Baby Shower

JWise Photo of the Day

Rinku Shah and Caroline Wise at Kushbu's baby shower in Phoenix, Arizona

This evening Caroline and I got dressed up to attend Khushbu and Saurin Patel’s baby shower. An Indian baby shower is not your average American shower mind you, this one had nearly 200 guests in attendance, was catered, and had live music until almost 1:00 in the morning. We only stayed until 10:00 pm since I was beat after getting up at 4:00 am to help open the farm stand out in Tonopah, but in the short few hours we were there we had a lot of fun. If you are wondering if that is Khushbu in the picture with Caroline: no it is not, this is our friend Rinku Shah. Kushbu was so busy greeting guests, giving a speech, handing out gifts, and leading dances that we never got the opportunity to get a nice photo of Caroline with Kushbu, so good old Rinku will have to do.

50/50

JWise Photo of the Day

Sunset over the White Tank mountains west of Phoenix, Arizona

Does this look like the sky from a weather report that says we have a 50/50 chance of monsoon storms? Not a chance. Today was a beautiful day, though, a bit humid, but under 100 degrees. Some heavy clouds drifted by throughout the earlier part of the day. At one point, off in the distance, rain could be seen falling to earth. By late afternoon it was clear that we wouldn’t have a storm in the evening anyway. Lightning was visible in the thunderheads down south; maybe we’ll be graced by another storm later tonight.

March of the Monsoon

JWise Photo of the Day

Monsoon storm approaching out of the north heading for Phoenix, Arizona

Approaching from the north, a monsoon moves towards Phoenix, Arizona. Late in the afternoon, the winds kicked up from the south and the clouds began to thicken and cover the sky. Long before the rain was seen, it was smelled. It took a few more hours before we would be hit by a ferocious downpour, followed by a spectacular lightning display that spidered and arched across the skies, illuminating the night for what seemed to be seconds at a time instead of the usual quick bolt, flash, and thunderous roar.

The Saga Continues

JWise Photo of the Day

Sliced tomatoes prepared for dehydrating

Dehydrating tomatoes requires approximately 18 hours of drying time when sliced 3/8th’s of an inch thick. After making all that ketchup I was down to about 24 pounds of Roma tomatoes so I plugged in the dehydrator, broke out the mandolin (as in slicer, not the stringed instrument), and started filling trays with tomato slices. I can only dry about 28 tomatoes at a time so this should only take about 4 days.

Ketchup Red

JWise Photo of the Day

Ketchup

This photo is ketchup red precisely because it is ketchup. Three days ago I told readers about what I’m doing with more than three hundred pounds of tomatoes, I forgot to include that I’ve made ketchup. A gallon and a half of ketchup is what I ended up with after cooking down close to forty pounds worth of Romas. Caroline has found a recipe for honeyed tomato butter, suppose I’ll try anything to get rid of all these tomatoes.

What a Relief

JWise Photo of the Day

A wad of wet dust brushed off an air conditioner coil that was stopping the unit from functioning

No, it’s not what you think it is. Our air conditioning stopped working and the temperature in our little abode quickly rose to 96 degrees Fahrenheit (35.5 Celsius). Two days later, Roger, the air conditioning repairman, scaled a ladder up into our near 140 degrees (60c) crawl space and brushed off a huge wad of moist clumping dust off the cooling coils which as it turns out was stopping our a/c from functioning. Living in the desert of Phoenix, Arizona, being without cooling is a near impossibility, late in the day frustration starts to set in as you wonder how in the world to sleep in these temperatures.