It’s possible that I mentioned that we got a water softener a little while ago. 

And by that, I mean my mother, sick of me putting it off, found a plumber in Ithaca, picked out a softener, had it installed, (SCHEDULED the installation), and paid for the whole thing. 

Um. 

Sometimes I manage to stop Mom from getting carried away.  Sometimes. 

Not always, clearly. 

So, the problem was, before that we’d installed a toilet. 

And hard water – and our water was both orange and REALLY HARD – and toilets are a bad combination, it seems.  Our toilet wasn’t really flushing the way it oughta anymore. 

So we took the tank off the toilet and scrubbed iron residue off of every bit we could find, put it back together – nope . Still not working. 

That means, as far as we can tell, that the problem is in the bowl, probably in the interior bit where the water swooshes around before shooting into the bowl proper. 

Thus, tomorrow or Saturday I’m buying a new toilet.  Le Sigh. (by the time this posts, I may have already bought one.  Still Sigh)

Edited to add:

I bought the new toilet!  Lowes’ curbside pickup is… not? But it works decently. 

And we installed it. 

But because we followed the directions, it leaked. 

So last night, we re-installed it. 

NOW we have a toilet that flushes properly again!

At this one won’t turn orange!

BUT

(back to last week)

That meant that it was an hour later than we usually start dinner. 

Okay, some of that was staying in bed post-nap cuddling for a bit, but that was 100% worth it. 

So after a little dithering, we decided on Grilled Cheese Sammiches. 

Let me tell you, Really Good Cheddar, Fresh-from-the-garden tomato, homemade bread – that’s the best grilled cheese sandwich you’ll ever eat.  

Of course, almost anything is better with any one of those things, and fresh-from-the-garden almost ANYTHING is amazing. 

(Fresh from the garden celery is actually Too Celery for me, and fresh from the garden Turnips take over soups like woah.)

Speaking of, we harvested the garlic T planted last autumn.  We actually found out what happens if you wait about a week too long – the stalk starts to pull away from the garlic head in preparation for growing for the next year. (photos to follow, it’s pretty awesome). 

Fresh garlic, by the way, tastes REALLY GARLIC.  I’m hoping to roast a head one the next cool day. 

Also, while store-bought garlic has a little bend to it when you’re peeling it or smashing it (to peel it, usually); fresh fresh garlic is like nothing-nothing-BROKEN.  It makes peeling it sort of interesting. 

But So Delicious. 

100% worth growing, will grow again. 

(in other news, we are drowning in cucumbers.  Send help.)