Updates and other news

While I'm fully aware that a sound shaming is in order for not posting for two months and a week, I do have a good reason (more on that later...no, not pregnant). First, a few garden pictures!

Below is our and our neighbors' enormous cherry tomato plants. Theirs sprawls about five solid feet, and is the thing lying on the ground in the bottom left corner of this picture. Ours is tied up to a bean teepee, and I estimate it's about eight feet tall, and still adding height every day. Needless to say, there are more cherry tomatoes than anyone can eat.

So far, from our basil, I've made and frozen three massive batches of pesto, plus made and eaten lots more than that. Fresh basil is spectacular.
Below is a picture of my still-ripening white pumpkin. Of the six seeds, four sprouted. Of those four sprouts, I kept three. Of the three plants, only one plant produced one pumpkin. Guess I will be saving the seeds and trying again...
We have collected what might be termed an obscene amount of squash. This isn't even one week's worth. I have foisted it on neighbors, visitors, everyone. I also chopped a bunch up and froze it with plans of making red sauce, lasagna and zucchini bread in January.
I also let my artichokes bloom. This picture doesn't even come close to the color of the flower. It's like a neon purple, like no flower I've ever seen before. Absolutely stunning. And the bees are obsessed with it. At any given time, there are usually at least four honeybees jammed all the way in the middle of the bloom, bee-ing around.
Sunflowers along the pool fence are just starting to bloom, and they're awesome. The honeysuckles that got more water and sun also took off, and almost all my second-round transplanted black-eyed susans made it. In the next few years, they'll fill in more and be really big and beautiful. Also planted some random climbing seeds I had lying around, and a few weeks later, morning glories!
This is an Autumn Beauty sunflower. At about eight inches in diameter, they are just lovely as cut flowers.
This is also a variety of Autumn Beauty. I like the yellow in this a little better than the brown above, but I think the first one is more striking.
Anyway, on to this news I alluded to earlier. We are moving to Bend, OR for a few years. Todd got a pretty amazing job, and so we're relocating and renting our house to some friends from church. Ironically, they're moving out of a studio apartment, and we are moving into one. After reviewing pictures, I am still not really sure how we'll be able to fit a bed, couch and media console. It's only 650 square feet (but really nice, especially the kitchen).

I took videos of how things look inside and outside (which are now a few weeks outdated)...they're kind of long.



And outside...

I am really glad that we have friends who can take care of our house while we're gone, so the shrubbies don't die and the pool doesn't turn green. While I will really miss living here, there is a lot to look forward to at our new place, so I've been focusing on that.

Probably more to come before we leave (we move into our new place on September 11), and I suppose the blog will be on hiatus for a while until we come back.