Everything but the Girl

Miss me yet?
Some of you may know that I went out of town; some may have surmised that we disappeared for a few since I haven't posted doodly in over a week.
And what a week it's been! WOW!
The objective was Pinky's wedding in Lake Tahoe (California). That's Sleeping Man's niece, an important person to both of us; we had to go. We could have flown, but that's no fun (just getting to PHX...!) We could have made it up and back by car two days each way. Through Nevada.
Through desolate desert.
Or we could do it our way!
We drove through Sequoia, Yosemite and Death Valley National Parks, around Lake Tahoe, Mono Lake, Bodie and the Ancient Bristlecone Forest. (we had the convertible and we were going to make it work!) We saw water and green plants and we saw quite the opposite. We outpaced a wildfire, (making it through before the roads were shut down; it's still burning). We dodged a telescope (check out the videos). We were on some of the wildest roads I've ever seen--twisty turny craziness.
It was a low of 44 in Tahoe and a high of 121 in Death Valley. We were at 10,100 feet elevation (in the Bristlecone forest) and minus 195 (that was just in one day, only four hours drive apart).
Still, it's good to be home.
I won't get too political about the drought in California, which is all the news, other than to say: grow your own food, people. Skip the lawn and put water into fruits and vegetables. California grows HALF of all fruit, vegetables and nuts for the other 49 states. And right now California farmers are plowing under acreage and selling it off rather than try to tend to it.
We are blessed with citrus trees on our little farmette; I would not want to be buying orange juice this year, it's sure to be more costly than gold.
But before I go out and tend to my vegetables--zucchini, eggplant, corn--I have this little art challenge I played with. I love the Inchie Challenge, even if I'm finally tackling it on a Friday (it's supposed to be Every Monday, right?). The theme this week is "apple."

I was going to draw an apple, in hand. A favorite saying of mine is, "Have an apple." I use it when there's finger-pointing or blame in my direction, as if ALL the world's troubles are my fault, much like Eve in the Garden of Eden.
I looked for images of apples and started seeing candy apples. YUM! Then I thought of candy apple red paint, such as the Brian Setzer hot rod here, which led me to the LG appliances. I borrowed the image from lg.com and I'm sure they won't mind since I own a set, a gift from my ex for my fiftieth birthday. [Note to men everywhere: do NOT buy appliances as gifts. Just don't].
Ah, where were we? Gardening! Ah, yes! Water.
And I miss you, like the deserts miss the rain...and I miss you...(EBTG, get it? Too much of a stretch? Too early in them morning? Not enough coffee?)