Sharing my End-of-Summer Watermelon

I went to the store today for a gallon of milk and some lettuce. As I walked through the produce section, there were the most immense watermelons I have maybe ever seen! I had not come for a melon, but I reached in to thump one, like my grandpa always did, and it sounded perfect. "Hmmm. Wonder how much one of those behemoths cost?" I wrestled it out of the box, boosted it into my cart and wheeled it off to gather my other groceries.  When I got to the checkout, and they put it on the scale, it wouldn't register...because the scale only goes to thirty pounds!!! So, however much my watermelon really weighs, I only paid for 30 pounds of it, because that is how they deal with such a thing. (Wish I could get on a scale that only weighed up to about 130 lbs, and just have them credit me with only weighing that much.) At any rate, it was a perfect melon, crispy and sweet, and we couldn't quite eat the whole thing that night, but by the next morning, we had bested it.

This has been a weird summer for me. For most of the summer, my two oldest daughters were living away from home and my two middle children were working all week at a scout camp, where they lived in tents and only came home on weekends, so during the week, we would sit down to dinner with just my husband, myself and my two youngest children. The big table seemed lonely, and the chickens had lots of extra scraps, because I have trouble remembering to down-size my recipes.  But, two weeks or so ago, my house filled back up again, and I have been ecstatic to have all my kids around. We have even had my married son and his little family for Sunday dinner and ALL the chairs were filled, and my heart. So, at this moment, we are equal to a big melon. I am savoring it all here at the end of summer, before some of them leave again.  I am glad to see them grow, and be so independent, but my favorite is when they are all together, teasing and laughing and sharing joy.

The blog has been broken for quite some time. Last October, Blogger made some changes that affected my template and it has taken my tech-challenged brain a long time to figure it all out, but we seem to be mostly functional again, and I am not discouraged when I log on now, so hopefully some new recipes will show up. Thanks for stopping by to catch up with me and my family! Labor Day is coming, you might check out this post to find menu suggestions for the holiday. Enjoy all of your last lovely summer experiences!

Jenny