Hanging with the girls, letting them watch tv while I try to get the basement less squallorific for when the plumber gets here (I have visions of his mom seeing my mom at Mass and mentioning that our basement is disgusting). So in the meantime, to get rid of some of the tomatoes that are just hanging around, I decide to try to make salsa. So I do it, and then follow canning instructions and put it in the pot. Well, I don't have an actual canner, with the holder thing at the bottom. Which wasn't an issue when I made all of those pickles and tomatoes. But today, of course, one of the jars cracks open the second I put it in. The bottom just cracked right off. Damn.
Oh, and while I was outside collecting more tomatoes to make a tomato tart, I checked on our baby, a little watermelon that is the only fruit in the back corner of the yard despite the 800 yards of vines growing. It's gone. Emmer Effer. I was thinking maybe I'd harvest it today as a treat for the girls. Nope. Someone beat me to it. I see no sign of it. What kind of animal could have gotten it off the vine, and out of the yard with no evidence? It was there last time I was in the garden, so Sunday or Saturday?
Sigh.
Back to the squallor.
UPDATE 2:00pm
I went outside to bring Millie out, and lo and behold, there's my baby watermelon on the other side of the fence, in the rocks next to the library wall. I rushed over to rescue it and anticipated seeing a bunch of little bite or claw marks. And then as i walk back to the house, Char shouts out the window, "You found him!!" and I come in and she reveals that C, the most mild mannered, sweetest triplet, tossed it over the fence on Friday or Saturday. I almost cried. Sad, but true. I've seriously chanted "Don't throw the food from the garden" "Stop it, that's wasteful!" and other dorky phrases at the kids all summer long to stop them from the inevitable temptation to throw ripe veggies at the fence, fence posts, Millie, etc. All fell upon deaf ears.
Sigh.
Anyway, he wasn't even at all ripe yet. Totally white inside with the slightest pink tinge to it in one section -like chicken not all the way cooked. If you lick it, it tastes like watermelon, but not if you bite it.