The wife wanted to make salsa with the Romas I had pulled out of our garden, so I then helped her out. We got about three quarts total. She made it medium instead of mild this time, so I'm looking forward to dipping some chips!

We ended up with 9 pint jars, and three quart jars. I had to scrounge for spices, but we made do in the end. All the jars sealed properly. Now I just have to let them cure for a week before opening a jar.

…and found out I had totally underestimated how many jars I needed. I was making spicy-garlic dills, and stuck either a serrano or half a jalepeño in each jar along with the spears. Some of the garlic was local, purchased from the farmers' market, some came from a jar. So we scrounged around for more jars.

I hunted up a recipe. I figured, based on how much my cukes weighed, I'd have about 9 pints, and adjusted the recipe (that called for 6 pints) accordingly. I quartered them up and got going…

We had a good shot of rain today, which meant I didn't have to drag out the hoses to water the garden.

Yesterday, the wife helped (a lot) with making some spicy garlic dill pickles. Cucumbers are crazy; they're about the size of your thumb one day, then mahoosive the next. So I had a bunch of big guys to cut up.

I'm clearing a space in front of the house for a garden next year (and I already have tomatoes and peppers going along one end). We'll be able to give it some attention.

The "big garden" is mostly a bust this year. It's just too far away from the manor to give it the attention it needs. But I still have a few peppers holding on, so I took the scythe and some fertilizer down this evening. After scything down the grass around the plants, I noticed one of the Tabasco plants had a small stem blown off in the recent storm; it had six yellowish peppers. Of course, I had to try one. Wooooooo, I'm not looking forward to tomorrow.

AJ is my granddaughter, about 3-1/2 yo. She's maybe 3-foot even, 30 pounds soaking wet.

But she has the bowels of a 400-pound man, who likes to hold it in until he gets to his favorite seat. Because when she downloads the brownload… it's impressive. To say the least.

TIL that planting grape tomatoes and jalapeños in the same container doesn't make the grape tomatoes hot. Darn.

Ah, August. The month when the tomatoes are producing faster than we can eat them! It just might be time to make gazpacho this weekend. And pickles from the cucumbers that went from tiny to enormous overnight…

Daughter Dearest, a music teacher in the school system, related a story from the music teacher at the 7yo's school.

For music class, they put the special needs students in with the general students. The first graders were being unruly, and the teacher cracked down.

7yo: "Are you not happy?"

Teacher: "Not right now, but thanks for noticing."

After class, he went up, hugged her, and said, "Feel better."

Oh, I also made flatbread this evening. Moe scorch marks than planned, but it's still pretty good.

Yesterday's sunset.