Dear Friends,

Both Don and Emily are away on vacation this week and have left the kids in charge of the house. This is my first time ever running Kibbles and Bytes myself. If I do well, I might get extended curfew privileges!

I put a date on something this morning and realized, “wow, it’s almost August!” I always seem to forget how fast summers fly by. I’ve been able to get a pretty good jump on Emily in our fitness challenge both in June and July though. It’s pretty easy to get points just going out for a “quick” 10-20 mile ride on my bike.

I should’ve known that summer was well underway when I looked at my garden last weekend. Most years I just plant boxes on my deck, but this year I decided to ask my neighbors for space in one of their gardens. I planted zucchini, pickling cucumbers, sweet corn, popcorn, and heirloom black cherry tomatoes this year. Despite some early season pest attacks, everything looks amazing now. I’ve gotten a few zucchini already (including a giant one yesterday) and have some cucumbers on the way. My deck garden is doing well too. I have chamomile and peppermint for tea, turnips, and dill (for the pickles) as well as a few backup cucumber and tomato plants. I actually harvested all the turnips this past weekend. I’d never really had turnips before, but tried these a few years ago. They grow really well and taste really good, especially roasted in the oven with some olive oil.

I asked Emily before she left if I could do one of those “boss is on vacation” specials I see sometimes at a local RV dealership. I’m not sure we could ship an RV with UPS though, and also, I was recently informed that we don’t even sell RVs. So instead, I’ll make this week’s Kibbles and Bytes special something that we do sell. This week, exclusively for Kibbles and Bytes readers, I have some Urbanears Hellas Active Wireless headphones. Normally these are $119.99 but this week only you can save $36 and get yours for only $83.99!