PICK-YOUR-OWN VEGGIE FARM

During our travels, we stopped to shop and loaded up on veggies, only to discover there is a pick-it-yourself garden not far from Thousand Trails. Jim didn't want to pick, he isn't big on chard or kale. They had three different chards, and two types of kale.


Jim loves fresh snap peas, but they had sold out in the morning. In Murphys, you can't grow peas after may because it gets too hot. Here, in August, these pea vines are taller than me. I found a couple strays on the plants.


Fresh zuchinni.



Jim accused me of coming after him with the knife you can barely see.


The farmer, Merwyn Bay, suggested I pick cucumbers from the ladder. He says, the more you pick, the less I have to do.

He and his wife are both 80 years old and not in great health. He once owned a 100 acre dairy farm on this property. He sold the land and now keeps just 3 acres that he gardens every year. He gets help from one son and his brother-in-law.


I did the best I could to help pick the unreachables. I'd never seen a Japanese cucumber before. They are long and twisty with heavy knobs on the skin.
I bought a small amount of small tomatoes, bigger than cherry tomatoes, but still small-sized. I had just purchased cherry tomatoes. Dang!.  We ate a cuke and tomatoes with a bit of cilantro rice and chicken for supper last night. I wish I'd thrown my tomatoes out and bought more. All so fresh and delicious. I wish we'd discovered them sooner.


From his signs, it looks like he stays busy all year.


And his prices. In Murphys, I would have to pay over $12 for a bale of hay. And we went home with a bag full of veggies for under $6. Such a deal. His signs are on Birch Bay Lyndon Road if you're in the area.

WETLANDS DRIVE AND SUPERBOWL.

Just below the prison, an area known as East Wetlands stretches up to the base of a mountain range along the Colorado River.


Wetlands suggest birds to me, but we didn't see any. I expect we would during the great migration from Mexico and South America.


Much of the water here is provided by the Colorado River and flows through man-made canals.

The terrain changed from low brush to high brush and later to the growing fields under lease or private ownership on what was signed as BLM land.


Now that's green and we saw miles of it.


A group harvesting lettuce are probably not interested in Super Bowl Sunday. The boss of this crew whistled at me and indicated that I should not to take pictures of them.


I got to see all that green I was longing to see.


Various colors of green as in broccoli.


Kale.


Purple lettuce, too.


On our previous stay in Yuma, we had grapefruit just like this hanging over the motor home where we were parked. Oranges, too.


This bougainvillea doesn't compare in size to the one we walked past every morning, but there are many beautiful bushes in bloom to enjoy around town.


After our drive, we returned to town and stopped at the VFW to have a beer and a peek at the Superbowl.


We wore our grubbies, knowing we'd have to wash what we wore and take showers to get rid of the smoke. People are nice. Jim befriended Cathy Shrader in the weeks before I arrived and wanted me to meet her. Nice gal, fun to talk to. A widow like me, hesitant about on-line dating as I was.


The VFW was set up for a party, but the game hadn't started.


I jokingly asked a woman who she was rooting for. Her answer was this. We visited for an hour and left. We never did see anything but pre-game talk on the big screen television. Before going to bed, I called my kids to see who won.