On the 23rd of August....

...there is finally a tomato harvest worth taking a picture of.  It's been few and far between this year.  As it is, I'm getting a July number of tomatoes a month late, and the vines all look like it's late September.  The weather has been--er--interesting.  Maybe the only nice thing about it (trying to look on the bright side here), is that the tomatoes are all coming in at once.  I never have that, as they're all OP, so they ripen whenever.  But due to the October nights and (this week) the August days, plus whacking off all of their heads, the tomatoes are coming in fast and furious.  I will be busy.

Basket 2 of 3.  It was the prettiest one.

The squash is about done, the eggplant never made an appearance, the beans got a second wind, which is nice, and thankfully the fall peas are coming up.  But the fall lettuce is still thinking about it, and the corn, which is very tall, is still considering it's options.  Possibly it's waiting for a better offer, I don't know.  At this point, I refuse to renegotiate it's contract, though-it's too late in the season.  One of the ears was really cool, though, see?  It'll be nice if it actually ripens.

 

It's got curly hair, just like me! Wild.

So right now I'm in full preserving mode, which I have been for a while, and for the first time EVER---I have run out of jars.  Huh.  To say that's never happened before in all my years of canning-which is quite a few-would not be a lie.  I am out of jars.  While I ponder that whole situation, let me leave you with this:

Today I went to the farmer's market, which I never do, because I don't have to.  But I wanted to try kale, which I didn't grow but have heard good things about, and before committing ground space to an unknown crop, I wanted to see if we'd even eat it--hence the trip to the farmer's market.  Anyway, there was a goat cheese booth there and the line for it was insane.  And it occured to me as I looked at that line that people are so ridiculous.  The two products people go crazy over, ie; goat's milk ANYTHING (soap, lotion, blah blah) and goat cheese are in fact from the very milk product NO ONE wants to drink.  If I could tell you how many times someone's said to me "I don't like goat milk" or "Ew.  You drink GOATS' milk?", this would be a very long conversation.  Totally bizarre.

Anyway, that's my observation of human strangeness for today.  I'm off to figure out to do with the 10 pounds of tomatoes in my kitchen.  Have a good one!!!