This week I came home to a nasty looking brown patch on one of the small corn ears and the stalk crawling with ants. I harvested the one almost good ear and ripped out the plant.
Who knows what the problem was. My guess is that the corn ran out of room, the ears seemed to get to a growing point and then they just stopped. Those that know predicted a buggy summer and I think the corn ran out of growing room and stopped growing, which made it vulnerable. I will try again sometime when I have more planting room. I saved the good ear, but have not cooked it yet to find out if it tastes good, despite missing half of its kernels.
The cucumbers are much smaller than last year and taking longer to grow. Maybe it will do better now that it does not have to compete with the corn. The tomatoes are excellent. I bought some good bacon and had BLTs for lunch this week. They were messy, but really good.
The sliced tomato had a suspicious hole in the top, but you can see it did not do any harm to the insides.
The landlord is coming for a walk-through Monday, so I did not go to McCall yesterday like I wanted to do. I stayed home to fix up the yard and clean the house and I am glad I did. By 9 am yesterday morning the air was full of smoke again. I don't know if it is the same in McCall, but I would have hated to drive all the way there and look at the view over the lake full of haze.
The two fires north of Boise have now burned almost 220,000 acres, Trinity Ridge fire, 119,706 and the Halstead fire, 100,187.
For my two year anniversary in Boise last Tuesday, I was feeling really grateful to be here, despite the smoke. I went to Goodies and ate homemade chocolate almond ice cream on their sunny patio and watched this girl make homemade caramel corn. The job is a big difference, even though getting it seems to have taken great persistence. I can see myself still interested in and challenged by this job 10 years from now. My physical health is the other big difference.
Last summer I started doing the 5 Tibetan Rites every day and I drank a case of Joint Juice. I am attributing both of those with keeping arthritis at bay last winter. My first winter here I had such an aching hip that I could not cross my legs, but last winter I had no problems. I stopped doing the Rites every day because I was getting a bit too buff. Last spring I stopped drinking milk with hormones and started drinking local milk and eating eggs from grain fed, cage free chickens, which I can get at the grocery store here. This took a while to get used to, probably hormone withdrawal, but now I feel healthier than I have in a long time. I'm sure all of those fresh fruits and vegetables all summer helps, too.
In my training class a few weeks ago someone was talking about something that would make them happy. I was eating vanilla Greek yogurt with fresh blueberries. I said blueberries make me happy.
After a week of feeling grateful to be here, I am afraid this weekend I am thinking about the things I wanted to be different that still are not. Spit got stung by a wasp and Cruiser is whining and getting on my nerves. Oh, well.
On that note, I will leave off with another great Buddhist story,
Once upon the time there was an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. “Such bad luck,” they said sympathetically.
“Maybe,” the farmer replied.
The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “How wonderful,” the neighbors exclaimed.
“Maybe,” replied the old man.
The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune.
“Maybe,” answered the farmer.
The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out.
“Maybe,” said the farmer.
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