Bloody, painful pickin' - July 24, 2023

Gardening is not for sissies.

I didn't want to pick purple hull peas yesterday morning, and I sure didn't want to do it by myself.  I wanted to get it done and get back to the house and spend the afternoon painting.  Trying to paint.

About 9, The Husband got up, ate his breakfast (I'd had mine three hours earlier), and brought the last of his coffee out to the porch, where I was trying to sketch a picture.  After a few minutes, I said, "Well, I think I'll put on my mud boots and go pick peas."  And I got up and went inside to find my boots and some socks.  My boots still had a little mud on them from last year.  When I brought them out to the porch to knock the mud off them, The Husband said, "I'll put on some shorts and help you."  I put on my apron/toolbelt and a hat.  Properly "suited up," we loaded a big rubber storage bin and a cardboard box into the car and drove down to the garden.  The Husband said he would start cutting the okra.  I went to work picking peas and pulling grass, trying to watch for ants and snakes.  A horsefly got after me and succeeded in biting me on the arm.  An ant got me on the thumb and it hurt so bad it made me cuss.  Whatever nerve he bit goes all the way to my scalp.

The Husband helped with the pea-picking when he finished the okra.  We ended up with half a tub-full of peas, and a grocery bag full of okra, most of which was too big.  We decided to pick any tomatoes that were starting to turn to keep them from turning to mush on the vines.  On one plant, there was one whole clump of tomatoes on a thick stem near the ground, too big to just break off.  I took out my pocket knife to cut off the stem and immediately sliced my thumb open.  When we left the garden, I tossed the keys to The Husband and said, "I'm dripping blood and mud.  You drive."  I rode home on the tailgate.

We dumped the peas on the back porch rug and spread them out and turned the ceiling fan on to dry them.  (Uncle Jack says they're easier to shell when they're not damp.)  

Later today, I'll sort through the okra and see if there's enough of the right size for pickling.

After I showered off the chiggers and the mud, I came out to paint but spent most of the time drawing.  Trying to draw.  

In the middle of the afternoon, my daughter-in-law texted us an SOS.  They'd been camping all week and were pulling the camper home when the water pump went out on the truck.  They were an hour from home, stranded on the interstate.  A tow truck came for their truck, but they had no way to get the camper home.  Our truck won't pull it.  We know several people with a big enough truck, but none of them were available.  Finally, after about an hour, the kids got hold of someone, and they made it home with the camper before dark.

Of course, this crisis interrupted any "zone" I might've eventually discovered.  I put my pencil down and went to help Link slay Bokoblins.  

This quest game can be so funny at times.  In the game, there is an object called a "muddle bug."  The description said it confuses enemies.  It looks like a cross between a mushroom and a rose and can be collected and attached to an arrow.  Yesterday, as Link was exploring a desert, two bad-ass monsters jumped him.  I climbed him up a tall pillar and shot them with muddle bugs.  Big pink clouds of bubbles floated around their heads.  I was about to fire another round when the two monsters noticed one another and set to fighting.  They beat the crap out of each another, and all Link had to do was finish them off with one good whack.  LMAO

(Yeah, I know.  Pitiful.  Cut me some slack.  I work from home and spend most of my time alone.) ;) 

The Husband has gone to a conference for a few days, so the pea-shelling is up to me.  I have a dentist appointment later this afternoon, but after that I'll park myself in the recliner and get to shellin'.  The bright side is that I'll have control of the TV remote and can watch all the PBS videos I want.  ;)