Lingering Tomatoes

Our tomato plants are still producing, and tomorrow will be November. Our neighbors all ripped out their tomato plants weeks ago, but ours are happily perking along, blossoming, fruiting, and turning red in the sun. Perhaps they like their home on the back hill. The nights are getting cold now, though, and I expect our first freeze could be soon. Then we really will have to pull them out. Fried green tomatoes anyone?

These tomatoes are fresh-picked this morning, and sitting in a hand-lathed wooden bowl great-grandfather Ellsworth made.

Romancing the Bar Code

My wife and I were shopping this evening at a Super Target, in the grocery section. I saw a wall mounted bar code reader that allows customers to scan a product with its bar code information to get the price. I turned to my wife and said, "Put you hand right here, under the bar code reader."

My wife hesitated. I'm sure she was wondering what I was up to.

"Put you hand right there, I want to show you something."

She held her hand under the machine. The bright red laser lit up a pinpoint on her hand. The machine did not show a price.

"There!" I said triumphantly, "The bar code reader says you are priceless, and you are indeed priceless."

Out My Window

Our roses don't show any signs of slowing down yet, even though it is October. I love their cheerfulness right outside my kitchen window.

Baking Day

Yesterday was baking day here. I made two huge pans of pizza bread, to feed the freezer temporarily, until we go to Stone Mountain next weekend. We always seem to take pizza bread for part of our picnic at Stone Mountain. Next I baked a pan of gingerbread, and then I finished with a huge salad for a funeral.

The funeral was today at noon. The Professor and I volunteered to help in the kitchen. We ended up being there all day. Feeding over 400 people was quite tiring (I'm hearing snoring from the sofa). David videotaped and helped run sound; Greta had to work.

Baby Shower

The ladies in Heather's office gave her a baby shower luncheon in early September. The two Grandmas were invited too! It was fun to meet her co-workers and see her tiny office cubicle, and to coo over all the cute little baby clothes and linens. The new papa came for lunch too, and stayed to play baby shower games. I'm sure that was a first for him.

A buffet lunch, cake, and ice cream. I wasn't fast enough to get a photo of the cake.

Baby bathtime

Gotta keep those tootsies warm!

Home News

Last week the drought in GA got worse. It's been raised to a level 4 (Whatever that means. I want to know: 4 out of how many?). What it means to the residents is we have a total ban on outdoor water use, unless we use well water or reclaimed water. So I decided, not having a well handy, this home will start using reclaimed water. We began reclaiming with a dishpan in the kitchen sink to collect water that would normally go down the drain. When the dishpan gets full, I cart it out to a dry shrub and dump. I've been able to water about 6 shrubs a day this way. Next, I plan to scavenge a couple of 5-gallon buckets for the bathrooms. At shower time, each person will run the water into the bucket as they await the warm water's arrival from the water heater, then haul the bucket outside at shower's end. That should cover quite a few more shrubs. The grass will have to fend for itself.

In other news, we volunteered to head up our neighborhood's food drive for the county homeless shelter. We have found that our neighbors are quite generous with sharing food, at least the ones who will answer their door. About a third won't come to the door even though we know they are home. Do we look that scary?