Homecoming


Tomato forest
Joyce at work in her tomato forest.

Our neighbors finally concluded their sojourn among the heathen and returned to good ol’ Amarillo.  They spent the last two days of their trip in Paris, a bit of a surprise for Abigail and Rebecca since they hadn’t been told beforehand that they would be going to Paris.  Hans and Elisabeth accompanied them from Aeschii to Basil and A&R just assumed they were headed home.  Instead they bid H&E goodbye and got on a train to Paris.  Even then, A&R didn’t know they weren’t headed home by a different route.  When finally told, Abigail was delighted but li’l r was disappointed.  She was looking forward to seeing Tino the dog, Gramma and Grampa, probably in that order.  Her parents placated her by telling her they would find some fun stuff to do.  They saw some of the sights — the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, and so on — but not without drama in trying to find a decent, or at least, not disgusting venue for Rebecca to potty while they roamed the city.  I’m told the Parisians do not share the tidiness of their Teutonic neighbors, Germany and Switzerland.

We’re enjoying lots of peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers and some okra.  Joyce has been handing out sackfuls of tomatoes to her chums and drawing much acclaim.  Saturday morning we were at the farmers market in the old Sunset Center parking lot before 8 o’clock to beat the crowds but it turned out everyone else had the same idea so the crowd beat us.  We rely on the farmers market for corn, cantaloup and watermelons.  There was no watermelon, though, because there had been rain and it was too muddy to get into the fields.  Maybe next Saturday.

My attention has turned to trimming now that there isn’t much mowing and I’ve gotten the weeds under control.  There is plenty of trimming to take up the slack, the effects of the drought.  I guess I’ll hire the trimming done on the elms.  They are too tall to tackle and expect to come out in one piece.   Fortunately it is easy to find someone to do the trimming for a price.  There are many jobs around SA it would be difficult to hire out and have them done to my satisfaction so I’m better of doing them myself.  But trimming or removing large trees is easy.  One just has to open one’s checkbook,  grin and bear it.