What's Growin' Wednesday

 We got back from worship tonight and I remembered that the tell-tale sign that one of my watermelons was ripe had shown up. So I went out to grab that baby.

The tell-tale sign was supposed to be that the tendril (following the stem of the watermelon back to the vine, there is a curly little tendril at that place) had dried up and turned brown, essentially died. I didn't know how accurate that was but I had seen it enough times that I decided it was probably more accurate than thumping the poor thing (I could never tell by thumping in the grocery store anyway) or counting days. 

The other sign you look for is that the white spot has turned buttery yellow. Well, that had happened about a week or two ago but the tendril had still been green until around Monday or so.

Truth be told, I have had a pretty yucky day. So I really needed a little pick me up.

Well, I picked up all 18.6 pounds of that thing. It weighed more than our Eskie.

I was so afraid cutting into it. I had been scared the whole time that I would pick it too soon or too late. And as one thing I read said, you only get one chance with a watermelon because they don't ripen after cut off the vine.

It wasn't quite as red as I had expected so I was even more afraid I had messed it up. But then I cut a few little chunks out of it and gave it a taste. It was so sweet and juicy. I was doing my victory dance. Rugrat and Chick both tried it and I gave a piece to Hubby. They all agreed it was perfect.

Rugrat was about to go to bed but she wanted assurance that she could have some in the morning with her breakfast. I think she was as excited as I was.

So my pretty rotten day got a whole lot sweeter -- with my very first grown-by-me watermelon.