Farmstand Veggies and A Beach House Cigar

Where were we this weekend?

  No, not at a flower show.

Farmstand Flowers, Orient, NY

We were stalking things like this:

Possible captions for this picture:
1) "I told you not to touch that frog!  Next time listen to your mother."
2) "Hey, Doc, you got a salve for this?"
3) "What do you mean, I'm not Jack O'Lantern material?"
4) Getting the blue ribbon this fall, the gourd submitted by the Federal Government's
Plum Island Animal Disease Research facility, just off shore . . . .

What would your caption be?

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Yup, we were out on eastern Long Island.

We gathered, 11 of us, at the beach house,

to celebrate niece Mary's 22nd birthday.

It's been a long time since that many people stayed overnight in that house.

We should do it more often!

My sister Peggy, her husband Bill, Howard and I did some farm stand stalking. 

We headed east to Sep's in East Marion and Latham's in Orient.

When I look at this picture, a dozen remarks spring to mind.

None of which is blog fodder.

Don't ask me what I think when I look at this over-achiever.

My sister made friends with some weeny-teeny-mini veggies.

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Vegetables in the Fall look like they've just

tumbled out of a Dutch Old Master's canvas.

There is such bounty.

Summer's last hurrah, and those veggies that will go the distance and last into the winter months.

Peggy was so fond of this tiny purple pepper (and it is smaller than it looks in the picture),

that the farm stand lady gave it to her, along with a pinky-finger sized lavender eggplant.

This was a good thing, as we didn't want Peggy crying on the way home without her new friends.

Cauliflower season is in full swing, and James Beard and I agree:

Long Island Cauliflower is the bomb.

And sometimes it is even a bargain.

I did not make this up.  Scout's honor.

Oh dear.  At Sep's, they have painted the almost-a-word "PUNKINS" on a display.

Do we forgive them for being too cute?  Yes, because pumpkins just are that cute.

We piled all our vegetables and funky punky pumpkins into the red minivan,

and headed back to the beach house.  After a mile or so . . . Sniff sniff.

And . . . the unmistakable scent of cauliflower perfumed the air.

When we were kids, we'd hold our breath passing the cauliflower fields.

Although they weren't nearly as bad as the duck farms used to be!

Back at the beach house,

Howard headed for the bench on our lawn.

Long, late afternoon shadows . . . the days are so much shorter now.  Bummer.

He was checking out the unusually low tide.

Accompanied by a cigar.

It was a terrific weekend, and we'll probably be back next weekend,

taking advantage of those last glorious, mild Fall

weekends before Winter blows in and makes us all crabby.

If by "us all" we mean "me."

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Visit Mary at Little Red House for Mosaic Monday.

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Coming up in a day or so, a TOH blog post about an enchanted village.

Really.  Including Indians and little people.

Happy New Week!   -- Cass