Dock Diving at Avalon Ranch

So we went to the Avalon Ranch again this past weekend to introduce Cosmo to dock diving during their 'fun day'.  Lots of dogs, big and small, young and old showed up.  The day was truly designed for teaching as the Ranch owners permitted ample time for the dogs to get use to the dock and ramp.

Unfortunately, Homer was not allowed to participate -- doctor's orders.  Due to some breathing issues our vet has said NO to swimming.  I did lobby my wife on his behalf but that didn't get anywhere.

Nonetheless, Cosmo took to diving rather naturally as you will see from this little video.  His best jump was about 10 feet which is a far cry from the distance obtained from the younger experienced dogs jumping up to 3 times that distance.  But like the majority of the dogs, all they're focussed on is getting the toy!  It's the humans who become fixated on the distance.

Garden Update

Wow.  August just flew by.

I'm overdue to give you a run down on how the garden faired through the drought-like summer.

Cantaloupe – Simply the best year for cantaloupe ever!  I harvested about a dozen of these beauties.  Normally, I only get few melons but with this many I was able to spread them around to the neighbours and take a bunch to work.  Their taste was off the charts.

Carrots – I planted 'rainbow' varieties of carrots this season.  When BBQ'd and carmelized, they are simply the best I've ever eaten.

Colourful carrots along with yellow zucchini and green cucumbers.

Tomatoes – Overall, a top notch season for tomatoes.  Large yields of heavy and juicy fruit.  The winner in the tomato grouping is definitely the black cherry variety.  So plump, juicy and sweet.  The Italian beef steak variety are pretty impressive too.  We’ve been eating tomato salads at least once, and often twice, per day for almost a month now.  I was disappointed in the taste of the Italian roma variety but that was only until my wife used them to make a pasta sauce that was soooooooo good.

Of course Homer thinks the tomato harvest was a good one too.

Large beef-steak and black cherry tomatoes.  Note the size of the peeled onion beside two cantaloupe.

Beans – I planted two rows of beans this season, one green and one yellow.  We had such a large harvest giving away over a full garbage bag of beans after we had our fill.  Needless to say next season we will only be planting one row.

Peppers – A very good year for peppers located beside the garage.  Most of them are red bell peppers and we’ve been eating them for almost a month now.  There is a problem with them though – earwigs.  Earwigs have burrowed their way into some of them creating a localized rot (typically on the bottom).  It’s unfortunate because we often have to pick them before they're ready in order to salvage the pepper.  They are good though.

Red and green cherry bombs with some red and green bell peppers.  Nice looking basket of cherry tomatoes too.

Garlic – I plant garlic after Halloween each year using cloves from some of the largest bulbs of the season.  This year the practice really paid off.  I had 99% success rate and the harvested bulbs, as a whole, were fairly large.

Onions – We planted red and white Spanish onions from small seedlings purchased at the Parkdale Market.  As usual, we are harvesting some really large bulbs.

Cucumbers -- Lots.  I really like how the cucumber cages worked out permitting the plants to grow vertically and allowing easy harvest.

Zucchini -- We ended up with plenty of zucchini for the two of us.  With four plants though I was expecting more though.  The plants developed some powdery mildew fairly early which stunted the plant's growth.  I'll have to look into this in more detail prior to next season.