Tomatoes, Watermelon, ... and Doves

Yesterday was opening day for dove season here in Maryland, and I harvested 6 with my 20 guage shotgun. That's double my previous personal best. On top of that, it was a perfect day for sitting outside in a corn and sunflower field for four hours: nice breeze, beautiful skies, not too hot or cold.

And, when we got done, since I was already outfitted for tall grass with plenty of tick protection and planning a thorough de-ticking (actually didn't find any which surprised me), I harvested my second big batch of Italian tomatoes. Yes, they are rather overgrown with weeds... thus the relevance of the tick protection. But the great part is, I harvested around 400 tomatoes - two big dishpans full. Tomorrow it'll be a big squeezo-ing, spaghetti sauce-ing, and canning day for me. I expect I'll probably get 3 gallons or more juice out of them for another 6 or more quarts of spaghetti sauce. A good tomato year. :)

Today I watered everything and miracle-growed the watermelons. Also picked two gorgeous watermelons. The one I got earlier was 14 pounds. The ones from today were 17.2 pounds and 12.6 pounds. Best of all, there are still six more out there that I can see: two small and still growing, two medium, and two large almost ready to pick (the tendrils are beginning to dry out, but aren't quite there yet). I love watermelon, but I'm glad they're spacing themselves out a bit so we can enjoy them over a longer time period. And I still see some flowers, so who knows, there may be even more in the future. :)