Roadkill Potatoes

You saw the roadkill cabbage we collected on our walks when heads rolled off the trailers as they bounced down our road from the harvest to the packing shed. Cabbage harvest is over and potatoes are now being harvested. Here is what we picked up on our walk out to our mailbox.

This is how they harvest the potatoes. If you click on the last picture, you can see how full the wagons get after just one time down a row. No wonder potatoes bounce off when they go down our road.

Raising potatoes is a lot less labor intensive than cabbage or other vegetable crops. For example, it only takes two drivers to harvest the potatoes rather than a crew of 10 to 15.

I understand that the potatoes from our county are used mostly to make potato chips. Our area is the potato capital of Florida. In fact, Bunnell just held its annual Potato Festival--though this year they renamed it the Harvest Festival to include the cabbages and other veggies grown here now that agriculture has been diversifying.

New Stairs

Spring is here in full bloom. Here is a sample of the magnolia tree and the gardenia bush blossoms.

But as you can see when you look at when grandma smells her prize flowers, the setting is not very appealing...

so grandpa's task is to make a more pleasant setting by building a new stairway from the back porch to the picnic and play area, create a flower and herb garden and design a covering for the garbage cans on the side of the house. Here are the results.

Things will look better when the grass fills in. This is just the first of the outdoor projects to make the cabin a showplace for visitors.

The Diet

Mom decided to put me on a diet to get rid of some belly fat before I take the boy scouts to summer camp. Here is the before picture at the start of the "fool proof" diet that guarantees a 8 to 12 pound loss within the first two weeks.
BEFORE:

We usually only eat 2 meals a day but on this diet, you eat 6 times a day, Filipino style--a big breakfast, lunch, and dinner and snacks midway between the meals and before bedtime. I complained that the portions seemed a bit large, but she said she was following the directions exactly and the book said that the diet was designed so that you would feel full rather than starved. I felt stuffed all week.

When I weighed myself after the first week, I reported that I only lost weight if I took off ALL my clothes, which could be a bit embarrassing if I wanted to use the scales at Publix Supermarket. Here's my picture after one week of the foolproof diet.
AFTER!!!

When Mom was making gazpacho as a small part of the noon meal for today, I noticed that it seemed like she was making A GALLON!! She said she was just doubling it so she could have some too. I asked to look at the recipe. Notice what I saw in the bottom left corner...

By doubling the recipe, she was making enough gazpacho for 10 people!! No wonder I wasn't losing any weight. She didn't notice that most of the recipes weren't for single portions.

We'll see if the diet now works with the adjusted amounts so I won't have to weigh myself nude at Publix. I was a bit anxious when I read on the book cover that this diet was foolproof. To protect the creator of the diet, I won't tell you which diet it is.

We've been laughing all day about our diet mishap. Oh yes, I staged the after picture with pillows under my hoodie, but I certainly felt that way all week.