the best thing I ever ate

Cherokee purple tomatoes with Elsie's dressing! An heirloom variety, these babies are worth the winter waiting for a real tomato. Elsie's dressing which is an oil/vinegar dressing with 20% ketchup added and lots of garlic, perfectly covers these ummy maters (although they stand well enough alone). eat your heart out!

sky bringing rain

In the hollow, I've become a cloud watcher, as I was on our sailboat as a kid. Friday the sky drama competed with Katrina's boxing a black snake - who was aiming for the pond. Lovely lazy summer evening. Rain!

my fig tree

I counted 13 figs ... this is very exciting, last year there was but one.

Independence Day

I'd love to have a picture, but then everything was moving so quickly and i didn't have a free hand: at 8 PM I found a black snake in the process of swallowing an egg. Impulsively I grabbed him behind his head and he disgorged the egg. I whipped him out of the chicken house, managed to latch the door as he first coiled about my wrist and then my waist! I ran to the house and tediously opened a plastic bag with one hand and pushed writhing snake inside - not easy! I secured the bag and ran to car, drove snake to corner of Piney woods and Big Branch and dumped him out. Could have been a her, but then I couldn't tell. I'm sure he ate eggs the day before. I've had a sense that there has been a visitor in the coop, but had failed to discover the invader.

fritters

i call them fritters, tho it might be a stretch to some; delicious concoction of shredded squash, onion, celery, pepper and in this case beet greens - with dash of green Thai curry and hot pepper flakes and salt - egg and corn meal/flour. squeeze of lime when browned in skillet. um.