Most of the time, Nanny shells the peas, but this time I brought them home to shell. "Your son needs something to do," I said to Nanny. She didn't argue. The Husband and I knocked them out fairly quickly. They yielded 4 quarts of peas.
A lot of the okra was too big to use for anything but a sword. There were enough "just right" pods to fool with pickling them. I soaked the pods in pickling lime overnight and will pickle them today. Some other pods were too tall for a pint jar but not too tough to fry. I offered this okra to The Brother-in-Law, along with a quart of shelled peas. He didn't come get them yesterday. If he hasn't come by about 5:00 this evening, I'm frying his okra for supper.
I spent some of the afternoon trying to paint phalaenopsis orchid blooms.
Several years ago, I painted Eugene the Jeep on a spare tire cover for The Sister-in-Law. She loved it. Over the years, it faded somewhat, and a couple of years ago she replaced the vinyl tire cover with a metal (or fiberglass?) one. She has missed Eugene, for he garnered her lots of waves and thumbs-ups from other Jeep drivers.
About the time I painted the tire cover for The S-I-L, I painted one for my Wrangler. This design was a quilt block, a pattern called "Diamond Star," which I was in the process of piecing. It, too, has faded, and it has zillions of tiny slits in it from where Lucy the Cat (rest her soul) used it as a climbing assistant to get onto the Jeep's roof.
My Wrangler (which I named "Eugene" the day I got it, 20+ years ago) just had his transmission rebuilt, and I'm intent on driving it before the weather turns cold. The Husband gave me a new set of seat covers for my birthday, which we haven't installed yet. We've removed the carpet (but haven't put it back in yet) and painted the floor pan. Since we've done all this "spiffing up" to the Jeep, it's time for a new tire cover, with Eugene on it, now that the original Eugene tire cover has been retired.
The original Eugene was nothing but Eugene, standing on his hind legs, against a circular background. I want mine to be a little different. Friday afternoon, I said to The Husband (who has a little more imagination than I), "Think of something I can make Eugene do." A little while later, he came out to the back porch and asked, "Did you know that Eugene eats orchids?"
WHAT? NO! I had not known that.
Problem solved: there will be orchids in the new Eugene design!
I drew the design in a sketch book, then enlarged it on the back side of some Christmas wrapping paper (the only paper in the house as big as a tire). Then I spent the rest of the afternoon getting up close and personal with orchids, so that I'll know how to paint them when my new tire cover gets here this week.
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