Sunday on the road.

At Alex’s house, Leo, Indiana. Garden, garden-and-lake and Alex, with fruits of garden.

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Posted at 8:43 am in Friends and family |
 

40 responses to “Sunday on the road.”

  1. coozledad said on August 12, 2012 at 10:17 am

    Beautiful place, Alex.
    Our larger tomatoes haven’t fared very well this year, but the sungolds and other cherry tomatoes are going nuts.

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  2. Danny said on August 12, 2012 at 10:37 am

    These pics remind me of some my wife took in Monet’s garden in May when she and a girlfriend went to Europe.

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  3. Catherine said on August 12, 2012 at 10:46 am

    Lovely! Now *that’s* an ad for visiting Indiana.

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  4. Jolene said on August 12, 2012 at 11:34 am

    My thought, too, Danny. My first reaction was: looks like the South of France.

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  5. Sue said on August 12, 2012 at 11:58 am

    mmmm, nice, Alex.
    Cooz, I froze 2 1/2 pints of stewed tomatoes yesterday, first of the season after losing the first wave to blossom end rot. No point getting out the canner for that bumper crop.
    I finally found some dill at a farm stand yesterday but they didn’t have any green beans to supplement my meager harvest. The guy said the beans just wouldn’t grow. I took the last pound at another place and with what I had got 5 pints.
    Weird, weird summer.

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  6. Scout said on August 12, 2012 at 12:00 pm

    So nice to put a face with the name! And that last picture made me hungry for bruscetta. Happy summer Sunday, all.

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  7. LAMary said on August 12, 2012 at 12:02 pm

    Some critter, a raccoon probably, took bites from all of my nearly ripe tomatoes. I’ll have to send the dogs out at night to patrol the estate.

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  8. basset said on August 12, 2012 at 1:15 pm

    Weird here in Tennessee, too – our cherry tomatoes grew out, shall we say, small but perfectly formed, about the size of green peas. Potatoes never did do anything, got maybe two meals out of the green beans, about to rip it all out and put in some cucumbers for fall pickling.

    LAMary, toads and turtles will bite tomatoes as well, think the former is what we had this year.

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  9. Bob (Not Greene) said on August 12, 2012 at 1:52 pm

    The garden’s been a goddamn disaster this year. Pulled out the beans after failing spectacularly in the 100+ heat. Tomatoes have been hit or miss. Cucumbers – cucumbers for crying out loud – have been almost non existent. Apart from some good rainbow chard, some beets earlier this summer and radishes and salad greens this spring, it’s been a big disappointment.

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  10. Deborah said on August 12, 2012 at 2:16 pm

    Seeing pics like those makes me wish that I didn’t live in a high-rise in the city. Lovely.

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  11. Prospero said on August 12, 2012 at 2:20 pm

    Something to brighten anybody’s day:

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/aug/08/news-corporation-loss-legal-fees?CMP=EMCNEWEML1355

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  12. Dexter said on August 12, 2012 at 2:26 pm

    The place photographs well, Alex. Folks, the Leo area is full of wonderful vistas; it’s indeed a beautiful area.

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  13. Prospero said on August 12, 2012 at 2:55 pm

    What about your lake house Deborah? Doesn’t everybody have one? On our communal property, we have a very old, unrestorable patch of two ex clay tennis courts. At every Owner’s meeting I point out that since they are fenced in securely, the space would be ideal for community gardening, and even easily irrigated off the landscape sprinkling system. Alternatively, it would make a terrific and very safe playground area for the scads of kids that live here. I get nowhere with the reactionary bastards that always make up the Board. When my fifth bike was stolen and I suggested setting up a share-a-ride, I know I became a commaniss to these folks, and I started getting threatening notices about fines if I didn’t replace our bamboo shades with white aluminum. I hate to say it, but I think the absentee owners believe things like this would only benefit the “Mexican” (one nationality fits all) tenants.

    Alex, yours looks like a place Childe Hassam and Mary Cassatt would have enjoyed painting.

    http://www.google.com/imgres?hl=en&client=firefox-a&sa=X&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&biw=1920&bih=946&tbm=isch&prmd=imvnsob&tbnid=3Azi8hA4gSCu5M:&imgrefurl=http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/hass/hd_hass.htm&docid=0_vtweEVjP1S0M&imgurl=http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/images/h2/h2_1994.450.jpg&w=500&h=331&ei=jvsnUKyfCYam8ASW2YGwDA&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=600&vpy=171&dur=8774&hovh=183&hovw=276&tx=136&ty=104&sig=100920275694405468385&page=1&tbnh=113&tbnw=151&start=0&ndsp=57&ved=1t:429,r:4,s:0,i:141

    http://www.google.com/imgres?start=218&num=10&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&biw=1920&bih=946&addh=36&tbm=isch&tbnid=qI9oaFJ2oO8zfM:&imgrefurl=http://polarbearstale.blogspot.com/2009/05/today-it-is-mary-cassatts-birthday-22.html&docid=tc0K3-AgQr4cjM&imgurl=http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_E_o_0Bdm4GA/ShYuFPx2ztI/AAAAAAAAQeU/rfay62qr71E/s400/mary_cassatt.jpg&w=400&h=262&ei=3vsnULeBFYGs8QShwYGYBQ&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=844&sig=100920275694405468385&sqi=2&page=4&tbnh=131&tbnw=175&ndsp=72&ved=1t:429,r:51,s:218,i:285&tx=93&ty=62

    America had great Impressionists too, y’all.

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  14. Dexter said on August 12, 2012 at 3:06 pm

    http://tinyurl.com/

    ..just sayin’….

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  15. Prospero said on August 12, 2012 at 3:44 pm

    I see Dexter. I used to be able to make tinyURLs with a right click back when I used a PC, but beople told me they were extremely NOT secure. Don’t know if that’s bullshit or not. Normally I would have put it in code and no one would have known the difference.

    How high was Steve McQueen when this portrait was made:

    http://obituarytypo.blogspot.com/

    Dana Milbanks agrees with me that that RMoney welfare attack on the President was unadulterated dogwhistle, but the comments accusing him of “the race card” are pitiful. Do these numbnuts fail to realize how clearly they give away their own prejudices as soon as they raise that defense?

    http://tinyurl.com/cr82pq5

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  16. Linda said on August 12, 2012 at 3:58 pm

    My tomatoes did well this year. I planted Arkansas Traveler, and some Romas. Mixed some of them up with eggplant from my sisters, and some other stuff for ratatouille. My care for them is hit or miss, but Alex’s look very well kept.

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  17. brian stouder said on August 12, 2012 at 4:50 pm

    Superb photos! And not for nothing, but the satellite dish, in amongst all the goodies that will (no doubt) end up in delicious dishes, is well located, too. The poetry and beauty is always in the details, eh?

    We sort of tumbled into watermelon gardening this year, and we have nine increasingly large melons thrown every which-way (including on the other side of the fence, and into our neighbor’s yard!) from there.

    We’re thinking that next year we’ll do the tomato thing, and maybe another thing or two, too.

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  18. Charlotte said on August 12, 2012 at 5:01 pm

    Glad to hear I’m not the only one with garden wonkiness this year — I don’t know if it’s the weather, or that when I rebuilt my raised beds I had to stretch the existing dirt with peat/chickenshit straw. First batch of beans just did nothing — eaten by flea beetles and some other mystery beetle. Now I’ve got bean plants, but not seeing any pods yet. Flea beetles/earwigs also ate all the summer greens, first batch of beets, and the kale seedlings — saved the chard with massive applications of diatomaceous earth, and now that we seem to be out of the 100s, the greens are recovering and I planted new kale hoping for a fall crop. Tomatoes and peppers are doing well — but it’s always a race here with the first frost.

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  19. Deborah said on August 12, 2012 at 5:58 pm

    I can’t tell you how good “first frost” sounds to me. Although it has been pretty nice the last couple of days, bring on the cool weather, please.

    And Propero, while I have a very nice lake view it’s not the same as a home on the lake with gardens. Although I’m happy not to have the upkeep. And our land in New Mexico is going to be hard (impossible?) to grow vegetables on given the water situation.

    I am dog tired, I walked 9 miles today in the glorious weather and then came back to do laundry and housework. I’m leaving Weds for a week in Santa Fe with Little Bird, so there will be some rest and relaxation in my future. And good food!

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  20. Deborah said on August 12, 2012 at 6:44 pm

    I should also mention that I have 2 months from last Sunday left before retirement.

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  21. LAMary said on August 12, 2012 at 6:54 pm

    Aside from my half eaten tomatoes, the cucumbers did pretty well, and the peppers of several varieties are fine. My herbs are mostly ok. Something is munching on the basil and the cilantro and parsley got devoured early on. The sages and thymes are excellent. The Latino supermarket down the street sells cilantro three buncher for 99 cents, so I’m ok with buying it. I just made a run to the market and got three honeydew melons for 3.29, a watermelon for 1.69, and a huge bag of tomatillos for 1.40. I’m doing carnitas tacos with assorted salsas tonight. Peach, pineapple, tomato and tomatillo are all really good with pork. I made a pineapple salsa with red onion, jalpeno, lime juice and mint the other day and it was ridiculously good.

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  22. Prospero said on August 12, 2012 at 7:17 pm

    LoLo: How many of her mean girl teammates would have done something with this much class?

    Oh, it was just a ploy for attention.

    Deborah, happy home stretch. Wind at your back all the way hoome. Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of the RMoney hacienda:

    http://www.10news.com/news/31334534/detail.html

    Tax relief? If some ahole was planning an 8500sf house on less than 1/2 an acre in my neighborhood on the beach in Cali, I’d be putting sugar in bulldozer gastanks and making a sit-in mockery of every building dept. and town council meeting. What sort of moron builds a house that huge on a lot that size? This will H-bomb surrounding property values, by virtue of how freaking gauche the entire thing is. What sort of Bozo zoning scheme allows it? What architect would agree to that sort of massing? This is nouveau riche gauche from somebody that inherited daddy’s billions of $$$. Somebody should have told the fools “No Fracking Way.” That is an aesthetic abomination, not even counting the two story 3500sf garage. That may be the McMansion to end McMansions.

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  23. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on August 12, 2012 at 9:57 pm

    Because you missed it – http://gregmitchellwriter.blogspot.com/2012/08/nbc-hits-new-low.html

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  24. coozledad said on August 13, 2012 at 8:19 am

    Since Cokie and Wolf and George Will will be talking about Paul Ryan’s fitness routine in an extended blowjob/infomercial, here’s TBogg with the fine print.
    http://tbogg.firedoglake.com/2012/08/13/bill-kristol-is-getting-the-band-back-together-again/
    If you loved the Iraq war, and it made your little prick hard, and it made you dance to the idea of empire- in short, if you are a moron, and evil, then the yellowcake with vanilla frosting ticket is for you.

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  25. brian stouder said on August 13, 2012 at 8:52 am

    Excellent link, Cooz. The under-side of Eddie Munster’s “appeal” to angry white folks.

    And indeed, it struck me as clanky that the Big Announcement was made in front of a decommission battleship (the Wisconsin, natch).

    Specifically selecting that thing for the backdrop struck me as – fairly odd

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  26. Julie Robinson said on August 13, 2012 at 8:57 am

    We turned off the TV at 10 and except for Eric Idle, there wasn’t one bit that interested me. All the singers were off-key and Russell Brand was especially horrible. Maybe there was great stuff later?

    Alex, I would love to rent the place near you, if only we didn’t already own a home. It looks lovely and serene. Our neighborhood is changing and not towards serenity. Yesterday we had family over for birthdays and were (quietly) celebrating outside as it was a lovely, lovely day. Before long the folks behind us started riding their motorcycle around the back yard, and there went our lovely, lovely day.

    Our garden has actually done pretty well this year and I’m glad we downsized from last year since I’ve had to water so much. Our rain barrel holds enough water for 4 or 5 days, which would work fine in normal years. Except we never seem to have normal years anymore. And despite the drought, my favorite sweet corn place has not disappointed me. Love the sweet corn!

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  27. Judybusy said on August 13, 2012 at 9:06 am

    Alex, I can only aspire to have such a beautiful vegetable garden! It’s really pretty.Thanks for sharing!

    Deborah, those two months will fly by. Do you have any particular plans for retirement? (Forgive me if you’ve shared them before–sounds like NM is in the future. In the best of times, I have trouble remembering what all my friends are up to, and with the disconnect of the internet, it’s all the more challenging keeping track of folks here!)

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  28. alex said on August 13, 2012 at 9:41 am

    Thanks for all the compliments! I feel very privileged to be able to live in such a place and fortunate to be surrounded by protected lands that will never be developed.

    My maternal ancestors came to this area in the 1830s and they were millwrights so they bought up a lot of land along the waterways that has remained a virgin forest because it was too rugged for any other purpose.

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  29. Deborah said on August 13, 2012 at 9:48 am

    Judy Busy, I’ll be spending about 1/3 of my time in NM. For the first 2 to 3 months of retirement I want to do nothing, except pleasent things. After that I may take on some highly selective freelance work and I have some ideas about a cottage industry for Littlebird and myself. Something creative but not stressful.

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  30. LAMary said on August 13, 2012 at 11:21 am

    The garden photos look very Monet, but the tomatoes on the table look very Cezanne to me.

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  31. MichaelG said on August 13, 2012 at 11:31 am

    Mary, how do you cook your carnitas? My Ex used to simmer the shoulder for hours in cherry coke. Yep, cherry coke. Sounds weird but it was excellent.

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  32. LAMary said on August 13, 2012 at 11:46 am

    I braise pork shoulder in chicken broth to which I’ve added cumin and a bit of cayenne.
    We ended up with tomato salsa, peach/melon salsa, pineapple salsa, and a roasted tomatillo salsa. I had planned on bringing leftovers to work today for my lunch but my 18 year old stayed up late and got hungry. There’s about a tablespoon of peach/melon salsa in the fridge and a few tortillas.

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  33. Prospero said on August 13, 2012 at 11:53 am

    Yellow cake for Paul Ryan. I see the talent, invested, but why? Scorpion was too difficult? Black widow not enough cake?

    I’ve looked into it desultorily, but can anybody explain the insistence on calling Paul Ryan “intellectual”? Are they confusing intellectual with juvenile Ayn Rand ideological? Is it a reference to “movement conservatism? Check this list. Does it mean insisting that cutting taxes produces more revenue? was Arthur Laffer an intellectual? Just what the hell are these people talking about? Can anybody explain this?

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  34. Connie said on August 13, 2012 at 12:08 pm

    I have a similar pile of beautiful fresh picked tomatoes on my counter. Tomato salad and tomato sandwiches and BLTs were the menu this weekend. My husband chose to do a container garden this year with great success. This picture is earlier in the summer: http://aroundcommerce.blogspot.com/2012/06/old-hick.html . Click on the picture for a larger version. With a beautiful huge back yard I have no clue why he chose to do a container garden. We have a lovely second crop growing where he threw a couple of extra plants next to the garage.

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  35. brian stouder said on August 13, 2012 at 12:09 pm

    I dunno, Pros. “Intellectual”. Hmmm. Maybe “Brazen” – I’ll even give Ryan an “honesty” point for advocating things that are wildly unpopular…and you know, people DO vote against their own interests.

    I mean, OK. People are perfectly free to vote against their own interests, and indeed, I almost certainly have done this a time or two (or three or four).

    And really, in this imperfect and highly complex world, it is probably impossible NOT to vote against at least some interest or another that one has, so that – really – the best one might do is vote for the candidate who will be against the FEWEST of one’s interests, yes?

    Like, for example, if one candidate was personally profiting from literally defacing a particular voter’s house and home, then THAT person would not get that voter’s vote, right?

    http://www.chem.info/News/2012/08/Plant-Operations-Steel-Mill-Polluted-Town-as-Romney-Firm-Profited/?et_cid=2794303&et_rid=44004269&linkid=http%3a%2f%2fwww.chem.info%2fNews%2f2012%2f08%2fPlant-Operations-Steel-Mill-Polluted-Town-as-Romney-Firm-Profited%2f

    [an excerpt, with emphasis added by me]

    GEORGETOWN, S.C. (AP) — The rusty stains on Shirley Carter’s home are a permanent reminder of her fight with the local steel mill, just down U.S. Highway 17 near the boat docks. No matter how many cans of industrial-strength acid she went through, the red tint on her property never seemed to go away. In 1998, Carter and her neighbors sued Georgetown Steel, then owned by the company Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney co-founded, Bain Capital. They sought millions in cleanup costs and accused the mill’s owners of leaving their historic Southern neighborhood looking like it had been hit by a “chemical bomb.”

    State officials determined the mill was largely to blame for the pollution. As the lawsuit dragged on for years, the steel mill filed for bankruptcy and the plant ultimately settled with the residents. In the end, Bain saw more than $30 million in returns on its steel company investment. Carter got $800. “That wasn’t even enough to paint the house,” said Carter, who is a Romney supporter this election.

    So, agreed, R-money/Ryan have a real chance to prevail. And if they do, I will never, ever sound like those Obama-haters I seem to run across every day; they will legitimately be my president and vice president.

    And I’ll be left to ponder the folks whose homes got hit by the equivalent of a “chemical bomb”, for the personal profit of the man they then supported for the Presidency of the United States.

    Some things surpass understanding

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  36. Prospero said on August 13, 2012 at 12:16 pm

    Interesting tidbit in cooze’s link, that Ryan’s foreign policy tutor is Elliot Abrams. This vile POS has been a GOPer evil eminence since way back, far back as Cheney and Rummy. He parbly knows Willard from Iran-Contra days. Somehow, Abrams has remained unindicted, despite the threat of multiple criminal charges. . Mitt’s guiding hand on foreign policy is Unabomber with no Hoodie John Bolton. Anybody with a working cortex and cerebellum should be able to see this portends very badly for America, particularly an intellectual like Ryan. Daniel Pipes, who with his racist buddy Flemming Rose thought it a hoot to insult and inflame Muslims with scurrilous cartoons, will be Seccretary of State. Bolton will go back to the UN, but this time with C4. Abrams will get his dream job running CIA, where he can commit murder to his vicious shrivelled heart’s content. These are evil bastards that should never be close to government.

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  37. Dorothy said on August 13, 2012 at 12:39 pm

    We’re churning most of the lovely tomatoes into sauce and it will make delish tomato soup in a couple of months. And I’m eating slices of tomato on toast for breakfast most days lately – I can’t get enough of their deliciousness! Mary your salsa combinations are making me salivate.

    Alex count me among the admirers of your property. Isn’t it great to have all that green in the backyard? We love our place so much and get such happiness from the great sunset views we have. We’re about 10 years away from retirement but I know I don’t want to permanently give up our Ohio home. Maybe we’ll spend 8 months here and 4 at the shore so we can be near our daughter. Time will tell.

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  38. Prospero said on August 13, 2012 at 1:20 pm

    Connie, the container garden is decidedly Zen, particularly the gate. I could imagine sitting in there hidden from the world with a Foster’s oilcan, crushing heads.

    I’m pretty sure that childish infatuation withAyn Rand is considered “intellectualism” by GOPers, and 11th graders. Fracking thumbsuckers and bedwetters. Apparently they missed her atheism. And her big suck on the government teat when her chain-smoking did her in. And her advocacy for abortion on demand up to delivery. Oh, but they be John Galt.

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  39. MichaelG said on August 13, 2012 at 1:38 pm

    Good thing you put up that gate, Connie. Otherwise the deer might get your stuff.

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  40. LAMary said on August 13, 2012 at 4:50 pm

    http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.nancyhuntting.net/cezanne-onions-bottle2.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.nancyhuntting.net/Cezanne-onions.html&h=948&w=1190&sz=189&tbnid=Lk4gFQk-CHMOFM:&tbnh=115&tbnw=144&zoom=1&usg=__4gZOqQPOboNGCJr8U4zi8FD0f2s=&docid=mNNzzdPrqnaTgM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=SGgpUJ6HNpH2igKmuoCACw&sqi=2&ved=0CGUQ9QEwAw&dur=3312

    I know, I know. TinyURL.

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