Pepper Production Time

One of my jalapeno pepper plants is nearly five feet tall, I didn't do a wonderful job of capturing its height in this photo, I suppose I should've framed it in reference with a kid, but they were all yelling happily in the meadow, making new rules for their favorite game of Shoot-Out..

Lily had asked me if she could be the one to make the latest batches of Fire Hot Pepper Sauce yesterday from start to finish, just so she'd know how for when she was older.

"OK," I replied, "I'm guessing you're the only sophomore in your high school who'll know how, years ago all teenagers could do this."  I really said 'reckon' instead of 'guessing' but when I typed it, it seemed right country.

She was surely the only incredibly artistic, uncommonly sweet teenager doing this on a hot Sunday afternoon wearing knee high converse shoes and hair extensions, I'd wager.  Uniqueness should be encouraged in large families.

I'm might be the only 58 year old Church of God denomination, Politically conservative, aspiring vegan with 39 kids.  Who knows?

As for the veganism attempts, I measured in my head, I've consumed less than a 6 oz serving of cheese in the past month, the only animal product to have entered my stomach.  I do feel better, more healthy, even more energetic if that's possible, I've been getting protein from nuts and seeds, rice milk, and my usual grains and legumes combos.

I'd lost at least half of my 200 tomato plants due to the drought, with the rest of the plants not producing, but not dead.  Finally, I'm beginning to get some tomatoes again, trickling in slowly.

Every thing I've re-planted has been eaten to the nub by deer, thus my open invitation to some select deer hunters.  This volunteer melon plant has been closely guarded by me and so far, so good.

I figure I eat about 6 large and blocky, colorful, delicious, organic heirloom bell peppers each day, either like apples, or in my mongo-sized salads. This is always the case for July, August and September and then on into and through October, as our first freeze sometimes doesn't arrive until early November.  This equals 240 bell peppers consumed by me in those four happy months.  Dang, that's impressive.

Mowing all these acres with a push mower doesn't thrill my sons at all.  I find it to be a happy challenge, an outdoor alternative to a gym membership that I couldn't afford anyway. I had to shame 'em by getting out there and doing it myself until they each volunteered, due to my subtle act of aggression, to work for an hour each.  We still need to mow around in The Upper Gardens - which is my plan for the day after they traipse off to school.

CW'd gotten testy with me about it all, we both later apologized to each other.  He and I just don't squabble at all, not ever.  We just don't have anything to argue about, that might seem odd to other parents of a 16 year old, but I thank God for his laid back manner and his endearing sweet spirit, he and Jack are Lily's birth brothers.

They played Shoot-out until dark, several of us are walking around scratching our respective butt cheeks as we have a mass case of chiggers, yet another reason to sit on the back row at church.

I got to attend Sunday School again, not an impressive feat until one considers how many years I'd missed tending to irrational behaviors here at home, one of the ones who'd taken us all out at the knees calls me almost every day.  We've had better talks, made exemplary steps forward in our fractured relationship in the last couple of months than we'd done in the last ten years.

"Well I guess I need to be here," he tells me wistfully, happy that he has a girlfriend there, liking the fact that there are no family expectations, but a little homesick, wanting to be playing Shoot Out with the kids...yet when he was here, he'd shut down the game more often than not with irrational demands, accusations or bizarre behaviors.

It was supposed to have been only 80 here yesterday, but at 6 pm it was 90, according to the weather app on my phone, with very low humidity, it felt right nice though and I felt as if I'd gotten a great deal accomplished by the time the sun set too early, it was too dark at 8 pm to stay out and work.

I see happy people all over Facebook crowing that it's football and cooler weather time now and they are so glad about it.  Uh-uh, not me, Honey.  This means my plants will die and quit producing, that means no more sweaty days in my gardens, although around here it is only January when there's little for me to accomplish outside.

My major home repairs are gonna include some new siding on the back of the house, some entire windows need to be replaced again.  It took me awhile to comprehend that the adoption of older children entails most of the windows in my home being busted out over the years.  Deep sigh, there goes my retirement check again.

Again Tony took this photo of Lily, his younger yet way bossier role model in life.  Lily, 15, JoJo, 15, and Tony, 16, have all been in the same grade for as long as they can remember, which is pretty much their entire school career here within our wonderfully supportive, and long suffering, school system.