Monday Meanderings - 7.20.2015

Barb and I were discussing the frequency of changing the sheets on our bed. You know, every few days, once a week, every two weeks? What was optimal? She didn't think helpful my observation that when I was in college, I changed my sheets every semester, whether they needed it or not. Usually.

I think we have fetched up on the shores of summer. It's hot here in ATX, dear hearts.I may have mentiond this last week, but it's still hot so I'll mention it again. And probably mention it a few more times, I'm pretty sure.

Our fig trees are over-achieving this year. These are the self-same trees that, years ago, when I mentioned to an experienced gardener friend of ours that I had just planted three fig trees, he replied, "You better hope that two of them die." They didn't and from time to time we are up to our elbows in figs. Figs on the driveway, figs on the trash cans, figs on the outside A/C unit, and if you step foot under the trees, gummy, sticky figs on the bottom of your shoes!

I love me some strawberry-fig preserves, but the bad news is that figs are not on my diet at the moment, so in preparation for when they are back on the menu I slipped some shopping bags over my shoes and picked a bucket of figs from the low-hanging branches (had I been able to reach the top of the trees I would have had a barrel of figs) and froze them. And since the Fredricksburg peaches are abundant this year, I'm going to freeze a batch of them as well and in a few weeks I'm going to have a fruit fest!

Alas, after last years bumper crop, this year's pecan harvest appears to have come to this:

At least one can hope that the absence of pecans will give the tree limbs a rest this year. By the way, I have no idea why my thumb looks dirty in this picture. I wash my hands often. Really. At least once a semester.

I have finished the Robert E. Lee book at the studio - except for the 90 pages of detailed notes and sources in the back of the book. After Lee's surrender to Grant, he accepted the position of President of Washington College (after his death renamed Washington & Lee College). He is content to live out his life in obscurity at what was at the time a backwater institution.

His wife, on the other hand, spent the rest of her years battling the U.S. Government for redress and compensation for illegally seizing the family estate overlooking Washington -  now the burial place of some 7,000 Union soldiers, put there in large part at the hand of her husband. We of course, know this as Arlington National Cemetery. It was an interesting read.