Adopt a Crop update: Let's see if they miss me.

I go back to work today after two months off on sabbatical and since you're all wondering (like I am) what I'd be doing if I weren't at work, allow me to show you:

First of all, I'd be picking beans. Because that is what I did every day since they started producing. Because they are very productive plants and Bubba and I live in constant fear of being forced to flee from our homeland by The Beans.

Then, I'd go stand by the corn and try to figure out, via self-snapshot, how much taller it'd gotten in the last five minutes. Because that shit grows in immeasurable bounds by the moment.

Ok, so its growth is probably measurable, but not by any method we're using. Because we are using only two measurement tactics:

• Is it knee high by 4th of July? YES, check.
• Is it high as an elephant's eye? Depends. We'll need to borrow your elephant for that.

There's an ongoing debate in our house about whether the corn was supposed to be "High as an elephant's eye by 4th of July" or just "Knee-high by 4th of July" with its final height expected to be "High as an elephant's eye."

That raised eyebrow is Bubba silently questioning my methods.

Since I've never encountered corn much over knee height by early July, I don't see where this overacheiving 4th of July Elephant's Eye corn would come from. Bubba, however, disagrees. He being of midwestern (and therefore All Corn Knowing) descent, claims that these two sayings are actually one enormous corn height saying and then he turns his back and refuses to hear otherwise.

Specifically, it's "High as an elephant's eye by 4th of July" or nothing at all, for him.

Whatever. My corn has tassles, and so that is now more amusing to me than its height. Which may or may not be that of an elephant's eye. And now I never want to say, "4th of July" or "elephant's eye" ever EVER ever again.

Yay.

But we can say, Tassles. Tasssssssssseeeellllllllllllles.

After the drama with the corn, I'd move on to inspecting the cucumbers WHICH, I will say, are promising abundance. Abundance of such greatness, in fact, that it prompted the ordering of a larger capacity food processor that has a more, ahem, accomodating food tube through which I can push (via food pusher, don't think I'll be using my fingers) many MANY round lemon cucumbers for the pickle chip making.

Let this also be your official announcement that your first 2009 Adopt a Crop crop: Lemon Cucumber has arrived.

"I'm #1! I'm #1!"

I'll admit though, I've wanted a larger food processor for a while. And between the largeness of the cucumbers and the inability of my 3 cup processor to handle the rigors of, say, a pie crust or this bread recipe, it was determined (by an expert - Me) that I needed, immediately, the largest food processor I could possibly store in my house.

After I got rid of five things. And, so far, I've gotten rid of three things. To the point where I'm sure I can fit this in my cabinets if I just do some magic Forcing It, a skill for which I am well known.

We will soon be forced through a food tube and that does not seem glamorous at all.

After doing impulse shopping at the behest of my cucumbers, I would go over to the tomatoes and sit down for a lengthy lecture, during which time I would counsel them on their lackluster effort in ripening for me.

These are not my tomatoes. Obviously. They are red. That's how you know.

See, we picked some of our neighbor's tomatoes (they said it was OK - these are the nice neighbors you know) that were all nice and red (and in some cases, orange) and ripe and put them into some pasta with some fresh basil that's growing right next to MY tomatoes so that they'd know we were cheating on them because COME ON ripen up already.

It was a crime of passion, this tomato adultery.

So, sure, some of their tomatoes are small and anus-looking, but they are ripening more every day and are still good even if they're not ours and Better Boys. And do you know why they're still good? Because they're red. And ripe.

If someone had told me this was a fake toy tomato, I'd have believed them.

Which is more than I can say about our tomatoes, even given their enthusiasm for putting out slowly ripening fruit.

Just imagine this multiplied by 20 and then you'd have an idea of what's going on out there.

Oh, and not like I need to tell you, but I'd go over to the cilantro and give it the finger. Because it's been bolted for weeks now and, just for fun (because I secretly hate it), I've let it bloom out and go to seed. Because I don't even want to waste my time pulling it out. It should have to sit there and think about what it did.

Really though, that bed needs a bit more greenery, BUT STILL, I'm mad at it.

Stupid fast-bolter.

After that, I don't know what I'd do. Maybe ride my bike to Pilates or the library, take a nap on the lawn with the dog, bake something, work on the scarf I've got going, plant more stuff in my new landscaping, read my beekeeping book...you know, whatever might strike my fancy.

If I were still on sabbatical. Which I'm not. So you can all stop hating me now, and if you want to see pictures, you can check them out here.

I'm going to take this slideshow off the sidebar now because, well, I don't need my Sabbatical Self showing off while I'm Working.

She's such a bitch, that one.