Squashed!

Remember the garden I planted way back when?  Well, my friend Reta just asked me how my garden is doing, so I went out and took some photos -- something I realize I haven't done since I planted it a while back.  I am finally getting some stuff off it ... a few green bell peppers, a few jalapenos (ok, a lot of jalapenos), tons of green tomatoes (not one is turning red yet), and 14,000 pounds of squash.  I have one huge yellow squash plant that is producing giants, one green zucchini plant that is doing very well, one spaghetti squash plant that's going well, and several others, including one GIANT one that has taken over my garden, and I am not sure what kind of squash it is yet.  It must have been a single seed I dropped.  Here are some photos.

My tomatoes are under there somewhere....

The mystery squash....

The yellow squash plant ...

Spaghetti squash...

Bell peppers...

Jalapenos...

The makings for fried green tomatoes...

So far ... with all of the squash I've gotten ... I've made two loaves of killer zucchini bread, zucchini oven chips (these were awesome!), breaded-fried-zucchini (I liked the baked ones better), and tonight ... I just made Cheesy Summer Squash Casserole.  It's cooling on my stove now, and I wish I had smell-o-vision so you guys could smell this thing!  Yummy!  Here it is:

Here was my other main event today.  My driveway is a ridiculous mud pit in the wintertime, and last year, I promised myself I wouldn't do that this year.  So ... I finally had someone bring in a couple of truckloads of 3/4" gravel.  Please ignore the weeds up against the house.  I really need to mow that area.  Always a million projects...

Here's some advertising for ya, boys!

This worked out really well.  The only glitch was that the tailgate on the truck wasn't cooperating, so some of the gravel got laid very thick in some places, and didn't get spread at all in one spot.  Considering all I have to spread this out is a gravel rake, I was not looking forward to the work ahead of me.  And just then ... before my very eyes ... appeared the greatest guy ever!  (Notice the very lumpy gravel ... I had a hellofatime driving up or down it.)

As you can see, he does not find my photography habit nearly as entertaining as I do!

By the way, I just snuck a bit of that squash casserole.  Oh man ... that is soooo good!

Anyway, off to work Dean and I went spreading the gravel as best we could.  Then Dean had an awesome idea and rode home and got his homemade dragging thing.  He came back and had the gravel spread in about 15 minutes flat.  I am not sure yet what I want to do with that one pile, so we left it right where it was.  It's out of the way, so I'm not worried about it.

So this should tamp down a bit with some driving on it.  And will tamp down a little more when it gets wet.  I'm sure some of it will shift and slide, but that's not such a big deal.  It's a heck of a lot easier to deal with than the mud and ruts the tires on my truck create.  And I won't be tracking the mud in the house.

Off to have some dinner.  See ya!

J