Figs And Fancy Peppers

When I was at Jessie's yesterday, telling her and Vergil goodbye, Jessie asked if I wanted this vase of hydrangea blooms to take home. Well, yes I did and now it's on my back porch. I have hydrangea plants but they just don't do well here and I'm sure it's because (and by now you can recite this with me) they don't get enough sun. 
Theoretically, they can look like this.

Mine definitely do not when they do bother to bloom, which is seldom. 

We got more real rain today. Perhaps almost half an inch which isn't setting any records but it sure beats the .04 inches we've been getting per day. If that. So it was a good day to stay in and instead of canning, which I completely forgot I was going to do, Mr. Moon and I watched a movie and I repaired a dress and then hemmed some more washed  cheesecloth to make sweat rags and other absorbent, handy and needed cloths. My dream is to make enough of these things to completely eliminate my need for paper towels although I'm pretty sure that's not going to happen. I do love a good paper towel but I try not to use many and I don't.

Anyway, who cares? Making them keeps my hands busy while I'm watching TV and that's the main thing. 

It's hard for Mr. Moon and me to choose a movie we think the other one will like. We're both really thoughtful when it comes to that. There are movies he definitely knows I will not enjoy and movies I have no doubt he will not enjoy. So whoever has the remote goes through the Netflix movie selection to see what we think the other one will like that we can tolerate and perhaps even enjoy. Sometimes this process takes half an hour which is ridiculous. 
Today we settled on a movie called "The Gentlemen" which was released in 2020 and supposedly got some Oscar nods but which I had never even heard of which is surprising because Matthew McConaughey, Hugh Grant, and Colin Farrell are the leads. Guy Ritchie (he was married to Madonna at one time!), co-wrote and directed the film. Shouldn't I have at least heard mention of it? 
I probably did and forgot. (See above about forgetting to can.)
Sigh.
But we settled on that. It didn't have a lot of rom-commy or meet-cute stuff going on and it didn't appear as if there were any deathbed scenes whose intention was to jerk tears and there were no period costumes PLUS, no superheroes, no gratuitous violence, no shitty actors playing cowboys, no car chases, no explosions, and no overt sexism. 
A decent compromise. 
And it was a decent movie. It had a lot going on and there was some violence but I can handle a few blood splatters. The acting wasn't bad at all and I have to hand it to Hugh Grant that all of those years when he played only bumbling, good-looking, love interest leads were a waste of talent. I mean, I enjoyed those movies for the most part. He played that character well and he is easy to look at but he gave his character in "The Gentlemen" everything and then some. But not in a hammy way. You know.

So that was fun and then it quit raining enough for us to out and give the garden a tour. I swear, the field peas and zipper peas have grown two inches since yesterday and everything looks green and happy. I didn't really pick anything to speak of although I did take my emergency picking basket because there's always something. 
I got a picture of a pepper I planted this year which, not unlike "The Gentlemen," I had never heard of. 
A clown pepper. 

How cute is that? When I saw them at the nursery and read their name and description, I knew I needed one. They are supposedly a mildly spicy and sweet heirloom pepper and the bushes are supposed to get quite tall. They are already the tallest pepper plants in the garden. They are red when mature and I am excited to try them. 
I picked two of the Fairy Tale (for that is what they are) eggplants and some cayenne peppers which I am going to make pepper vinegar with. I know I've already mentioned that. Glen tied up a few tomatoes and we checked their progress along with the bell peppers we have growing. I just love being in the garden right now, especially after rain because it's not so hot and everything looks so happy and it just feels good. The zinnias I planted are looking close to blooming and the volunteers are definitely happy, displaying their crayon colors to the world. 

Then we moved over to what we are calling the fruit orchard to check on things there. Everyone seems happy and healthy. We picked blueberries and I took a picture of the blossoms on the Meyers lemon. 

They smell heavenly. 

I had noticed that the fig tree does have some fruit on it although I had thought that every fig had been killed by that late freeze. 

The tree itself needs a good pruning after the figs have been harvested. If, indeed, we get to harvest any. The birds and squirrels do love them. The branches are as gnarled and twisted as a one-hundred and ten year old grandma's knuckles. 
Or, Keith Richards' knuckles. 

Maurice followed us around from garden to blueberry bushes to fig tree. 

She was obviously talking to me when I took that shot. 

"Did you find some shade, Maurice?"
"Mewt!" 

Here's what tonight's tiny harvest looked like. 

It's colorful at least. 

Looks like it's about to rain again. I'm making a soup with some pork chops Mr. Moon brought home from a meal he had in a restaurant. They were too salty for even him to eat which means very, very salty. I asked him why he didn't send them back and it all boiled down to the fact that he just didn't want to upset the server who appeared to be having a difficult time of it already. 
We are not a send-it-back family. 
I think that cooking them into a broth to make the soup will take care of the salt problem. There will be a lot of vegetables too. And red lentils. I hope it's good. 

Here's a picture Jessie sent to the family this morning. 

She and the boys and Sophie had just hit the road after stopping for pastries and coffee. Well, Jessie had coffee. Vergil hadn't left yet as he was still packing the truck. Last I heard, they were three hours away from the mountain. That is a long drive to do in one day. I will be glad to hear from them when they have arrived safely. 

Here's another gardenia. 

Love...Ms. Moon