It was cloudy today, an even gray cover, misting us in rain but not enough to actually WATER the thirsty earth. I went out with the hose after dinner and gave the potatoes and the tomatoes a good soaking, stopping to pluck another little red cherry tomato. The plants are so heavy they are pulling away from the house and leaning the slatted sticks that were supposed to support them over so far that I’m pretty sure it’s just a matter of time before they hit the ground. There are tons of tiny green tomato balls growing and still the little yellow flowers keep coming. Tomato bonanza!
The potatoes that Anders planted are nearly a foot high (though the ones in the far back corner are smaller). We have no idea when there will, or IF there will, actually be potatoes underneath those leaves. We’ve never done this before and since we planted them SUPER late (mid-June), it might be mid-September before we have new potatoes. Better late than never, though, I guess. Anders thinks the plants should flower before we’ll actually get potatoes but I don’t know…they’re the ROOTS, aren’t they? Do potato plant flowers matter when you’ve planted potatoes from pieces of potatoes? Maybe flowers don’t matter? Guess I should get Googling.
It’s funny how no one wants to complain about the heat, because this is probably the best Swedish summer in history, sun-wise. We had the hottest May on record, and it’s only gotten hotter. We haven’t gone over the highest temperatures recorded here, according to Wikipedia, but we’re pretty darn close. Today was a return to the USUAL Swedish summer weather, and there were a lot of surreptitious sighs of relief going on.
There’s not much to write about right now, or at least not a lot going on that needs to be recorded for posterity. Anders is on vacation. Karin stayed home sick with a sore throat today. I worked. Work is only slightly less busy than usual, but I’m keeping things caught up, so that’s a good feeling. It’s weird to sit down and just write like this when I haven’t been so good at doing it for so long.
We have weekend plans to go see “Bruksspelet” which is the original musical playing at Klippans old paper mill. This year’s play is set in the 1970s and further back, “In grandfather’s time”. They’ve been putting on musicals at the former paper mill since 2013 but we’ve never managed to get in gear and get tickets before now, despite having friends who have worked with it nearly since the beginning. The paper mill in Klippan opened in 1573 so it has a long history in the town. It’s pretty cool that they have made such a success of it year after year with the musical filling seats for an entire month each summer.
I just turned and looked out the window and it’s raining much more steadily now. I could hear the steady patter for several minutes before I registered what it was; it’s been so long since we’ve had rain! I hope it’s doing it up north where all the fires have been, and not just here. It’s probably just raining because I watered. I didn’t wash the car so that must be it.