Here are some pictures from the garden, and an indicator of future harvests.

Tomatoes, Roma and Beefsteak:



Bell Peppers:



Cucumbers and Zucchini:



Today's harvest: two zucchini, one cucumber, and seven Roma tomatoes.

I have been too busy to post recently. As I mentioned before, one business died today (and I had to be there holding its hand). I have not come accross any new products to recommend, not have I been in my garden except to turn on the water. The red pepper plant is blooming, though.

Right now, I'm just listening to old Depeche Mode and trying to decompress from the day's events.

Food: I've eaten pizza and leftovers for the past three days!!!!

Studies: No time, but I'll be spending next week reviewing financial accounting.

Home: Messy, but fewer computers after today.

A day in the life of an accountant...

So, you think this might be boring, mundane and an over-emphasis placed on numbers? Surely not. At least one reader must have the slightest bit of curiosity about what I do when I'm not gardening. I might re-name this blog to "the vegetarian accountant's garden."

Work: Spent 8.25 billable hours working on client projects. Received verbal assurance from a new client beginning tomorrow. One client decided to close his business (fun, fun). I completed a long-overdue reconciliation project.

Home: Not much in the way of garden or housework today. I was able to mow the lawn and finish laundry. No projects today.

Study: Commercial Paper; intro to Contracts

Food: Veggie riblets (Gardenburger), oven-roasted corn with parsley butter, and salad (avacado, veggie pepperoni, mini mozerella balls on Romaine lettuce).

Harvest: Two strawberries

An interesting read from a friend overseas in Iraq - Not in the News.

We're having a slight heat wave here in the California Bay Area. Although not triple-digit temperatures, it is warmer than we are accustomed to...the plants are loving it though! I harvested my first Roma tomatoes (only two), and have a number of fruits on the vine. About 12 cucumbers, 5 or 6 bell peppers, more zucchini (sigh) and an innumerable amount of tomatoes. I think we might be doing some canning and pickling later this month. Not necessarily together or in that order.

On another subject - oh joy of joys, football season has begun. Notice there is no exclamation point. We have almost non-stop sports in this household, and every year it seems like each sport's season gets a little longer.

As promised, I have made a movie montage of the catnip festival we had here Friday night. Catnip Fever (viewable with Quicktime).

Pictures cannot adequately describe the sound of cats storming through your house with reckless abandon...or serious dislike for each other. If you happen to be awake later in the evening in my house, you will observe a strange ritual. For no apparent reason, shortly after 10:00, the cats start running around the house and up and down the stairs.

Tonight we stopped this activity with two cat novelties - catnip and an empty packing box (which arrived concurrently with an order from JC Penney). Suffice it to say that we have two very tired cats now.

Picture montage to follow tomorrow.

Today's Harvest: 2 very large zucchini, 1 cucumber, a handful of green beans, and 1 strawberry.



The tomatoes are beginning to turn red!!!! I'm very excited - the vines are so heavy with fruit that they are actually pulling the tomato cages over. I had to go out today and reinforce the heaviest branches and secure the bottom of the cage by piling rocks around the legs.

Today's post...

This week seems like it should be light on the billing side, so I've had a little extra time to investigate new things. Today, I have two vegetarian reviews.

1) Whole Foods - this store seems to have every possible veggie product made. I found vegetarian pepperoni and deli ham. They also have an excellent selection of good cheese and other gourmet foods. Their produce is a little pricey, as it is all organic, but if you're into that sort of thing, great. In addition to their wide selection of hard-to-find foods, they have a great assortment of soups, salads and deli items if you need a quick meal.

2) Gardenburger Herb Crusted Cutlet - I used this tonight as a subsitute for a herb-roasted turkey breast. Just as tasty, meat-free, and 1/16th of the prep work. Gardenburger also has been coming out with veggie ribs and meatloaf. Tasty and fast food.

This is a delayed posting from this weekend...

This Saturday, August 16, we played in the 2nd Annual Kikuchi Golf Tournament. (For those of you who don't know, Rudy won last year.) The competition was more fierce this year, especially between Rudy, George and Mieko. I played as well, but more to have fun and spend time with the family. I have made a photo album (in iPhoto on my G4 Ti-Book), but it is quite large (33 MB). If you don't mind waiting, you can download it here. Or, email me and I will print out and send you a copy (time permitting).



It ended up being much more fun this year (at least for me), and I improved my score significantly. Rudy came in first, of course, but was followed closely by the rest of the participants. The range of scores was only 7 - 42 through 49. And I would like to take this moment to point out that I was only 3 strokes behind Rudy.

All in all, it was a fun weekend. I spent way too little time studying, but got to visit with family and friends. We had spent last weekend making little "care packages" for those participating in Saturday's golf tounament - miniature tote bags with home-made screen printing and hand-sewn buttons; then filled with golf balls, divot repair tools, tees and snacks.

One day until the *BIG* golf tournament. I'll show pictures of the gift bags I've made for the occasion. Very festive. I think the first prize might have to be something from my garden, as I haven't been able to find anything else suitable (and affordable).

I'm also very excited tonight because I found one of my very favorite small bands - the Insect Surfers. I had their album on tape, but lost it or broke it long ago. I can now replace those tapes!!!



Check them out! I'm a little disappointed that they don't have mp3 downloads like Learned Hand, but I guess not every band has a web guru. Sigh...

In anticipation of the great upcoming golf tournament this weekend, Rudy and I visited the driving range. Rudy is carefully prepping for this game on Saturday...hoping to hold on to his title as "Kikuchi Golf Tournament Champion." I am working on coming up with a suitable 1st prize. I have some ideas, but I can't disclose them on this website, else the potential winners might find out for what they are playing!!!

I do have a funny for today - completely unrelated to gardening - but definitely created a good chuckle (several times today). You need powerpoint to view this file, but its worth the time to open. Right click and save to disk - What a cat does when it sees you naked!

For those interested in a good read, I found this on the web. A story I've always wanted to read in full - The Man from Snowy River.

Another interesting morning today. On my morning walk, I chanced to come across a very odd-looking group of birds. They appeared to be some kind of ground bird, but they were a little too small to be turkeys (we have wild turkeys here in our area). As I got closer, I realized that the birds varied in size - and in fact they were turkeys. Three female turkeys with a whole flock of poults. I had never seen these game birds so young and so small. I wish I had had my camera, but instead you get this picture of fruit from my garden.



I have yet to harvest any tomatoes. I have plenty of green fruit on the vine; in fact, the whole plant is so heavy with fruit that it is having a hard time standing up on its own...even with the tomato cage! I guess we will have tomatoes (all 200 of them) in September. Right now, we can spend our meals getting sick of eating zucchini - I'm not sure what I'm going to do with these three and I have four more that will be ready in a few days. EEEK!

I have to get ready for work now, but I do want to point out that at long last I have figured out how to use the GrassHog to edge the lawn. It worked for about 5 minutes, but I'm getting closer to getting this lawn care thing figured out.

Just another quiet weekend...



I don't have any news posts for the garden after this weekend. I was planning on working on putting in some new plants, more deorative rock, and continuing work on the "remove the space plant" campaign, but I decided that with all this studying, maybe a day off would be a good thing.

We are also getting ready for the **big** family golf tournament next weekend - Rudy is practicing golf and I am putting together prizes and party favors for the players. Yes, I'm playing too, but I don't plan on being a competitor.

How about them apples...



...or tomatoes, if you will.

This is a more current picture of the garden, taken today, August 6. It's been a hectic day. Although I'm happy to have more clients, I must admin that it makes it more difficult to get household chores and CPA studying done. I did study for an hour this morning, and I did manage to clean up the house a bit, but now I have to go have dinner and then stay awake later to study more.

Hi Everyone! I've been neglectful in posting to my blog and I'm sorry. We've been very busy the past few months. As soon as we returned from our vacation in Italy, we were thrown head-first into a myriad of social of events, including weddings, BBQ's and family gatherings, as well as catching up on several projects that have been long in the making.

The biggest event recently has been that I helped my mom sell her house and move. She did most of the work, but it was still a little stressful on my end. She's only just moved and I already miss her!

The new thing now, besides the regular household upkeep, is the CPA exam in November. I am diligently studying EVERY DAY and hoping that I absorb all this "lost knowledge" that I once knew - and kicking myself for not taking the exam when I was fresh out of college. We are also working on buying another house :) and increasing the value of the current house by making sure all of its features are up to date.

Oh yeah, and the garden is doing just fine.