Home, at last

We made it home yesterday afternoon. We opted out
of going to Wichita to visit Connie since we'll be
going there in two weeks anyway. The dire warnings
of floods in Arkansas had dissuaded us from going
through Arkansas and Oklahoma so we were going the
same old route from NC to Boulder and would have
gone south at KC on the turnpike to Connie's. Once
our nose was pointed home, we decided to just keep
going.

Unloading the car was our first priority after we got
here and we accomplished that. And I got the mail
sorted out. A month of mail requires a lot of sorting.
Most of the catalogs I have just put in the recycle.

Everything looks fine, except for the fish pond.
A bear seems to fancy our fish pond, but the fish
are on to him so they disappear much too fast for
them to get caught by the clumsy bear. However,
the bear did sink our decorative grass pot and
plant and knocked the papyrus off the table so
that it was laying on its side in the pond. Russell
discovered it and he and Vernon managed to right
the pot although it was still sort of smashed
against the side of the pond.

Robert managed to grab the grass pot
with the rake and pull it up where I could grab
it and haul it on to the ground. We then
replaced it back on the table in the pond. The
papyrus had many, many new plants coming from
the ends that had been lying in the pool so I
have planted them in another pot. These I shall
take in for the winter. The big plant is now
sitting on the bottom of the pool and still has
almost three feet of plant above the water. I shall
leave it out over the winter. I expect the winter
will be too much for it, but perhaps the roots
system will survive. The temperature at the bottom
never gets to freezing. We'll see. It is much
too big to take into the house. I have no
where to put such a huge plant! In any case
I'll have a dozen or more new plants for next year.

The small vegetable garden I had doesn't look
great. I have two cucumbers, but they are
very small and spherical?!? I have one hot
pepper and lots of blossoms. The tomatoes look
OK, but are pretty much done for the season, I
think. I probably won't try veggies next year.
They are a bother and with our water problems
just not worth it. I'll plant flowers and if
we don't have water for them, so be it. I
won't feel I've lost much.

I had planned on unpacking today, but discovered
the crab apples are ripe and are ripe enough so
I decided I better pick them today. Our old tree
by the front gate had none, but the tree growing
by the creek is overloaded with apples. The
problem, of course, is getting to them. I managed
to get almost a full bucket and when Robert discovered
what I was doing he joined in. I shall make jelly
first thing tomorrow morning. I have enough apples
for at least two batches and maybe a third.

I have managed to get everything out of the car and
shall have everything upstairs by the end of the day.