No more fuzzy dice!

A common sight now is a face mask dangling from one ear a person leaves a building, or over the rear view mirror but today was the best sighting.  Driving through the Walmart parking lot looking for a space was a woman with one face mask swaying from the rear view mirror and three more white and blue masks lined up across her dashboard.  We've trained our brains to a whole different routine when going out to do errands. Face mask.  Check.  Hand sanitizer.  Check.  Ziplock bag with homemade cloth disinfectant wipes.  Check.  Ready to do errands. 

Cliff's prize tomato plant rests in peace, cut into portable sections, and placed in the woods.  As the rest of the tomatoes ripened, they were set on the kitchen counter to be made into a nice Italian salsa di pomodoro.  

One large juicy tomato took its place 

on a BLT!  A delectable taste we haven't enjoyed in many years.  

We're always watching out for edema in Cliff's legs so bacon, pork, ham, cold cuts, salty foods, packaged foods are off our menu.  The forbidden BLT was so delicious that we enjoyed every morsel.

Back to salsa di pomodoro.........

Picking ripe tomatoes............

Five pounds chopped ripe tomatoes, one half cup chopped fresh garden basil, a chopped onion, pinch of salt, and some fresh ground pepper.

 I love this part...........pressing the juices and flavor through the mill as the aroma fills the kitchen.

Cliff grated lots of Parmesan cheese.  After I took the picture, I smothered my pasta with more cheese.  I love cooking and we both love eating.  Life is good!

About nine years ago Bill and Boni visited us here in Murphy and he and Cliff built Cliff's shed.  Back in 2004 when this land was being cleared for the house, the felled tree stumps and roots were buried on the property and not knowing this, the shed was constructed on the slowly rotting stumps and roots.  Over the years Cliff has had to jack up the right side of the shed more than a foot.  It's been a going joke that when I work around my whiskey barrel garden, one of these days I would slip and disappear under the shed, never to be seen again........until it was time for me to make a meal.  Then Cliff would come looking for me.  The other day we got two scoops of fill dirt dumped in the bed of the Toyota .  It was quite a chore shoveling it out to fill around the shed and even out the land around the barrels.

All I could do was pull dirt forward from the back with the hoe and he had to shovel the clay out.  It's quite a bit better than it was.

 So far he's used ten bags of drainage rock and we'll need more to keep the fill from washing away.  We have rain daily.  Sometimes just sprinkles.  Other times downpours.  Besides filling in my whiskey barrel garden area so I don't disappear, for weeks he's been pressure washing the house and garage, staining on the days that have some dry time.  The house and garage really look good!  The fire pit used to be where the barrels are now but we moved it down under the large mountain laurel near my yoga deck.  That's another project to be tackled.  I should be able to help without hurting wrists and hands.  I hardly get to use my yoga deck.  At 7:30 when I do yoga online with Hannah, it's either raining or too foggy and humid for my joints to be outside.  There have been a few days, if the deck is dry that I watch her taped practice in the afternoon. This tropical weather has been challenging for my wrists and hands.  The constant low-grade ache makes me tired some days and it causes a brain-fog.  I've tried sitting at the computer to blog but brain-fog takes over.  Today was successful!