Here we are, in the heat of summer.  This is the seventh annual Summer Sucks post I have posted, and I have nothing more original to add than I wrote so many years ago.

Summer heat around here, it sneaks up on you.  It’ll be in the eighties, you can handle that.  You like a little warm sun on your shoulders.  Then before you have a chance to enjoy the eighties it’s a hundred and five for a week straight and all your green bean plants look like dehydrated skeletons. I hate it.  I start dreaming of autumn.  I start planning trips to Walgreens to buy scented candles with flavors like “Hayride” and “Ghostly Apple Spice.”  I get excited.  I love hating summer and waiting for the first cold day in September.  I love when the leaves die and change color.  I love football and back-to-school and Halloween and Thanksgiving and I get more excited each year waiting for shorter days and writing run on sentences like this about the lovely time of year that is coming OH SO VERY SOON!

Oh, and before I forget, let me plug The Max’s blog.  He was spending so much time learning code.  I have no idea why he decided to learn code, but he did.  He was making web page after web page and he told me he wanted to make a blog like mine.  So I showed him how.  I carefully walked him through opening an email account and a wordpress page and then he exploded on his own, writing post after post.  I had to intervene and let him know that he must ask me before he posted anything.  Why?  He is eleven years old and has no filter.  He was writing about off the record comments that I and Mr. Pilver said jokingly and while they were funny to him, they might be taken the wrong way by CPS.  Also, he loves ending sentences with prepositions and I hate that.  I had to stop that.  Anhow, visit MrMaxMan .  He checks his stats very often and he would love a comment if you feel the desire.  Again, mrmaxman.wordpress.com.

Back to the seasons.  Here is the forecast for Los Angeles.  Not bad.  Happy warm fun.

Here is the forescast for Pilverville.  Still not bad, but this is the cooling trend.  Likely won’t last very long before the hell on earth temperatures begin again.

So, it’s hot and we garden a great amount.  Here is a picture of the leftover canning jars from last year we need to consume so I can have room for canning our new crops.

One of the first crops to be canned are pickling cucumbers.  We grow the cucs and the dill ourselves.  In addition we add our own garlic and hot peppers.  I don’t love the hot pickles, but the pickled garlic, meant to only add flavor to the flavorless cucumbers is the greatest thing.  We, as a family, fight over who gets to eat the cloves of delicious dill soaked happiness.  I am going to grown more garlic in the future, just for the pickled treats I get to enjoy later.

Here Is a bunch of cucs ready to be pickled.  As you can see, one of these things is not like the others.  One is orange.  One needs a fixing up like you have likely seen before on other blogs, and I am going to copy fully.  One needs to be a…

PICKLELANTERN!  I’m terrible at jack-o-lanterns as well.  But this carved cucmber holds the promise of harvesty fall happiness.  It’s a good pickle.   If waiting for fall is not your thing then you must instead love winter. Enjoy this next photo.  This is from the iphone app I paid nothing for and treasure greatly.

Friends, Christmas is coming.  Only 152 shopping days remain.  Seize the day.