Harvests and reunions

We steamed this beauty and it's now in the fridge

Well, it's that time of the year, when the last things in my garden will be harvested, brought in and prepared for consumption. I picked this big guy yesterday, along with the remaining beets, and Smart Guy cooked them up right afterwards. I had some of this cabbage for dinner last night, along with beans and salsa. I even took a dose of Beano, since that combination has been known to be rather, well, explosive. Very tasty though, and I am definitely enjoying the fruits of my harvest.

I had to pull two enormous slugs off it when I started to peel back the outer leaves. I'm afraid I'm now a murderer, although I stomped them instead of salting them. I figured it's better for them to die fast rather than shrivel up in agony. They may be slugs, but still.

Me, Sally, and Carol

Sally and Carol have been on many of my Trailblazers hikes in the past, but Sally moved away to the East Coast, so the three of us met at lunch today to catch up and share a nice lunch together, since Sally is in town for a couple of weeks. We went to Avenue Bread, which has a great Greek salad that I love. We all got the same thing and spent an hour enjoying each others' company while we ate.

Then I dashed home on the next bus to write this post. I did indeed get a chance to get my knees in the breeze last Sunday and hope for more of the same this coming weekend. The low clouds began to clear around noon, so four of us played in the sky on two separate skydives. Linny had to leave early to make it back to Seattle in time for her job, and Cindy and Dave needed to pack for their trip to the East Coast. That meant I returned home early on Sunday. Without anybody to play with, skydiving can get pretty boring. Those two jumps together, however, were a whole lot of fun.

Nasturtiums still going strong

I guess I'll be spicing up my salads for quite a long while yet, since the nasturtiums are still putting out new flowers. I also have some black beans that are supposed to be harvested in the fall and dried. Thanks to Google, this is what I've learned about them:

Black beans are left on the vine until they have dried, so you won’t have that much difficulty figuring out when they are ready to pick. The pods will turn yellow, dry and even split open when the beans are ready. If you bite into one, your teeth shouldn’t make much of a dent in it.

They don't need much water, so I'll just keep a watering can out there to make sure they get some water if we continue to have continuous sunshine. They look pretty good but they're all I have left to worry about. I look forward to some black bean soup made with my very own black beans!
:-)