Garden

We are finally getting some much needed rain, which means I'm spending less time watering, whew. . . We have restrictions on watering the grass, but I never bother with that. It costs a lot more to replace a tree or shrub than a little grass.



This flower bed is a bit crowded. When I planted the seedlings out, it looked very sparse, but of course the plants ended up being much bigger than I anticipated. I blame this on the fact that dd selected the seeds from *mixed annuals* pack, so I had no idea what some of them were (still don't on a couple of them). At least I knew the hollyhocks were tall and needed to go in the back row.

My first two cherry tomatoes. The big tomatoes should be ripe in another week or so. Mine were just so late getting growing this year.

I'm tempted to jump the gun and fry some green ones, but am forcing myself to wait. I have white bread and Duke's mayo waiting for the first ripe ones.

This sunflower was planted by a squirrel or a chipmunk with some seed from the bird feeder. The yard as a whole looks pretty crappy with all the construction stuff lying around, but I made them throw away the trash that they were leaving around the base of my cherry tree.

We had to replace the entire swimming pool filter system yesterday. We changed over to the salt water type, which should save us a lot of money in the long run and uses a lot less chemicals. It still looks really nasty from all the problems we've been having, but it should clear up soon.

In the winter I always fantasize about sitting in my beautiful garden by a sparkling pool, drinking a nice beverage, but the reality is very different. The reality is scooping dead bugs and lizards out of a algae infested muck, while slapping mosquitoes from my ankles and guzzling a hot, flat beer. Ewww. Sounds like I'm getting tired of summer. . .