Another great summer season at Joe's Pond is over - for the Joe's Pond Association, at least. We had our final meeting, our "fall" meeting, this morning. That can be a sad one, if we let it, but there are lots of our members who hang out with us until early or mid-October. Lots of others have to get back home if they have youngsters in school or their summer vacation time is used up and they need to get back to their regular jobs and lives.

Our meeting today was a good one. Short, no big issues to close the season, and although attendance was low, we all understand - it's a really nice day today and lots of people were just taking advantage of the last of the summer. Someone at the meeting explained the low attendance as being because there were no controversial issues. I think we can take that as a compliment. We had some good laughs - everyone seemed upbeat in spite of the curtain being lowered on another great summer at Joe's Pond. Fred took some pictures and I made a short slide show. Fall Meeting

You can tell folks had other things to do today rather than be at a meeting.

When we got home, I went out to the garden to pick some lettuce for lunch. There was a nagging little voice that kept telling me I should check more than the small lettuce patch. I looked under one of the huge zucchini leaves and found two pretty large zucchinis - they'll be great stuffed. That prompted me to check the cucumber vines and I found four perfect cukes there. Cucumber sandwiches! or better yet, sliced cukes in vinegar with salt & pepper.

It's funny how different people are when it comes to favorite foods. I think it has a lot to do with where you were brought up and what your family liked. My father had a taste for anything sour - lemons, vinegar, pickles; he made lots of maple syrup during his lifetime, but always said it was "too sweet" for him. I feel the same way - a little goes a long way. He liked desserts ok, but his preference was sponge cake without frosting. My mom liked ice cream. I'm not wild about ice cream, but every now and then I crave maple walnut ice cream. We had a maple creamy at the fair this year that was super good. But back to my point. I like the sour stuff like my dad, and I like butter - the real stuff - on my baked potatoes and on other cooked vegetables, but I also like raw potatoes with salt on them, tart apples and spruce gum right off the tree.

After Floriana and I were taste testing the apples at Bills, she mentioned to Monika that now she understood some of Bill's strange food preferences - he was like his mother.

We'll be busy trying to keep up with the garden from now on. I have one rapidly ripening tomato - and lots of green ones - but there's still enough warm weather ahead so I expect we'll have enough ripe ones to package up for the winter. The green ones are fine, too - a little sour, but that works just fine for me. Fortunately Fred isn't fussy and has a very pleasant habit of complimenting the cook no matter what the meal consists of. He has a sweet tooth, but gone are the days when I made a big layer cake every week to go with the ice cream we brought home in tubs (seconds) from Ben and Jerry's. I think our arteries are thanking us that we don't do that anymore.