ANOTHER RETIREMENT ~ VISITORS ~ GARDEN UPDATE ~ ROSES ~ PARTING SHOT

ANOTHER RETIREMENT

Last Thursday, Linda retired from being a teacher's assistant at Montessori School of Yakima. She had been working there for the past 10 years, ever since we moved out here. It was a bittersweet day, for sure, but it is nice that we are both retired now. We are looking forward to getting out and about more in this state. When we first moved to Yakima, we did quite a bit of exploring around this area before either one of us had a job. But now we need to go to some of the areas away from Yakima. There is a lot this state has to offer in the way of scenic beauty, recreational areas, wildlife refuges, hiking trails, etc. So, I am hoping that we will have some exciting adventures for me to report on in future blogs.

VISITORS

Linda's daughter Emily and her husband John visited us this past weekend and helped us celebrate Linda's retirement. I am happy to report that the cherry-infused vodka was a success for cocktails on Friday night. Although I really couldn't taste much cherry flavor, it made for a pretty drink. On Saturday afternoon, we went to another movie. Seeing two movies in the space of a couple of weeks is unprecedented for us! Linda's daughter really wanted to see Wonder Woman, so we gave it a shot. I wasn't sure how much I would like it since super-hero movies are not my usual style. But I was pleasantly surprised by how much I really did enjoy it. The lead actress, Gal Gadot, did a fabulous job as the princess of the Amazons, and Chris Pine was his usual witty, likeable self. If you want to see a movie filled with a lot of action and a bit of comedy, then this is the one. After the movie we went to Cowiche Canyon Kitchen & Icehouse restaurant in downtown Yakima. While we were waiting on our meal (and sipping on beers), someone noticed a lot of old cars going up and down the street. It turns out that there was a car show in Yakima, so we sat and watched old Corvettes, Mustangs, GTOs, and various other cars from our youth, dragging the "Ave" (Yakima Avenue). Took me back to being a teenager and "dragging 2nd street" in Lumberton. A movie and dinner, plus a car show...it was quite a day!

Celebrating Linda's Retirement

On Sunday, we all went to the Yakima Farmers Market to see what they had to offer. Even though it is pretty early in the season here, there was still a lot of veggies to choose from. Local asparagus is always a favorite, and the spring garlic was just too beautiful for us to pass up! It was a busy weekend but we had a really good time and thoroughly enjoyed their visit with us.

GARDEN UPDATE

It is inevitable that I talk about my garden in this blog. In case you hadn't already figured that out, it will be the main topic of discussion this entire summer. The reason is because the garden will be occupying most of my time and energy. This week I finally got my soaker hoses situated so that everything is covered. I had to re-position some of them the other day after we had a very windy day with winds up to 35 mph. Yesterday I got some of the straw put down around the plants but I still have to put down straw everywhere.  Here's how it looks right now.

I also planted my tiny Zavory Habanero pepper plant. It is so small that I am not sure it will have time to produce any peppers, so I bought a regular Habanero pepper plant to put right beside the Zavory. I want to make sure I get some Habanero peppers this year, even if they will be scorching hot. Hopefully the less-heat Zavory will come through. Here's a picture of it with a quarter for size comparison.

The tiny Zavory Habanero

In addition, I planted some Marigold plants in various spots in the garden where the hose is just running across bare ground. At least something will benefit from the water coming out of that part of the hose, and I have been told that Marigold flowers are a great bee attractant.

My Cherokee Carbon tomato plant has a tomato on it! I noticed it a couple of days ago. This is the only tomato plant I have this year that isn't a salad-sized tomato, so I am hoping that it produces well. Hello, tomato sandwich with mayo on white bread!

I finally have almost all of the spurge weeds pulled up from the garden area. There are still a few pockets around the garden that I need to get up, but at least I have all the ones I could see from the area where I will be spreading the straw. For those who are wondering, here is what a spurge weed looks like. It kind of looks like an umbrella with a ridiculously long root attached to it.

Spurge Weed

ROSES

I took a picture of one of my rose bushes a couple of days ago because it was just gorgeous. Since then we have had a lot of wind and some rain, so the roses are pretty beaten up now. We named this bush the Mary Rose, because it comes from a cutting taken from one of my mother's roses. We have a lot of rose bushes in our yard and all of them have names. I will try to highlight some of the other ones in future blogs.

Mary Rose

PARTING SHOT

I went in search of Summer just now to get a picture for the blog and this is what I found.

Guess it's a really good book to read like that...

That's all for this week, hope to see you back next week!