Suburban Farmer

Here are 20 pounds of home grown tomatoes. Most of you know we live in a condo, so how did we aquire these beauties? My folks live about two miles from us, and in recent years have become unable to do the whole garden thing, despite plenty of garden space. We have worked out a great arrangement. I go over and rototill, put a bunch of steer manure in and Mom and I pick out the plants and plant them. She waters and weeds and we all share the wonderful produce we get.
Despite Daddy's protest of me picking all of those green tomatoes, all 20 pounds of these are dead ripe. The green ones are an heirloom variety called Aunt Ruby's German, which I highly recommend. They are delicious!
Since I am leaving tomorrow for Sons of Norway's International Convention, I had to do something with all of these beautiful tomatoes. I cook them up, remove the skins and seeds and freeze them for winter use. The green ones are a lot more juicy, so they will go into soup this winter. The red ones (ace) will probably become spaghetti sauce. as they have more pulp.
My ancestors were farmers and I guess I still have some of those genes in me. I'm not much of a gardener, but is is very satisfying to dig in the dirt with your own hands (or back, with the rototiller) and have organic, home-grown goodies to satisfy the tummies.

Nicknames

By the way, for those of you reading this, my family is big on nicknames. Any reference to Toby or Tobes is Kristen, my eldest daughter who will be 21 in two days. (God, it seems like yesterday that she was born - all big and blue!). Wa is Laura, who turned 18 in July. Together they call themselves Wobes. They are very close and I'm very happy for that.
I started calling Kristen Toby when she was about six weeks old. Sappy story, which I won't go into, but she has been Toby in our family forever.
Wa came about when they were both in high school. Kristen reverted to when she was three and Laura was born and she called her Wawa. One of her friends, asked Kristen, "Where's the Wa?" We all thought it was funny and we have called her Wa or "The Wa" ever since"
So that's Toby and Wa.
Banna and Pop Pop are my parents - so named by the oldest grandchild, my nephew Marcus. That was his version of Grandma and Grandpa and all of the grandkids and us call them Banna and Pop Pop.
As they say in Norwegian, kjæje barn har mange navn. It means a beloved child has many names. They are all beloved.

Don't hate on attorneys!

Everyone LOVES to hate on Lawyers. Don't do it, as you may need one some day. I never thought I would need one, but it turns out I did.

I have found myself in the unfortunate position of needing to hire a lawyer to defend myself against a nutty woman about a fence issue. I won't bore you all with the details, but I had an ugly problem with a fence re-build on a property I manage. Turns out the rear neighbor is a total whack job. Who knew?

This woman got out of line with her demands, to the point where I felt I was over my head.
I then consulted with one of the best real estate attorneys in our town. Yeah, it cost me a few hundred bucks, but he gave me GREAT advice and the crazy woman backed down.

We will be putting up the fence next week ( I hope) and this will be behind me. I have learned a thing or two during this episode and hope I don't need to consult my attorney in the future. If I do, I know Dave will be there. He really helped me out.

Yay, Lawyers!

Kids are funny!

Pat got a new truck a couple of months ago. He got a Toyota - strippo model, which is what he wanted and he loves it. His only requirements were A/C and a CD player.
His daughter, Robin, was in the area this week, as she was doing an audit in Santa Cruz - about 30 miles away. Pat had the day off yesterday and hung out with grandson, Aidan, who will be four next week.
They were going for a ride and Pat was putting Aidan in the truck. Aidan pointed to the window crank and said "Grandpa, what's that?". Too funny!

Blended names

Why oh why do the people who write for these rag magazines insist on blending celebrity couple names? Brangelina, Johnnifer, TomKat, etc. It wasn't cute or clever when they first started doing it and it's now downright nauseating.
Can you imagine if they did that in the 50s and 60s? Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton would be "Lick". Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher would be "Deddie". Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall would be "Humpen". At least that's funny AND clever.
Enough already.