Why I Oughta...

This is what the Babe looks like when Nat tells her something wonderfully funny.  Scrunched nose.  Loud grunting laughs! Look, Ma!  No teeth!

Our garden is just beginning to throw off the majority of it's produce.  Zucchinis, tons of varieties of tomatoes, pumpkins, gords, peppers, squash and....lots and lots of eggplant!  Yep....Nat and I are going to be the Forest and Bubba Gump of eggplant.  We'll make eggplant parmesan,  grilled eggplant sandwiches, eggplant lasagna and more. Here's one of the black/purple beauties.  They're pretty big.  That tomato next to it is a HUGE heirloom variety called a Pineapple Tomato - like the size of a softball. And...the tomatoes?  We're going to try to make Nat's red gravy and can it for the winter in jars, but after that, we'll probably end up with a few dozen dozen (you read that right!) extra red beauties.  (We *may* have planted too many this year!)  We'll have to open up a stand out front on Indiana Street for all the passers-by.

As promised , here's the rest of the photos from our visit to the Treemendous Tree Farm outside of Coloma Michigan from over the weekend.  That's a bit of a stretch - as these aren't really the 'rest' of photots, but a few that I pulled from my phone. It isn't just Apples/Peaches at Treemendous.  They have a hayride and a little petting zoo.  With Billy Goats! Here's a view of part of the orchard with my niece in the foreground.  Pretty spectacular day in Michigan. Nat pulled the Babe on board and kept her entertained.  I'm claiming this was the Babe's 2nd visit, but Nat insists we count this as visit #1.  With my family being traditionalists, this won't be her last. My usual pose from the orchard with a Golden Delicious crammed in my piehole.  This time with my nephew joining me in the hi-jinx. In other news, according to Google's Insights for Search tool, [Apple Picking] seems to be the top fall activity for us folks in Illinois

This afternoon, we went on our annual pilgrimage to Treemendous Tree Farm right near my folks place at the Lake.  Dyers and my mom joined us three. I have a few more photos to share, but I took them all with my phone and I'm having difficulties getting a strong enough signal for them to upload to Picasa Web Albums.  Hopefully, they'll show up tomorrow!

Big win today for the Bluejays on the road up in Michigan.  A great 2-0 start with a game at home one week from today against the Maroons of University of Chicago.  Mixed bag with the kickers with a 38+ yard punting average, one touchback, and one field goal.  Had one blocked, but I'll insist that it was a snap issue.  A steady rain fell the ENTIRE game making it a hard one for everyone involved. We opened up 3-0 last year so I'm hoping we can match that start again.

After the devastating storm that destroyed our pear tree, I figured the tree would just die.  After all, it snapped in half .   I took a peek at the tree yesterday and was pretty surprised by the growth that had taken over - right where the trunk snapped. The bamboo pole in the middle of the shot is where the snap happened.  You can see the trunk (dark brown) right next to it.  Perhaps we'll have pears next year after all!

Pretty great video demonstrating the power of Google Instant.  As told by (at least one co-worker) the connection to Bob Dylan "going electric" wasn't lost on our creative folks.  Nice! Pretty great to have a place like Google continuing to push what the world is doing in tech and culture.