Did I Mention the FREAKING Cucumbers?

See that? That's today's pickling adventure --Sweet Pickled Relish. I'm a little concerned about it because it doesn't look anything like, well, THIS. Which is the store-bought version.

Now that I think about it, though, the ingredient list doesn't bear any resemblance to THIS, either.

I notice they added color--which explains my somewhat anemic looking version, I guess.

I ALSO noticed that they added "high fructose corn syrup," too. I'm convinced that when archaeologists dig up our civilization millions of years from now, they will find that the secret to the demise of our entire population is the fact that we are poisoning ourselves with high-fructose corn syrup. Just TRY to buy things without it. And to think we are feeding that to our CHILDREN--because we are, no matter how we try to avoid it. It's in YOGURT. Ketchup. Ice cream.

In fact there are few things in which it is not.

It is NOT, however, in cucumbers. This is the remainder of the cukes in our house after making relish and pickles and giving them away (I told the house cleaners that part of their clean-up was to take away cucumbers) and looking for blemishes which might excuse the fact that I am pitching them over the back fence to feed the rabbits... after all of that, I still have THIS:

(Note the bowl of tomatoes--merely a precursor of the harvest we'll have of THEM.)

Y'all.

No, SERIOUSLY.

I think I am Cucumbered OUT.

I've resorted to using them as a drying rack for my new socks, a gift for my uncle who hosted us so amazingly graciously in Germany.

The yarn is Claudia Hand-Paint (my drug of choice) in the flavor entitled appropriately enough, "Eat Your Veggies." And you GUYS, I knitted them in five days. AND I didn't run out of yarn. AND, I had house-guests. I'm on something of a sock BINGE, even though I didn't go to the Sock Summit.

Not that I'm bitter.