gladiolus

This is a picture from the package containing the gladiolus bulbs. Red white, and blue. Sounds very patriotic. Mary is confident that they will do well because they are bulbs which have their own food supply to get started rather than tiny seeds. Plus she dug a hole larger than the bulb and filled the hole with Miracle-Gro potting soil (the best) after placing the bulb in the hole. She moved three of the periwinkle plants that were growing next to the backdoor of the house to under the camphor tree (the one that smells like a giant cough drop). The periwinkles were getting too big and were becoming a pest which I think makes it a weed. I believe that anything that grows where it isn’t wanted to grow is suppose to be considered a weed. Mary also had planted some seeds from a cantaloupe that we had eaten and they have sprouted up quite nicely.

Last night we had stuffed peppers for supper, but with a twist. No rice. Mary left the rice out of the hamburger mixture and just used straight hamburger. It tastes much better this way. We had mashed potatoes and some Italian bread with the meal. By the way, the mashed potatoes were real potatoes done the old fashioned way; peeled, cubed, boiled, and laboriously mashed by hand. They were good. I can’t remember the last time that I went to a restaurant and had real mashed potatoes. And a strawberry fig Newton for dessert followed by a Klondike ice cream bar later in the evening. And of course, the seeds from the green pepper were culled by Mary and are drying. When dried, they will get planted also. If we keep growing all these varieties of veggies, we may have to open a vegetable stand. My dad had actually opened a small vegetable in Catskill, New York. It was one of these small vegetable markets and he had vegetables stacked on wooden boxes in front of the store. I use to have a picture of him and my mom standing in front of the small store. He had a white apron on and with his dark wavy hair, I thought that he looked Italian (he was actually half English and half Scotch) and the small vegetable store looked like something from Little Italy in New York city. He had a black van. My mom was the bold one in the family. One time she was driving the van and it stalled at a traffic light. She tried to restart the van but the engine must have flooded. The guy in the car behind her started blowing his horn with impatience. She kept trying to start the engine to no avail and the guy behind her kept blowing his car horn emphatically. Finally my mom got out of the car and walked back to the car behind her and told the guy that she would sit in his car and blow his horn for him if he would go up to her car and get it started. The guy got the point and didn’t blow his horn anymore. He didn’t help her but at least he stopped the incessant, nerve wracking horn blowing. A true story like so many true stories that we all have to tell.