And if you thought the zucchini was large…

Petey and the giant bottle gourd

then you gotta see the bottle gourd I found today! Wow. It will take a mountain of stuffing and an army of hungry people to finish this one off. It might have to dry out and become a bird house.

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The mother of all zucchini

Zucchini Size Comparison

This is my first year growing zucchini. It is true that you only need one plant. I have been getting some nice little ones for my mother. And then last weekend I gazed under a leaf, saw some amazing stripes and lifted out the biggest zucchini I have ever seen. It is a stuffer. After hunting for some stuffing recipes for giant zucchini I have settled on a mix of the scooped out zucchini, herbed bread crumbs, fresh corn, bell pepper, onion and some ground beef with a nice dose of chili powder and then baking the beast. I’ll let you know how it comes out. Mom will get some, Alan will get some and anyone else in the neighborhood ths..sat wants some will have some — with some left to freeze for eating after zucchini season.

Karen tells me that a zucchini causes people to do midnight maurading to drop off zucchini in the dead of night at the homes of unsuspecting non-zucchini growers. With the south Texas heat I thought I wouldn’t have to resort to those efforts… but, who knows?

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All’s well

2-3/4 inches of rain, a very clingy 50lb. dog and all’s well. No downed branches, no power outage. And hopefully smooth sailing in to work. There are road closures here and there. Nothing shocking or unsurmountable.

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Another snippet about Best Friends

OK — now I want to adopt Harrison Fjord. What a cutie!!

http://network.bestfriends.org/Blogs/PostDetail.aspx?bp=8057

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Waiting for the hurricane

It is different here than elsewhere. We pray for hurricanes because rain is in such short order. And no measurable rain yet even though south Texas was a direct hit from cat 2 Dolly — maybe tonight or tomorrow…

I have the back door fully open and enjoy the cool (70 degrees, but 100% humidity). The sound of the rain has always been soothing to my soul.

My dear Petey hates the rain. So he won’t go out to (excuse the brutal language) pee or poop. The rascal. But somehow he manages. He never ceases to amaze me.

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And they’re back!

No, no pictures. I didn’t have the heart to take a picture of mom. She was limping badly, exhausted and only one of her bags came in with her flight. And I didn’t want to give away Catherine’s new “do” before her parents saw it, and she arrived without both of her bags. A cute picture would have been the three of us sitting side-by-side, all reading books, with mom’s feet propped up on her one suitcase. But, thankfully the bags came in on the next flight.

And because we waiting for the bags, Delta in gratitude gave both Catherine and Mom credits for $25 on a flight and a free beer. Since American airflights have become so atrocious, Delta might be a good alternative. Who knows?

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