Trouble on the farm

Wind. The tomato cages have made the pots top heavy and my lightweight mix with styrofoam peanuts is not helping. So when our crazy weather gusts, over they go. Vince went up in the smattering of rain and pinned them in place with the other, heavier, lower pots, but I am going to have to secure them. This is not good for the determined watemelons, lying in the pots' paths. I will be amazed if those poor fruit reach maturity.

I am suitably chastened about my earlier squash comment. Yes, I will eat it and I will enjoy it.

Second fig

I eat the second fig in three bites, standing alone in the humidity on the terrace.

Its skin has begin to split down the sides, green with a little fawn toward the tip. I squeeze it open. A first bite, the soft sweetness is worth the year's wait. The inside creamy white and clear honey, the skin supple. I chew the second piece slowly and swallow fast. On the street below a lorry passes. A cicada in an oak tree.

I take the last bite. Some skin is left. I eat that, too.

Carrot soup, cold

For the last couple of weeks the thin ceramic jug with a blue swirl on its cream glaze from Africa Nova in the Cape Quarter has been a constant presence in the fridge. It is the receptacle for cold soup: cucumber with yogurt, ajo blanco (aka white gazpacho), regular gazpacho, carrot soup with buttermilk, red pepper soup, ditto.

I love sipping a glassful as a snack, and it is an easy lunch or appetizer for summer suppers.

Friday evening crop

Oops. I positioned the pots on this side of the roof, with the wall behind them, to stop them from blowing over, but the wind doesn't always blow from the same direction. Does it? So. No harm done, and they did it again in the tornado-watched night.

Danielle, our new neighbour, came over for supper, and I went up to the roof to pick tomatoes for the buffalo mozzarella I brought home. She's going to catsit while we are in Rockport next month. She seemed to take the beshirted cat in her stride. Her cats seem quite normal by comparison. Maybe it's us.

I have a squash. Who wants it? I find squash deeply boring, unless they are butternut or pumpkin. Good for stuffing. Um. Farcie. If the squash get big I'll stuff them with lamb bits and currants and pine nuts and rice.

Many dead leaves were taken off the tomatoes. Many.

Three more cucumbers.

The black cherry tomatoes are starting to show some colour at last. Interesting that they are so slow.

And that's about all there is to say. One can only say so much about cucumbers and tomatoes.

On the hottest of Saturdays, we make our way in the early evening to Queens, heart of, for a wedding. From Brooklyn. There is no straight line subway. Subway tunnels and platforms are like stifling hot wet death. In wedding outfits. Maybe we should just wear bathing suits and change there.

Even farms sleep

Berries, ripe

It's Friday. Bring on the bubbles.

July sky