Tomato Time

It's that time of year when we have too many fresh tomatoes.  To bad we can't spread out the season so we could enjoy them all year long.  Scientists have been working for hundreds of years to develop a good off season tomato that can be picked green  elsewhere and rushed to market. Or they could pick it ripe and halt the ripening process so that it would not get too ripe  by the time it gets to market.  So far their success has been minimal. Off season tomatoes still taste like cardboard.

Here is a Giant Belgium tomato. It is an heirloom that I picked from a seed catalog.  It  weighs 26.5 ounces. Not huge but not bad.

Italy

Early this month, Loretta and I spent nine days in Italy. We spent the first and last day in Rome and the rest in the Tuscany region. Beautiful country, green and lush.  We visited the walled cities of Assisi, Siena, Florence, Lucca and others. Naturally we visited the Vatican and the Coliseum.

Daily Me

Have you noticed lately how good digital cameras have become?  They are sharp and clear and even the low priced, point and shoots have  very accurate colors. I have a little Sony pocket camera which I have used  to take about 5000 pictures. Film is cheap. Right?  For some reason, I decided about three years ago to take my own picture every day. What I will do with  over 1100 images (And still counting) of myself, I do not know. I am sure no one will ever see them; for most of them, not even me. Here is a random example of 132 images.

Who was Edith Colea?

She has a botanical  genus  named after her which contains a single species.  Edithcolea grandis is a member of the Stapeliad family. I am fortunate to have one on my back porch which bloomed last year. Edith Cole was a member of the party that discovered the plant in Somalia in 1895 and it was named in her honor.  I received my E. grandis indirectly from Dr. Gerald Barad who is a world known grower and researcher on Stapeliads. I have heard him speak at Cactus & Succulent Shows and was able to visit his place in Pennsylvania a few years ago.
His website can be seen at http://www.cactus-mall.com/stapeliad/picture7.html.

What a spectacular flower it has.

My Owner

It is time to introduce my owner or as she is sometimes  called, "The Owner".  Her name is Molly B Good. She is a big fat pussy cat that adopted me 14 years ago in Kerrville.  She is an outside cat with inside privileges.  Here is a picture of her with a mouse.

"The time has come", the walrus said, "To speak of many things."