In culinary news...

With a heavy heart, I've consumed the last bottle of the BEST SALAD DRESSING EVER. (Still delicious, even though it was MONTHS past the expiration date.) Goodbye, "Classic Greek with Imported Olive Oil" by New England Inn Recipes...you will be sorely missed.

Here's something weird...according to Google Analytics, most strangers who navigate to this blog from search engines land on the February, 2008 lament that this salad dressing had apparently been discontinued. They arrive using keywords like "crowley & shay's gourmet foods" and "crowley new england inn dressing" and every other conceivable combination of significant keywords.
And here's why I'm FINISHED trying to grow tomatoes in Abilene...

Birds. Horrible birds.

Sticking their filthy, avian-flu-riddled beaks into every tomato *just* as it begins to ripen.

Eating even the remotely pink ones down to the nub.

Houston saw a mockingbird reveling in the planter the other day as if it were his own personal salad bar. It is so frustrating because fresh tomatoes are one of the BEST things about summer. (One of my favorite memories is when Russell and Bethany and I grew cherry tomatoes at our duplex on Minter Lane. We had the BEST tomatoes in that sandy soil, and Bethany would eat them like candy. We also had marigolds and hot peppers...and even wild strawberries near the leaky, perpetually wet AC unit!)

In other news, the basil and rosemary are doing GREAT. The cilantro has already gone to seed; we cut it back to stalks and are wondering if it will come back. Will post details about the peppers, if there's any good news.