The Week's Update

Well it has been a pretty typical week, not much out of the ordinary happening. So I thought I'd just narrate a few pictures I took over the week. We made a new dish - a gratin of eggplant, zucchini, and chickpeas. It was very nice and easy to make. Lots of yard work to do as usual after work each day. When I was pruning back some shrubs, I noticed a large praying mantis on the very branch I was about to clip back. I guess the babies from earlier this year are growing up!

Andrew ordered a new part for our fridge and installed it. The ice maker still wasn't working properly. So now it is making ice, albeit rather slowly and we hope that it will be fixed permanently now. It is funny how easily we got used to having the ice made automatically for us, and now consider going back to manually filling up ice trays as so primitive and old fashioned. The pink pentas are blooming well, even with all this heat and humidity. Next year I definitely must plant more tropical annuals. They are no care plants and don't wilt in the summer heat. Otherwise, except for the crepe mrytles, the yard is mostly green and brown. I need to make a trip to the South Carolina state botantical garden (which is located right beside campus) and see what they have blooming this time of year for some inspiration and ideas.

The weather is the normal summer pattern: afternoon pop up thunderstorms. You never know if you are going to get one and literally it can be raining in your yard and 5 yards over it is dry. They come in fast and leave fast. All of a sudden the sky gets dark, it rains buckets, and then it is gone. I tried to get a photo of one - you can see that the clouds are very dark, yet the sun is still shining on the house. It makes for very interesting lighting conditions. We didn't see a drop out of Ernesto which is a drag. We are over 5 feet under full pool on the lake and it is very noticeable. We went power boating last Sunday, driving around to see the lake and give the boat a bottom scrubbing. Lots of docks are on dry land, and we saw the odd pontoon boat on dry land as well, I guess the owners didn't get them out before the lake dried up on them. The beaver dam is still holding the water around our dock, and the fish, frogs, and birds must be very happy about that. But I really miss canoeing. It is the perfect after-work/before-dinner activity: getting out there for an hour of quietly observing nature and getting in an upper body workout to build up the appetite for dinner as well. Hopefully next year will be better.