Disappointment

My jardale pumpkin vine has totally succumbed to disease. It looks terrible. There are a few pumpkins remaining on it. I am tired of pulling bug eggs off of it. I am ready to destroy the vine. It looks so sad with dying, fried leaves and all. I would be lying if I said I was not disappointed. I was so proud of that vine. It was a gorgeous sea of emerald green. Now it just looks crispy and wilted. The hot dry summer added to its misery. The only bright spot this year has been the loofah. The vine is about 40 ft in length, and it does not look like it suffers from the same issues as pumpkins do. It appears to be a little hardier. Because the vine is so long and there is only one fruit on it, that fruit is HUGE. I mean HUGE. It is about 2 ft in length. It looks like a green baseball bat. I cannot wait to let it dry out and peel it for a sponge. I need to research on when to cut it off and peel it. I did make a decision, though. We are not going to grow any pumpkins next year. We are going to let the disease dry out over the course of the next two years. It will also keep the squash bugs and vine borers away. I am hoping the vine borers will die out altogether after wintering over and finding no vine to bore in. (The loofah is way too thin for vine borers.) I do plan to do some more peppers (a more varied bunch since we do eat them,) tomatoes again, and some loofah since I like the results we got this year. That will probably be it.
The other bright spot in the garden....the dill. I was upset because we had black swallowtail caterpillars a few months ago on the dill that the bird ate. Well, we have a new batch, and they are doing beautifully. Some are an inch long and just gorgeous. I like to think that their mother was the swallowtail butterfly I found dead on our porch when my cousin passed away. It makes me feel better to know that she goes on and that I am watching her babies grow and makes me feel like Brian is doing ok. The concept of doing ok is weird for me because I am not really sure I believe in heaven or any form of an afterlife. I like the idea of it, but not sure that I believe it practice. Are there really angels out there? I ponder that question every now and then. I do not know the answer. It is just tough to believe that once you are gone, you are absolutely gone because life seems so real. Man's eternal question of why are here? Science would have you believe it was just chance and it could easily have been just another life form. Is that true? I know that in my small way, I am here to raise my children and be a wife to my husband. I believe that is why I did not die when I probably should have. In some ways I feel like I have always known the three most important people in my life even in my youth. It was like somehow they were always there with me. My son would like that idea. He is such a gentle soul. My daughter is probably more like me than I would like to admit, but she definitely has her father's temper. I wonder what kind of adults they will be. I know my daughter will be ok, but my son I worry about more. He will be easily wounded. I just hope that life is good to them always.
My hubby's new "work on my high cholesterol" diet is working for me too. I might just totally fit into that ridiculously tight dress I bought for our anniversary. I was down to 141.5 yesterday. My goal is to just get to 140 in the next 2 weeks. I plan to hit 135 by the end of the year and then evaluate where to go from there if I really want to try to get down to 130. We will see...