Who's to say who's effed and who's not? Clearly, not me.

I should really be posting a tutorial for lip balm right now, I know.

It's just that the whole lip balm situation really revolves around my desire to berate the lip balm recipe havers of the Internet for putting up the most annoyingly vague and useless recipes and I can't very well do effective berating if I, myself, am not posting a useful not-vague recipe myself.

I think you'd agree.

Anyway, while I'm not vague or useless (quiet, you), I am sometimes forgetful. In the sense that I forgot the handwritten recipe I hand wrote for myself as I was mixing up this batch of lip balm (and then remixing it and remelting it and, well, you'll see when I write it up) up in Tahoe and so I can't give you the recipe right now.

Although I *could* give you the rant against the dim hippies who wrote up all the useless and vague lip balm recipes on the Internet right now. Because that part comes real easy. As you know.

So, instead of wrapping my rant around a fabulously NOT-vague or useless recipe for a lip balm you *might* use -- Melons.

More specifically - an update on the Adopt a Crop Team Melons vs Team Cucumbers situation.

Remember how I was all, "Oh Team Melons, you're totally effed" and shit, like back in July?

Who's effed now?

Er...that proclamation may have been premature.

I mean, not that one melon, even one that can grow from this:

I'm adorable.

to this:

I'm obscene.

in one week can break the cucumbers' lead or anything, but when the melons do that meanwhile the cucumbers do this:

Wait? We're cucumber plants? We'd forgotten. We were busy being pathetic losers.

it's safe to say, at least, that Team Melons is not as effed as they seemed to be back in July.

Though, it's true that I've harvested approximately 2 lbs of cucumbers so far and 0 lbs of watermelons, I'm fairly certain that the melon you see plumping up on the vine up there weighs more than 2 lbs and that cucumber plant you see rapidly shitting the bed up there is going to produce about five more minutes' worth of cucumbers before it shrivels up and gives me the finger once and for all.

So any greatness the cucumbers might have enjoyed a month ago might be wiped away in one felled twisting of a watermelon from the vine in a month or so.

OR that watermelon may meet an untimely death at the hands of a nasty creature (this happens sometimes even in the depths of suburbia where we happen to live. We call these happenings "raccoons" and I don't want to talk about it.) and Team Cucumbers could be back firmly holding the lead.

A pathetic 2 lb lead that does not put pickles in the jar, so to speak.

In the sense that it hasn't put any pickles in the jar yet. Because I canned pickles on vacation and they shriveled up into depressing little brown turds in the jar because I *might* have miscalculated our actual elevation and then I *might* have over processed them according to elevation instructions for, like, the Swiss Alps or something.

My pickles came out looking like shits floating in a jar, people, it was sad.

So, yeah, no pickles yet. And only 2 lbs of cucumbers. And 0 lbs of watermelons. And cucumber plants that look about as pathetic as you can imagine while still, somehow, remaining vaguely alive. And one watermelon plant that still hasn't produced a single viable fruit and barely any leaves.

But at least we have the craziest volunteer sunflowers ever.

12 feet tall. Who knew sunflowers could get 12 feet tall? I did not.

This bee got light headed flying to reach it.

The zoom was all the way extended to get this shot.

So, yeah, the drama continues in the garden. Melons staging a comeback, cucumbers quietly dying a tragic crispy brown death, sunflowers towering over the garden like some sort of otherworldly being where I can't prune them to make a stunning bouquet and tomatoes doing what tomatoes always do in the garden.

Go fucking bonkers.

I think if I were to really think hard about who's effed around here, I'd probably say it was me. Or the canner. Because we're both going to have to get really effing busy if we want to keep up.

It's not the worst problem to have.