Dog Days

It is a beautiful evening, after a sunny, breezy Saturday without the sticky heat we have had lately. We spent most of the day around the house, playing with the dogs and barbequing. I am pleased to announce that we have made two decisions; we are keeping the puppy, and her name is now Rosie. The name is partly in honor of Rose Park! She is a wonderful dog, eager to please and obedient. She is very, very good on a leash, and stays extremely close when off a leash. In fact, I had a hard time taking pictures of her outside today, because she stays right by my feet!

Our garden is doing OK. Actually, the tomotoes have completely taken over, eliminating the weeds, the jalapenos, the green chiles, the eggplant, the zucchini, and finally their own cages. The only other survivors in the patch now are a clump of basil and a single giant sunflower that sprouted from a seed dropped from the birdfeeder. One of the tomato plants actually grew up between the boards of the deck (which is about six feet off the ground), and is now growing over a deck chair. I started the tomatoes from seeds, and the most agressive type of plant is from a mixed pack of small tomato varieties. It includes yellow pear tomatoes, and yellow, orange and red cherry tomatoes. Asher and I were picking tomatos this afternoon. He looked at the mixed bowl of tomatoes, picked one up, and said:

Asher: "what's this one?" Me: "a pear tomato" Asher: "what's this one?" Me: "an orange tomato" Asher: "what's this one?" Me: "a cherry tomato" Asher "where's apple tomato?!?!"

My success with ribs last weekend inspired me to try a brisket today. It was on the grill all day, and turned out really good. I was very proud of myself. Asher ate a lot of brisket! I asked Asher if we should form a competition BBQ team. He said

"I need fire! I need a GRILL!!!! We cook. Daddy and Asher and Mommy...

not mommy."

I think he was worried that if Sarah was on our BBQ team, he wouldn't be allowed to grill (not that I would let him grill right now.)

With several ears of grilled sweet corn, grown just a couple miles away, it was a perfect summer dinner. We are at the very height of sweet corn season right now. Trucks are parked by all the roads, selling sweet corn picked the same day. Each advertises the type of corn and the place it was grown, and there is a tremendous amount of pride about each town's own special sweet corn. Aaah, Iowa. For the record, our corn tonight was "peaches and cream", grown in Adel, soaked in water and grilled in the husk. Delectable!