This year has evaporated.  And it has been strange.  I never saw an August in Oklahoma like the one we just had.  It rained and rained.  And there were only a few unbearably hot days.  September vanished in a whirl and October is more than half gone.  The analogy of sand running through your fingers is appropriate.

I had John, the man who helps me in the yard, pull up all the tomato vines.  I bet I have over 100 green tomatoes.  I'm giving them away as fast as I can.  They sit on the counter and ripen faster than I can eat them.  Last year I wrapped them in newspaper and put them in a dark place and still had tomatoes for Christmas.

Too much work wrapping individual tomatoes.  This time, I'm putting some of them in a drawer in the refrigerator and taking them out to ripen as I need them.  We'll see if that works.  The okra has about quit bearing.  Not enough sun.  I always hate to pull the stalks up.  It seems so final.  The cycle of life.  Winter is coming.

I am using seed from okra that my dad used years and years ago.  I always leave a few pods on the stalks to dry out so I have seed for next year.  And think of my dad.  He and Scott and I were the only gardeners in the family.  Now it's just me and Scott--out of 35 or more immediate members.  What's wrong with all of those people!!

They have asked me to do a marimba concert at one of the Senior Citizen communities.  My choir sings there twice a year and I usually play a song or two on the marimba for them.  But an entire concert would leave these old wrists and hands in a pickle.   I guess I could play--until I couldn't--and call it a concert?  Who would have thought that something I learned to do at the age of 14 would still be something I could do at the age of 79?

It is a good thing to be able to function.  We take it completely for granted when we are young.  I think my mind is okay.  Would someone out there tell me when it isn't?