It's tomato time--FINALLY!

Woo-hoo!


These tomatoes have been on the vine for two months, and they finally were ripe today. I ate 'em before I got in the house--YUM!

We had another toad-strangler storm this morning, but I don't think it was as bad here as was predicted. By 830 this morning it was so dark outside that it looked like the middle of the night, but darker. The power went out for a few seconds, but other than that, it was just a lot of rain (about an inch), no high winds or hail as was predicted. And now it's lovely and sunny, the humidity has dropped, and it's quite nice outside.

I also have eggplants on the vine:


See how bad the foliage looks? I had aphids on these plants just awful, and I finally just gave up trying to get rid of them. Then something else started eating all my plants, not just these, and I just didn't have the strength to fight any longer. So right now a lot of the garden looks rather--chewed, I guess you could say.

Tour de Fleece 2007 is in full swing--I finally finished plying the yarn that I was working on last May:


The skein on top was finished last year sometime, and the bottom one is the new one. They actually came out about the same, except there was more yarn in the first skein. Here's a closeup:


I'm so happy to have finished something, I can't tell you.

Here's the current project, an 80/20 blend of wool and silk called "Chinese Red:"


I have two ounces of this and two ounces of pure silk dyed the same color. I plan to ply them together--I've been assured this actually works. The blend has been very nice to spin, but I'm not getting much more than my designated 30 minutes every day, so I hope to get a little more time in over the weekend.

We have baby pooties in the neighborhood:



A black and white stray has had kittens, and these two like to hang around the maintenance shed next to my building. They come up to the balcony and jump across to the roof. They're adorable, but we need to get the Animal Shelter out here to at least spay them so we aren't overrun with pooties--although they might keep the raccoons away.

Unfortunately for me, they like to use my garden as a litter box, so I have a lot of bird mesh over everything to keep them out--makes for a lovely garden! I also tried putting some red pepper flakes around some of my plants. I found these plants called "Cat Scat"--they have a faint odor kinda like skunk, but they're not bad enough to be really offputting (they also have them for dogs and rabbits). Knock on wood, so far, so good, it seems to be working.

More change for me--my sweet little downstairs neighbor has been in the hospital for over a month; actually, she came home today. She's moving to Amarillo this weekend to live with her niece. She's 92 years old and has lived in this complex for 15 years. I've been worried about her for a while (it scares me to death to see her driving around the neighborhood), but her niece seems very nice and is happy to be able to take care of her. So one more good neighbor gone. Sigh . . . .

And tomorrow is Friday the 13th--I'm not sure I'm ready for that.

AAAAKKKKK--I've been tagged!

Apparently Susan thinks I'm a Rockin' Girl Blogger!


Do I even know 5 bloggers? Let's see--I tag:

Missy

Hope

Norma

Cassa

Jessie
Rock on, dudes!

What's that in the sky--COULD IT BE?

Oh, my--it's the SUN!!!


It looks like we are finally done with the continuous rain-at least for a few days. I'm not holding my breath, though--there's still rain in the forecast for next week. Unfortunately, the humidity hasn't gone away, so it's HOT--no more 70s and 80s this weekend, for sure.

Yes, I've been away for a while, and I apologize, but I didn't really think I had anything to say that anyone would want to hear. For those of you who were worried, thank you for your concern, I'm fine, and for those who sent birthday wishes, thank you also. They were very appreciated--I'm just glad it's over.

As for my little "bounce" down the stairs, I actually healed up pretty quickly. My arm didn't take long at all to clear up, although you can still see just a shadow of the bruise, but it's fine. I was quite surprised--I figured it would be around for quite a while.

Honestly, not much has been going on at Casa Katya. We've just been trying to survive a record-breaking siege of rain and cloudy days. We've not had it as bad as some areas, but it has definitely been hard, both on Mother Earth and us folkel-yokels.

My garden is starting to recover, but I've lost all my squash and sunflower plants--there was just not enough sun to counter all the moisture in the air. I need to go out and pull them up, but I'm going to replant--we have a long growing season here and damnit, I will have my plants if it kills me.

I did get a few sunflowers, and my tomatoes are doing pretty well--



Now, if they'd just ripen; hopefully all this sun will kick-start them into gear.

As you can see by my last post, I've joined this year's Tour de Fleece, which starts today. I'm hoping it will push me back into spinning and knitting--I haven't really done anything in months. However, that didn't stop me from ordering some sock yarn yesterday--I blame Stephanie, she's making some socks from some really pretty yarn, and I decided to order some--call it a late birthday present. That's the first fiberly stuff I've bought all year, not counting what I bought at Rendezvous--that doesn't count 'cause it's a once-a-year thing.

Those of you who remember all my ranting and raving about weird crap happening? Add two more--my "new" grocery store is being sold to another chain, and my bank was just bought by a group from Texas. I'm cursed, I tell you, cursed. It's enough to make me want to hide from the insanity (not that there's much that DOESN'T make me want to do that these days).

The saddest thing lately has been that my long-time neighbors downstairs moved out last week--just down the street, but I miss having them around, especially their little girl, she was very sweet. We have a lot of new neighbors lately in the building across the parking lot, and it's put me a bit on edge. Frankly, I'm not quite sure about some of them. When I first moved here three years ago, most of the residents were either retired, singles, or young couples, and most tended to be the kind to stay a while. These days we have lots of turnover, and the new renters are families with children--LOTS of children, in some cases (and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with children, don't even go there). They also tend to be rather--ahem--combative with each other, if you catch my drift. That plus the fact that the management company here has pretty much stopped taking care of the complex, and I'm not sure how much longer I can stay here. Honestly, I'm wondering how long it will be before we starting having major issues--we've had the police here several times in the last month (I'm not sure why, but it's still worrisome). Unfortunately, I don't have a clue where I could go. There's not much out there that looks very appealing right now.

I've been listening to the Live Earth concert this morning. I've been leaning toward the Australian feed, although I did see a replay of the DC concert that featured Garth Brooks and Tricia Yearwood. I'm waiting for the Crowded House reunion later in Sydney. Usually I'm not much for listening to music these days, but I'm enjoying this. Right now Metallica's on in London, and Spinal Tap is next--can't miss the Tap!

I hope everyone had a good Fourth and that you're having a great summer.

Oh, and Maggie says to tell you she's very glad the sun's back:


She's such a sun dog.