Vine-ripened today....Salsa tomorrow!

We're moving quickly on this....





















Because tonight I discovered this...

Fish Tales

Over Memorial Day weekend, we had special visitors....long-time neighbors, Kevin and Sue...(think about 23 years long-time) and s-i-l Irene.  Fishing was the order of the day and evening.

A nice basket of 16" fat white bass....so fun to catch!

Told you they were big!

Daytime fishing was not all that great...until Kevin caught this:













  What you don't know is that one end was capped....NOT GOOD.  There was a total of 7 tired stressed catfish caught inside...Four thwumped (??) out pretty quickly.   Once the cap on the other end was removed, here came 3 more.   PLEASE do not report us to PETA!









SAD....they received a proper burial.






But now....Harvey has a great idea for a new fish habitat....just make sure both ends are open.

Blackberries, watermelons and bunnies

Check out these blackberry vines at our favorite berry patch....our first picking was very early...walked lots of rows to get a couple of little cartons of ripe berries.    Vines were LOADED!   Second picking, we learned...don't go on a Saturday afternoon....berry scavengers had already cleaned up.   Hopefully will pick this week, on a Wednesday this time (luckily the patch is closed Monday and Tuesday) and pick our fill of this seasonal fruit.  

Moving on to watermelons.... what's your secret to picking a ripe one?   After googling the subject, some pointers I found were....make sure the bottom (ground side) is yellow, dry twisted stem, hollow sound with thumping (or beating) and making a scratch with your fingernail on the rind.   If you can see white under the scratch, it's ripe (or so they say).   So I must have scratched half a huge box of melons in the grocery....secretly hoping no one was watching.   I tried to be very inconspicuous....and I only made one scratch per melon...So this is what I came home with.

Yellow bottom - check

No stem.....no check

See my scratch???   Told you I was inconspicuous!

 

 

 

 

And voila....ripe melon!   Of course, tasting the "heart" is the first step!

So, with watermelons on my mind, here's my first melon in our garden  (actually I think it might be a cantaloupe....the vines are all mixed up)...

Enter this....

Now...don't get me wrong....bunnies are cute....but only outside the garden!   The garden was enclosed but it didn't take Bunny long to squeeze through the fence squares for his escape.  Stay tuned....