Two momentous things happened this week.

The first cucumber was havested from my garden:



And the first figs arrived at the store (I've eaten a few out of the package--can you tell?):



The local figs will be ripe soon--it's just a matter of time.


Ah, life is good.

The Cucumber Wars

I grow cucumbers every year. I plant them primarily to watch them grow. I mean this literally. They come up in about three days, and you can truly watch them as they unfold and stand up straight. It’s a profound experience.

But, alas, this is the highlight of my yearly cuke gardening experience. The vines grow for awhile, they bear a couple of fruits, then succumb to one of the many fungi that inhabit my garden soil.

But this year was different. I had exhausted my supply of fast growing, quick dying seeds, and so broke my own rule, and bought a cucumber plant—ready made--from the nursery. It grew just fine. I ignored it. It got hot; I watered; it grew. It kept growing; it made two cucumbers. I thought, “Okay, this is it.” It made two more cucumbers. I was busy for a week, and didn’t do anything but turn on the drip. I went out to weed. There were six cucumbers.

I panicked. I gave two to Yvonne, my eighty-something neighbor. My whole family is laying in wait for our prodigal neighbor Scott (single guy, never at home) to pop by for a change of clothes. We wait for Kaye to go by on her evening walk. All so we can get rid of the cucumbers.

We went to a friend’s house, and I forgot to bring a cucumber. Our friend came in from the garden, bearing produce for a salad, and I said, “Oh, I meant to bring you a cucumber.”

His wife said, “Don’t you dare, we were hoping you’d take a few home.”

I said, “Not a chance.”

This is the danger of long hair and amateur photography. It's a little like "Mr. Thumb goes to Niagra Falls, Paris, or Disneyland," except in my case it's "Wild hair assaults people, grabs forks off of tables, gets stuck on doorknobs, and blows in front of camera lenses."

But it's a nice photo of my water lilies--behind the obligatory hair.