After the Toil, Comes the Harvest

This tomato plant is growing in my Earth Box on the patio.  We have been eating cherry tomatoes for a few weeks, and the plant promises to keep on giving until heavy frost.  The plant is over 6 feet tall; it grew up the spiral, and then kept on going.  We are always thankful for gardening success - there are plenty of the opposite results, but this keeps us going.

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

For the past couple of weeks, we've awakened to an eerie, brass-colored sky, and then gone through the day without seeing much of a mountain at all, except for an occasional faint outline.  We've been told that forest fires in Idaho, Utah, and Nevada (are there many forests in Nevada?) have created a big smoke screen for Cache Valley.  Then yesterday morning, a poor farmer in Benson (just a little north and west of Logan) had 1,500 tons of hay burn.  The pollution outside is tremendous, and the smoke has intensified.  The sun doesn't shine much through the haze, and the smell is not a happy one.  (When  part of my teacher education for secondary school included the smell of marijuana burning, I thought it smelled a little like burning hay.)  I'm glad my friend, Kitty, is in North Carolina on the Outer Banks on vacation, because she has asthma, and this is very hard on those who do.  I suppose that when these less than perfect conditions come, they do serve to remind us of how blessed we are when we usually have bright sunny days, with an outdoors that is very enjoyable.  No lunch on the patio today, thank you.

To Bee or not to Bee

Honey bees love morning glories.  Last year I planted some morning glories in a couple of strategic places (a pot or two, by the rain spout, etc.) and this year, I find myself pulling all sorts of little volunteers in the cracks in the concrete.  However, some did come back up in the proper places.  Enlarge the pictures above.  I waited patiently for a shot of the bee, and in the top, you see what they mostly do - scoot into the middle of the flower, scattering pollen all over the place.  In the bottom picture, you can see the actual bee - he sat there for just a nano-second.  Bees work hard and all the time for their food.  They're programmed to do that, unlike the human race.  I have a tendency to pick and choose what I will accomplish for the day, and there are often carryovers into the next day.  Progress being defined in my world as taking steps forward, still allows me to pause to enjoy certain aspects of life, and yet remain facing in the right direction to my goal.  It just takes a little longer.  (No backsliding, please.)