Back To Beans

I know. I KNOW- you just can't get enough of Maurice. 
She's such an easy cat to love, isn't she? So affectionate, so loving, so very gentle. 
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
She came and found me last night at the time I am usually heading to bed. I get in bed before Glen because reading in bed before I go to sleep is one of my greatest pleasures. She followed me into the bedroom and after I'd taken my shower and was cozy under the covers, I heard her scratching the mattress foundation (I guess that's what it is) which is what she does before she jumps up to join me and she did. 
She didn't settle down immediately though. She seemed to want to do a full body scan and she slowly circled me several times as if to make sure it was me. I kept asking her, "You want a kiss?" and finally, she did indeed put her face up to mine and then her lips up to mine and don't tell me cats don't understand human language. We had a few little chaste pecks and then she lay down on the pillow beside my head. As seen above. 
That picture cracks me up. Somehow, by some miracle, I managed to take a pretty darn good close-up selfie. Well, actually it's mostly a picture of Maurice with me photobombing it. 
And she slept with me or on me all night. 
It took her an entire day to finally leap up into Mr. Moon Daddy's lap but she finally did and I think they're probably napping together in the new recliner as we speak. 

It's been drizzling all day long, sometimes coming down a little harder, sometimes a little softer. 
I've loved it. 
I got a lot done. I unpacked everything, put everything away, did laundry, tried to create some order on the kitchen island, did some sweeping and tidying, made up the guest room bed clean. Mark had washed the sheets so all I had to do was put 'em on the bed. 
But the main thing I did today was to pick green beans. 
Y'all remember how they had just started to make beans the day before we left? Probably not but that's okay. 
So we were gone for eight days and I spent at least an hour out there with my baskets, picking. 

Now that was only one side of the trellis. But I had to take a break and eat some lunch before I tackled the other side. I didn't get as many there but overall, I filled up one 2.5 gallon ziplock entirely and another one two thirds full. 

It seems to me that the beans are longer this year than I've ever seen them. And not just because they were left on the vines so long. A lot of them were not particularly over-girthy but were long indeed. 

Every year I swear I'm not going to plant as many of them the next year as I end up having pickled and canned and cooked so many that, as I wrote a friend, I am weeping over my canner and screaming, "I am not living in a little house on the fucking prairie!" Because not only are they incredibly prolific but they continue to put out beans for months. 
I will share with the kids. 

I also got two cucumbers and I dug some potatoes which made me realize that scabby-skinned potatoes are not something that just happens because I left them in the ground so long, but are suffering from "common scab," a soil borne bacterium. Streptomyces scabies, to be exact. 
That sounds good, right? 
You can still eat the potatoes if you peel them which I have been doing the last several years and we haven't died so I suppose that's true. But have you ever tried to peel a bunch of golf-ball sized potatoes? 
Is it even worth it? 
Sigh.

I got my Roseland side-of-the-road succulents in pots. I need more pots. Of all sizes. One of them is actually planted in with a sea grape for the time being and here's the other one. 

Just when I think the camera on my new phone just will not do, I get a picture like this. Anyway, my Picture This plant app says it's a Chandelier plant which is a type of Kalanchoe. It doesn't look great but it's spent about four days in a baggie with its roots wrapped in wet paper towels and anything that can grow on the side of the road in Roseland is a tough plant. 

The other one I dug up is supposedly a Life plant and wasn't that Kalancho I bought a month or so ago the same? Could be. And I do believe I already have a pot of this growing, also from Roseland. Here's the new baby one in its temporary nursery bed. 

Since I dug it up and put it in the baggy, its root shot this up.

As I said, tough plants. Plus, just about what you'd expect from a plant called "Life."

One more thing I did was to figure out where I wanted to put the darling little golden orange bowls and lids that were sent by Boud.

She also made that beautiful butterfly too. 
Perfect. 
Lily painted the zinnia picture, my darling friend Lynn made the stained glass, and Linda Sue made the Mermaid Maggie in the seashell which catches the morning sun and creates an ethereal glow. 
It's my plant nursery/art museum/laundry room right there where I can see it every time I walk by it or fold my clothes. Mr. Moon made the table upon which much of this happens which you can't see in that picture but which is a work of art in and of itself. 

I better go make us some supper. We're still getting the nicest little patter of rain and everything looks so beautiful and on top of that, it's cool enough that I've been in jeans and a thin sweater all day. 
And yet still warm enough to be barefoot, i.e., the perfect weather. 

Love...Ms. Moon