in which I demote myself

Our first edible cantaloupe. It was not as juicy and soft as one might like, but we haven’t yet figured out how to tell when the little buggers are ripe. Kevin reports that there are at least eleven others in various stages of growth, awaiting our culinary experiments.

Unlike some people, Kevin’s been busy lately.

That enormous pile of firewood in the left bay? That used to be logs. So he chainsawed them and split them, moving them first out of the pole barn, and then back into the pole barn. And he’s gone through you cannot even IMAGINE how much other crap valuable flammable stuff and sorted it all by size – trash barrels full of tinder, kindling, you name it. My hero!

And if that were not enough…

Can you tell that he’s stripped all the shingles off the roof of the little shed in the back of the yard? Well, he has. The plywood underneath will need to be replaced, and the whole thing re-shingled. Kevin’s taking care of the bits he feels comfortable doing, and then Our Hero Michael (he of the kitchen cabinets…the new window in the batcave,.. the flooring in the batcave and front room…and of course the DECK!!) will c’mon over and do all the hard bits.

I have been lifting weights.  If you can count what I’m using as “weights”. Do they make free weights any…tinier than those I am using? Don’t answer that.

Maybe if I had a set that looked like this, I’d be even more motivated.  Anyway, that makes twice in the past four days, and I’m gonna do it again tomorrow. Grrrr. Strong, like bull.

In other news, I lied earlier when I identified this as a mallow.

Had I bothered to pay attention a little more, I would have realized that this is a shrub. Not a flower. Accounting for that leads us directly to “IT’S A RASPBERRY, YOU FOOL”, as evidenced by the fact that hey, why are all these mallow flowers producing these cute little buggers that look and taste exactly like raspberries? But I did find an ACTUAL mallow on the walk to the mailbox yesterday, and because I know you care, deeply, about these things, I’ll post pictures. Except it’s supposed to rain for the next few days, so maybe I’ll be lazy and not do that. We Shall See.

Some naturalist. I have demoted myself to Rank Amateur, as opposed to Complete Novice. Wait. Maybe that should be the other way around. Whatever. You get my drift.

In the culinary department, can we all praise whoever invented gazpacho? Salad in a blender. Brilliant. For my next trick, I’m going to have to figure out how to deal with our CSA’s most recent scary offering: edamame. Or, fresh soybeans, still on the stalk, to keep ‘em fresh.

This is a stolen picture from the intertubes, 

Apparently I am to cook them in their little pods and then extract the little buggers. I am afraid I won’t be able to use my usual technique of eating strange veggies (“throw them in a smoothie!”) on these. No worries. I’m sure they’ll be great.

Finally, I am learning more settings on the magic new camera, like how to turn the flash back on after having somehow disabled it.

no flash.

flash.

Thanks for your help, Charlie!