Strange Package on the Front Door – is it a Bomb?

The weirdest thing happened to us today. Seriously, the weirdest thing!

During the day, a parcel delivery service stopped by but didn’t ring our bell, chatted with the renters downstairs and drove off. Nothing special about that at all, because we weren’t expecting any mail anyways – so why bother. Back to business.

When Daddy’s Mom got home later that afternoon, she yelled upstairs at Mommy: “There’s a package for you!”

Weird, we didn’t order anything. Thinking again, nope, really, no online shopping this week at all.
So we went downstairs to check that mysterious package out. White styrofoam box wrapped with red “Glass, don’t break it” tape. Odd, really odd…
And it’s heavy, feels like there is something solid inside. Is it ticking by any chance? No, silence!
Well, let’s take it upstairs, very carefully! Oh, there’s a letter attached to the side. Wonder what it says?

Mommy removed and opened it, and it said: “Congratulations, you won our recent competition!”
Urm?? What competition?

So Mommy went ahead and removed the tape from the box and the secret revealed itself!
Recently, Mommy sent in the solution via email to of one of GrandMa’s crossword puzzles…
Hoping to win some fancy kitchen equipment which we could sell on Ebay! (Yeah, we’re fully stocked already!)

And we won…

 

 

HONEY!
Three pounds of it! Really good stuff as well.

Told ya, hilarious! Mommy couldn’t help herself but keep smiling for the rest of the day.
That ongoing smile might be explained by the fact that she never won anything before in her life!

 

Dryness, Wetness, when will you decide?

Well, I just wanted to quickly update you on what’s going on these days.

You might remember me whining about the ongoing dryness earlier this season. Brace yourself, now I am going to whine about the ongoing wetness! It’s just pouring down, almost daily. And additionally, it is cold. Imagine a mixture between April and October. Yikes. No need to mention that the veggies aren’t really happy about that. Today Mommy started to remove all the dead tomato plants. They were magnificent, while still alive, at least. Plenty of green cocktail tomatoes – needless to say we did not get a single fruit! Everything is just brown and mushy. The cucumbers aren’t looking too well either. Fortunately Mommy was able to at least can about half a dozen glasses so far. The majority of the beetroots are canned already as well and this week Mommy made the first batch of elder jelly already. Nature just isn’t predictable – last year, we didn’t get any apples but we might be slightly more lucky this year. So far, Mommy managed to make five big glasses of apple purée and as soon as possible she’ll make some more. Her food just is the best. As far as filling the freezer, we got a couple bags of peas and beans. Yesterday Mommy also harvested all the fennel and froze it to use it for soups during the wintertime. Simply delicious! There are some nice pumpkins on the vines, let’s hope for some nice pictures this weekend.

Well, so far that’s all there is really. I’ll keep you posted!

… the Rest of the Gang!

In no particular order now the rest of the garden pictures I meant to post ages ago already!

Bushbeans:

Cabbages:


Salads, harvested three weeks ago already:

Melons:

Baby Tomato:

Regular and Lemon Basil:

Spearmint:

Chard:

Juice-Feast right out of the garden: