While camping out in North Carolina last weekend, it was like living in the rainforest. Every day the weather shifted multiple times between brilliant hot sunshine and violent torrential rainstorms with thunder that echoed and bounced off of the mountains in a deafening roar. It was gorgeous, despite the car getting stuck in the mud and the tent taking three days to dry out once we got home. It was during one of those storms that Honeybunch asked me to marry him and I (of course) said yes.
We're both so excited. Everyone in our lives is thrilled. And we're determined to throw an awesome party while keeping it simple and down to earth. There will be circus arts at our wedding, but the wedding itself will NOT be a circus! This is going to be easy, and fun... much the way our blessed relationship has been all along. I am really enjoying calling him my "fiancé", especially with a soupy French accent. And, because everyone asks, no, there is no ring, and that's the way we like it. My humble opinion is that diamonds are largely unethical and overrated, and I am a simple, practical girl. My honeybunch knows me. We're planning on exchanging simple white gold bands at the ceremony, and getting tattooed wedding bands as well (I do NOT wear rings to work).
On the homefront, tomatoes are out in full force. The Black Sea Man tomatoes have been amazing... tasty, prolific, and good keepers for a few days off the vine. The Nebraska Weddings have been less prolific and suffering more from the multiple heat waves, though we plucked a couple of them this week. The yellow pear tomatoes are putting out little golden jewels that fill my apron on a nearly daily basis, and we're having to get creative about how we use them... in omelettes, pasta salads, dressed with oil, vinegar, basil and mozzarella... We're canning today, mostly tomatoes from the farm down the road from us. Our own tomatoes get eaten up fresh pretty darn quickly. I've never canned tomatoes before, so it's a bit of a learning process... but I have to say that I enjoy the satisfaction of slipping the skin off of the blanched tomato in one smooth motion.
The sweet and hot peppers are growing, we're harvested a few hot but can't remember which types we planted where. The Salad Blue potato plants are dying off, so digging em up and seeing what kind of harvest we've gotten is on the To-Do list once the rain passes. I'm not entirely convinced that we'll have many spuds under those layers of straw... it was an experiment with perhaps too many variables... but we'll see.
We've discovered that one of the Rhode Island Red "hens" is actually a rooster. I'd suspected this for weeks, as they've matured and this particular bird got very, very big and developed a large, upright comb and shiny green tail feathers. Then, "she" began trying to mount "her" sisters. That was a red flag. And this morning, Good Neighbor heard "her" distinctly attempt to crow twice. Oi vey. We are not permitted to have roosters in our area. Technically, this one belongs to Good Neighbor... so (though I forget it sometimes) it's not up to me what fate he meets. I'm hoping Good Neighbor will let us find him another home... he's beautiful, and not aggressive towards us at all... but there's a possibility that there may need to be a lesson on kind and humane chicken slaughtering. Again, we'll see.
We've also adopted (yet another) kitten. His name is Samosa, he's orange and white, and sweet as pie. This kitten wants to do nothing but cuddle. As I type he's pulling at my hands with his paws, begging him to pet him. I'm in love with him. He came to the farmer's market with us yesterday, and everyone there fell in love with him too. He's a real charmer.
At work, everything is chaos. Our new computerized charting system just went live, and it's all a mess. We're still understaffed. Such is life.
It's a rainy Sunday afternoon, so I'm going to spend some time reading before we heat up the kitchen for canning.
1 comment:
Tattooed weddings rings ... SWEET!
Tammy Fisher
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