June 13, 2010

The exciting news for this week was the harvesting of a bumper crop of strawberries - probably the biggest single crop we have ever managed (although our annual bean harvest does come close).  Of course, the challenge every home gardener faces is what to do when a crop is ready to harvest since it all comes at once - and usually in quantities beyond what can be consumed by a normal family.  Fortunately with strawberries it is possible to freeze them and turn them into jam.  This allowed us to whittle down the pile although there is still probably that many strawberries left to harvest in the garden.  On top of enjoying fresh strawberries, the lettuce has arrived so we have been munching on salads for the last week with the only challenge being having to remove the stray piece of grass (or miscellaneous other weeds - although now a days it seems most weeds have become part of salads).  But that is a small price to pay to not have to worry about E Coli contamination of our salad greens.  We topped our dinners off with a strawberry/rhubarb cobbler from our four rhubarb plants so, we would have to say, the garden is paying off this year.  Of course, lots of the summer left to challenge our patience and plants.

This weekend we enjoyed an evening out with Sheri and Bruno taking in a play at the Granite Theater and a pizza dinner all in Westerly.  The play was "The Tyranny of Love" which had some great acting and some less than great acting but came out as an enjoyable show with a nice plot twist at the end.  The rest of the weekend has consisted of multiple home patch-and-paint chores.  Although Mother Nature is doing her best to make these as challenging as possible since it started pouring down rain right after lunch on Saturday.  We did manage to harvest the garden - hence the pile of strawberries -, paint the door into the garage (although the damage from the rain to the paint job has yet to be determined), re-stain the porch floor, and make strawberry jam.  Coupling that with a 10 mile run in the morning and our usual gym workout meant we were tired puppies before heading out to dinner.

Nothing too remarkable to report on the work front.  Jo's team implemented their big change-over of a key HR system without too many bumps over last weekend and she was in New York for the week between various meetings she had.  I held down the local fort while completing a couple of meeting reviewing my division's external investments - sounds exciting doesn't it! 

Off to another exciting week....