Here at Red Oak House, we’ve established a tradition, an annual mid-August BLT party with our good friends Bob and Jodi and Larry and Charlotte.  Some years Clay attends if he is in town.

We cook up the bacon from Crow Butte Mercantile and slice up a bunch of our home-grown tomatoes. We were pleased today because, usually, our garden lettuce is not growing at the same time as our tomatoes, however for some reason this year, it is, so our guests also got lettuce freshly picked this morning. (I think it was because Jim planted it where there is quite a lot of shade.) For the toast, we served Bread Poets Maah Daah Hey Trail bread and fresh sourdough.

For a very special dessert, I created my special yellow tomato lime sorbet, using my sister’s ice cream maker. This is very popular and a surprisingly tasty treat. I mean, who would think that yellow tomatoes would work out this way?

The conversation is scintillating, and we have lots of laughs, too. Sadly, the daylilies have waned, but the day dawned nice and cool, so we won’t broil on the back patio, our preferred spot for this party. We’ve had two very nice rain showers in the past two days, and for this, we rejoice.

Earlier this spring, I planted 80 gladiolus bulbs, and a few are now blooming.

In case you were wondering, my German chocolate cake was a big hit with my family last night. It was wonderful to have many of us together on a summer’s night, celebrating another year for my pa. We didn’t opt for 90-plusl candles.