Cedar Hills has pressurized irrigation, to which our sprinklers are connected. The past few weeks the pumps that keep it pressurized have been on the fritz. They replaced two of the four pumps a couple weeks ago, but the remaining pumps failed this week. That has kept us outside watering various things by hand, using a hose connected to our culinary water. This is not ideal, but it has given us a chance to keep a close eye on things.

If you’ve ever grown zucchini or yellow squash, you know how fast they grow. As I was outside watering tonight, I noticed we have a few zucchini ready to harvest, and a few that will be ready in a couple more days. I decided to pull the first one from the vine and have it for dinner tonight.

While I was sitting here waiting for the pictures to upload, Charmaine walked in the door with the first blackberry. Wow. It is so amazing. I don’t remember blackberries tasting this good in Washington. I now question the validity of my memory. How could blackberries be better in Utah? It doesn’t make sense, but it certainly seems that way. Amazing. We’re really going to enjoy having blackberries… now to get some more!

I have never been very fond of cats. I especially don’t like cats in my yard. For the past 20 minutes, I have been researching cat traps. You see, my neighbor doesn’t keep track of his cat. It jumps the fence and tears up my garden. This makes me very upset.

When I awoke this morning, I realized the cat had destroyed 25% of my corn. Enough is enough, I thought. With some careful work this evening, I may have saved some of it, but only time will tell.

Needless to say, when the cat hopped the fence tonight and ducked into the rows of corn again, I grabbed an 8 foot 2-by-2 that I was measuring (pole beans need something to climb) and gave the cat a surprise of my own.

In other news, we decided to do some more thinning to the turnips, beets, and carrots.