Did the second of the three torture tests, the bone scan. Another ho hum. You go in and get a shot then cool your heels four hours, while the injected radioactive chemicals invade your body. We went over to the library during the hold to download software upgrades. I’ve learned that some of the upgrades can be humongous and my slow, byte limited internet connection is not the way to go. The test itself is just a passive, lay still for 20 minute kind of scan. It’s possible I even dozed off. I’ll find out the results of all this next Wednesday. Also when in the library letting the computer load, I picked up a nice tid bit of info browsing through a gardening book – planting okra next to pepper plants to provide a windbreak. I’ve certainly noticed that pepper plants are fairly brittle and tend to suffer in a strong wind but never thought about a natural windbreak. I’ll have to try that next season – if I can remember.
Grilled okra last night on the Holland grill. No doubt the plumper Star of David variety is superior for grilling. It’s not a good idea to be grilling both varieties together because the dimensional difference means that when the Star’s are grilled to perfection, the thinner Annie Oakly’s are over cooked. I purposely let them grow a bit large to see if they got too woody/fibrous. On the oaklys, the largest were tending in that direction but the Stars were nice and tender.
Although this season in the garden continues to please and surprise, it’s not without failures – just not as many as I expected. The summer squash just crashed without producing much at all. The main stem must have been invaded by some boring critter and it just rotted. It did handle the heat just fine so perhaps if I had launched a spraying program early on, it would have worked. The two cherry tomato plants seem to be crashing as well without producing even one tomato. There has been loads of blossoms for a couple of months, but not the first tomato. My prognosis on this is that the summer heat has put down the bees so no pollination. That was also my answer to why no ghost peppers showed up after the blossoms but that theory is blasted away with the appearance of the peppers. I still have my fingers crossed on the cucumbers. There are plenty of baby cuc’s on the vines and the vines themselves look fine. They haven’t made it to the table yet but lookin’ good.
Why I can’t vote for Michelle Bachmann – her background is in the House of Representatives. We’ve learned about that haven’t we? There is some reason for me to think harder about Michelle. Her husband’s cousin is a good friend of ours so it’s kind of like a family connection. We see John Bachmann a few times a month and he joins us on most of the major holidays. I could probably finesse it by voting for her in the primary, secure in the knowledge that she’ll most likely lose in that election.
Joe's Blog 