The garden is coming to an end

Over the next few days I have to rip the remaining tomato plants out of the garden. Any tomatoes left on the plants have blight.

This is what we have left from the garden - we have eaten some tomatoes, an eggplant, and a hot pepper.

There is still an orange pepper on the plant.

And some green peppers.

And a Peanut pic to make you smile
(you can kind of see my new furniture)

Long time no chat/write (?)

Sorry life got in the way again.

So here are some updates:

Garden:

• My tomatoes plants were doing wonderfully but then got blight, and even after ripping the one offending plant out, it spread. All of my plants now have it. I picked a bunch of green tomatoes from the first plant and have them ripening on the patio table but most of the cherry tomatoes are lost :(

• I got/will have once ripened, about 2 dozen tomatoes.

• They say if you get tomato blight, you can't plant tomatoes there next year. We will have to try some patio tomato plants in large pots instead. And we have to try to solarize (sterilize) the soil with a large clear plastic sheet in May to use it for other veggies.

• DH did pick a few eggplants which are doing wonderfully. He grilled them for dinner last night. The ones remaining on the plant aren't very big but still may be edible - we are expecting frost soon.

Peanut:

• Peanut is doing much better. She ended up getting an ear infection of some sort the weekend after her allergic reaction so is now on ear drops.

Work:

• I found out today, just 2 days before my work contract ends, that they will be extending me for 3 more months. I was looking forward to the time off but money is always a good thing. I will just be taking Thursday & Friday this week off and start the new project on Monday. It will take me through until the end of December. I don't want to have to travel in the cold winter months of January and February anyway.

Home:

• We got new living room furniture. The stuff we had was over 13 years old and looking really bad. I will take pics and post later (I am at work right now - working hard see :)) The new stuff is very poofy and soft.

Ya huh!

Friday Fun Site

How NOT to diet!

What is scary is that some actually look good :D

My Peanut is sick

Update below

Friday evening at about 7pm, J & I started cutting out the tomatoes plants that have blight - if you don't take them out, it will spread to everything. I had Peanut out there with us. She started to lick the cuttings so I put her on the long leash on the opposite side of the yard.

At about 10:30PM J noticed that around her eyes had swollen up. He had been playing with her just 20 mins before and she had been fine then. We decided to take her to the emergency vet.

We told them about the tomato plants, I knew tomato plants are toxic, but the vet seemed to think it was more likely a bee sting, of which we have a ton in the garden.

They gave her a shot of cortisone and a shot of benadryl. Aside from the swollen eyes and the welts popping up everywhere, she still seemed in good spirits. The told us to continue the benadryl at home. They convinced me to buy a victorian collar for her so she wouldn't scratch her eyes. We got home at about 1am. It took about 5 mins and all 3 of us holding her to get the collar on her and then she went absolutely nuts so I ending up taking it off after 5 mins. Waste of $25.

By morning her eyes were back to normal but she still had welts. I gave her a dose of liquid benadryl at 10am. She ate and drank normally and still seemed fine other than the welts.

At about 4pm Saturday she vomited, then again 3 more times in the next hour. Her gums and tongue turned white and she lay down on the grass outside and didn't move. We took her back to the vet at 6pm. There said she had gone into shock and was probably having a secondary reaction to the whatever she had. They put her on IV and kept her for the night.

We picked her up at 10am Sunday. She was tired but looked so much better. She refused to look at me, she was mad I had left her I guess :)

As both visits were to the emergency vet where each visit has the base price of $132, plus all the extras, Peanut's allergy has nearly cost me a mortgage payment.

I am working from home today to monitor her. She hates the benadryl liquid so I only end up getting half a dose into her which still makes her drowsy. She still has lots of welts. K will bring home the pill form of benadryl after work - I think I can get those into her better.

She is very clingy since she came home, so is at least listening better when I call her :)

Update: I stayed home again today (Tuesday) to give Peanut Benadryl during the day. Most of her hives are gone and she is back to her happy self.

Aerosmith update

I just realized I never updated everyone about the Aerosmith concert we were supposed to go to Sept 3rd.

Ya well it was cancelled.

The lead singer Steven Tyler fell off the stage at one of the concerts and hurt his shoulder and head enough that they cancelled the rest of the tour.

Luckily, we are able to get a complete refund and not just the price of the tickets, as we paid a LOT more than the face value.

Oh well maybe they will reschedule another time and we can see them then. There just aren't enough groups J likes that we also like.

Mini update

We finally got around to planting our maple tree this Sunday. The large circle of dirt is where the previous owners had a pool - we just filled it with topsoil a couple months ago and have yet to seed it.

Down-to-Earth, a blog I frequent has set up a forum (you will have to sign-up for an account but it is free).

The blog & forum revolve around simplified living/homesteading. I am having a great time reading everything there. I want a small homestead SO bad now :) Check it out.

A random pic of Peanut - DH says she is spoiled...what do you think? :)

Another garden update

The garden about a week ago.

A picture with J

Our first pepper

TomatoesHot peppers

More tomatoes

This one is called a patio tomato plant
- this plant has 44 tomatoes on it currently

Little eggplants

And finally, cherry tomatoes