Life Lately - a photo dump

A couple of weeks ago we walked over to our first neighborhood event in Germantown. Charlie came out with a balloon, so I think he's a fan. 

If you don't watch this one carefully he will get up to some trouble. 

He learned to say okra. 

Charlie is obsessed with pointing out moons in all his books. So when he saw the real moon when coming back from church one night it blew his little mind. 

I cut his hair! Insert shocked and scared emoji here. 

Charlie is in a major Daddy phase right now. It's sweet to watch. 

Garden Update

Last weekend my grandfather went to the plot and mowed down the weeds and tilled up some rows for fall plantings. It looked like this a week from today: 

And then it rained. All week. Even when I was there last Monday to pick a few things it was sprinkling. Today was the first day the roads were dry enough to even attempt getting to the garden. Some roads to the plots were not passable. Our plot is fortunately in an area where the roads are alright. 

After a week of rain.

I think it's safe to say these tomatoes are done. 

Paprika peppers

The okra grew. A bunch. 

Animal tracks

Hornworms and caterpillars have pretty much decimated my tomatoes. 

I found two of these buggers. 

My harvest. 3 tomatoes, 2 paprika peppers, and a ton of okra, half of which is edible.

Garden update

Another Monday, another morning at the garden. I've gotten into a bit of a routine now with the garden since we haven't had much rain in the last several weeks. I normally go Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings. 

I try to do a bit of weed management, harvesting and watering each trip. 

I have five surviving tomato plants. They are in various degrees of sadness. This one was particularly sad. A couple weeks ago I trimmed back the dead leaves. 

But I spent some more time with it this morning and this is it after. I'll keep an eye on it to see how it helps. I did pull off one horn worm this morning. 

This is my row of okra. In my last post I mentioned I had done some serious weeding in this row but I hadn't taken a picture yet. Don't get me wrong, there are still plenty of weeds, but the okra is the most dominant and that's about all I can manage. 

Hello, Okra! 

My only surviving peppers are two Hungarian Paprika plants. A few are starting to turn which means I need to start researching how to dry them. 

Today's harvest included the most okra at one time so far. This is enough for Bryan and I to eat at one meal. The last several weeks I'd combine Monday and Wednesday's harvest for one serving. Anyone know good okra recipes?