Early Monday morning we had our first freeze of the season in Yakima. Linda and I anticipated this, so we took down the garden last weekend. In years past, whenever we took down the garden, it always took us all morning long and sometimes more than one morning. This year, we were done in about an hour. I picked all the green tomatoes, which was most of what had formed on the plants all summer long. I only had TWO small jalapeno peppers this year, so I picked them. We had two very small zucchini, about 4 inches long, and we picked those. That was it. I am hoping that the tomatoes ripen in the house so we can at least enjoy them for a couple of months.
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| One of my Early Girl tomatoes |
Since the cold weather is already here, at least for a few days, I have been scouring the bushes in the yard, looking for Praying Mantis egg casings. I found one the other day, so I am going to keep an eye on it next spring in hopes of seeing the babies hatch out. Here is a picture of the one I found.
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| Praying Mantis egg casing |
Soon after I found the egg casing, I happened to find another pregnant Mantis on the front porch! She was just hanging out on the porch, so I ran for my camera and shot some good video of her. I bet she was wondering what this huge monster was doing! Each time I saw her she had moved, meandering around the front door and door frame. We had to be careful whenever we opened the door because she was sometimes right there! Here's a picture of her in all her pregnant glory.
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| She was watching me intently |
I like to look at bugs, but I cannot stand if one of them gets on me. It just triggers my "get it off me!!" reaction (you know, that dance you do), and I wind up either hurting the bug or myself. It kind of creeped me out when she fell over and her legs were going every which way...too buggy looking for me. I looked for her every morning, but in a couple of days she was gone. I hope she found a good place to lay her eggs. I keep looking for the egg casing but haven't found it yet.
ODD AND ENDS
The other day I was looking at my pictures and I realized that I had some from our Leavenworth trip that I hadn't shared with you. The first day of our trip we went straight to Cashmere, since we couldn't check into our motel in Leavenworth until mid-afternoon. Cashmere has a huge antiques mall called Apple Annie Antiques Mall (<--link). We poked around in that for a while (until our feet started hurting), and then we decided to eat lunch at the 59'er Diner, a cute little cafe attached to the mall. You can probably guess, the decor was straight from the 1950's, as you can see below. All around the cafe were items on display from the 50's. There was a piece of sheet music for Buddy Holly's hit song, "Peggy Sue." Whenever I hear this, I immediately think of my friend Sheila back in North Carolina. She always used to call me Peggy Sue (that's not really my name, though).
Linda spotted this record case below and had me take a picture of it. She said that she used to have one exactly like it when she was a kid.
The color scheme in the cafe was mostly pink and turquoise. The floor was black and white checkered tile. It was definitely a throw-back to the good ole days. Even though I didn't have a tricycle exactly like this one when I was young, I took a picture of it because it just looked so cool. It even has fender skirts!!
We've had some rain off and on lately, but we have had some sunshine too, in spite of the cold. The forecast is for a warming trend later this week, which will be very much welcome. This is par for the course here in Yakima, although the cold weather did come a couple of weeks earlier than usual. Some of the mountain passes have already had several inches of snow. I am hoping that it holds off a while before visiting itself upon Yakima. Only time will tell.
I was outside the other day looking for something to photograph when my eye gravitated over to our fence. This is our "neighbor" fence, the one we stand at and talk to our neighbors on the other side. It is only about 4 feet high, so we can see over it. Linda and I have decorated it with some rocks that she got from her Aunt Margie. There are all kinds of rocks on display: obsidian, opal, quartz, sandstone, and several that I couldn't name.
There is this one rock, though, that isn't in the picture above, because I put it on my bookcase, where I keep all my treasured items on display. It is really beautiful, hence the place of honor. And every
time I look at it, I will be reminded of Aunt Margie. Here's a closeup of it.
It's only fitting that I show you a picture of my bookcase. I know it looks a little crowded, but this is the place where I store a lot of my memories. Things such as (in no particular order): my kooshball I got when I went to the Rosie O'Donnell show; my father's Old Spice shaving mug; my mother's coffee cup; the beanie-bag frog my sister gave me for my birthday when I was a teenager; my Star Trek collectible stuff; my grandmother's Fiesta coffee pitcher; the Zodiac ashtray my mother made in her ceramics class and gave to me when I went off to college; Mr. Cardinal and various other cardinal things; pictures of Linda and me from when we took our first trip to Florida; a picture of Emily, one of my mother, and one of my dachshund Siegfried; the plaque from Linda's mom and dad's house; Precious Baby's ashes and footprint; a few books (ha! It is a bookcase, after all). Those are only a few of the items, so many other little things call this bookcase "home." Each item evolves a specific memory from my life. I could probably fill up a few more bookcases, but for the time being, this one will suffice, and I will add to it as life happens.
PARTING SHOT
Summer Girl has been spending a lot of time lately on the big bed, and occasionally in her little house. When the sun is out, like it is today, she still likes to be outside. Since we took down the garden she doesn't have any shade handy out there in case she gets hot, so she has to be content with napping in the flower garden.
That's all for this week, tune in again next week for more from the Southerner in the Northwest!
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