August 20, 2016 - Saturday

60 degrees/rain/calm winds

Pentoga Road

I don't know why I get the feeling there might be a rainy day ahead. I mean it's not like it didn't rain during the night. Another 1.1 inches fell while we were sleeping Friday night after a day of scattered showers. 

I was complaining about how hot and dry it was two weeks ago, today I'm lamenting about the excess of water. I guess I've turned into a whiner in my old age.

Fungus has claimed the leaves of my tomatoes along with some of the squash and pumpkins. One big pumpkin plant is severely infected while the other shows no signs yet. 

If it were earlier in the season, I'd spray fungicide in hopes that it might halt the disease. If past years are any indication, there's just another three or four weeks in the growing season. Besides, we have plenty of tomatoes and the pumpkins and squash are fairly well grown. 

This pumpkin has been the biggest all through the season, but has slowed down due to the fungus. It weighs approximately three hundred pounds.

The giant pumpkins are still gaining huge amounts daily, so I'll just keep doing what I'm doing.   

This guy has been the smaller of the two giant pumpkins, but has caught up to the larger one and will probably surpass it this coming week. It too weighs in the three-hundred pound range.

I skipped my usual walk early Friday morning. The sky was turning black and rain was beginning to fall just as Sargie was leaving for work. It wasn't a difficult decision to make, to get wet and cold while walking, or to remain inside and sip hot coffee and relax. Hmmm. Mama didn't have no dummy. That coffee tasted mighty good.

The shower didn't last long and in the end, I strapped on my hiking boots and did the lake circuit, a full five miles that included walking to both area lakes.

Once home, I began working on Sargie's fountain, the one I got her for Mother's Day a couple of years ago. A small crack had developed that seems to have been fixed with an application of epoxy.

The rest of the day was spent in the shop sorting through the bin containing nuts and bolts, nails, latches, springs, and other goodies.

It was a tough chore, sorting hardware while sitting in my recliner, sipping coffee, listening to classical music. At one point, my eyes might have closed for an hour or so, but then we all know that sorting nuts and bolts can take a lot out of a guy.

Sargie was home early last night and we had a nice evening together. She opens today, her sixth long day of work in a row, but thankfully, has Sunday off before she starts all over again.

I'm going to head back out to the shop and continue going through the hardware bins, cleaning, sorting, and throwing away.

After all, a man's work is never done.

This year's pride and joy, an extra tall sunflower plant with multiple smaller heads that travel down the stem.

So are the tales from Pentoga Road... 

The typical giant sunflowers with heads so big they bend almost to the ground. The multi-headed variety (picture before this one) began with these giants and were cross pollinated from another smaller plant with multiple blooms. My goal was to have a plant at least ten feet tall that could support several flowers. I'll now begin working on making the stem thicker and the flowers bigger.