19
May
weeds and artichokes
Finally a weekend without many planned activities let me catch up on the far overdue weeding. First I got the new weeds in the backyard that grew from the last attempt. Then I moved on to the front yard and managed to get everything but the weeds between the flagstones and the weeds along the side of the house. It was about 1.5 green barrels worth and there is probably another barrel to pull on the side. Hopefully I’ll get to that this evening. I forget how good a simple weeding can make things look.
Sunday we went to Castroville for the artichoke festival. The number of restored and modified cars on display was much larger this year. The We had some fried artichokes and I had an artichoke and carne asada taco (very good). There was a sign for artichoke cupcakes but unfortunately they were sold out. Oh well, that’s what we get for going two hours before closing. The vegetable sculptures weren’t as impressive or numerous this year except for the snake in a tree that was the first one you ssee when entering the hall. Having done almost all we went to do, it was time to buy a couple cases of artichokes and go. The nice thing about going late on Sunday is that they don’t want to haul all those artichokes away so by the time we were there a case of 18 jumbo artichokes was going for $16.
On the way back to the car I rested the artichokes down on top of a fire hydrant while we watched some dancers inside the festival area. Then I picked up the cases and turned to continue with a jolt of pain as I slammed my shin into the fire hydrant valve. About a block later I stopped and checked my shin and found it was already swollen quite a bit. Nicole got the car and came back for me and the future food. When I got home I rested it andiced it on and off for about 45 minutes which greatly reduced the swelling and today the pain and swelling is very minor, yay!