have a few small pieces of burlap on my porch. I sometimes use them for shading plants, wrapping plants to move them, or for mulch. Apparently they make good nesting material, too, because when I was doing the dishes yesterday I watched a squirrel hard at work trying to shred one of them.

I didn't get a picture of the squirrel, because my camera wanted to focus on the screen. But I took a picture of the burlap this morning while I was being eaten alive by mosquitoes.
Just because. ;-)

Happy Wednesday, everyone! :-)

Questions questions

Those of you who have grown banana peppers. Do you leave them until they turn yellow? Is it the color or the shape that gives them their name? I thought this pepper was ready to pick based on its size (because yes, I am clueless), but based on the color, I'm not sure.

Also. Any idea what is going on with my cherry tomato plant?

It looks bad but it doesn't seem to have affected production.

My other banana pepper plant is going well, too.

Remember I showed you my bell pepper plant here on Wednesday? It was a little pea sized thingy. ;) Well in just 4 days it looks like this now.

It actually looks like a pepper now. :)
Oh, and while looking to see if I was ever going to get any beans, I found this. Sorry for the quality. The camera insisted on focusing on the cucumber tendril instead of what I wanted to take a picture of.

Its got an odd shape. Wider at the ends than in the middle. Is that because it wasn't getting enough water before I started using the drip hose? It's been really hot and I had been mostly watering at night. Now that I've put the drip hose out, I try to water 2 hours in the morning and 2 in the evening. the 2 in the morning has been keeping the dirt moist though, so I don't always water in the evening. I have to set a timer to remind me, lol.
Funny or not, I like my little cucumber. How do I know when it's ready to be picked? Just when I like the size of it?  I'm pretty clueless, sorry.

Oh, you should be able to click all the pictures to see them better.

Hope you all have a great week. And I hope some of us get cooler and some rain!

Updated question. Went out this morning to look at the garden and some of my little cucumbers that I took pictures of to show you, have turned brown or are turning brown. Is it the heat doing that?