About those guavas...

Some critter ate 'em!

One day they were there, the next day they were gone.  

I'll worry about that next year because for now, I'm rolling in pineapples

(sounds painful but tastes great)

and the papayas are on line:

Schedule your New Year's Day smoothie now!

My cucuzzi vines are running wild

and I kept walking past, eyes peeled for a harvest of the young gourds.

They are delicious cooked in the Sicilian way with lots of olive oil, garlic, and tomatoes, 

but the vines didn't seem to be producing and I was getting frustrated.

Until I parted the leaves...

The ground is COVERED with cucuzzi that are now far too old to eat!

Lesson learned: you gotta wade in and look for them.

At least I will have a big seed crop to share.  

Two words:

Piss.

Vinegar.

This young hen is full of both.  I should video her trying to wrench my fingertips off when I pick her up, but then a friend once told me my nails probably look like the carapace of a beetle.  Yum!

The stacks of granite remnants in my back yard

continue to diminish.

Took the gigantic round wood top off this coffee table that I bought for $5 about 18 years ago, 

and replaced it with a streamlined square of granite.

A breath of fresh air!

And why, oh why did it take me so long to buy a rice cooker?!

Talk about streamlined: crazy easy and only $15.

It just keeps getting better!

I recently traveled to Minnesota,

and while in Minneapolis, I visited a small Russian art museum.

I was transfixed by this painting:

I wonder what would happen if I won the lottery and took this picture to a renowned interior decorator and said, "This is what I want for my house."

I'm trying to picture it now. :-)