When Your Day Starts with "What the...?"

Did you ever have one of those days when you went to do something fairly ordinary and suddenly have to stop and say, "What the... ?" Today is one of those days for me.

This morning I went out to start the soaker on the cucumbers, but I stopped on the porch when I noticed that there was a quite large (for my vines) cucumber staring at me from under a leaf. "Dang!" says I. I mean, it was only a couple of days ago that I harvested a half-dozen cucumbers that were anywhere near picking size.

So, I started the soaker and went back into the house to get my clippers and the harvest basket. I came back out, clipped the one cucumber, put it into the basket, and went looking for more. I found another and another and "What the...?" (See? There it is.)

Yes, indeed, the cucumber plant had put out a little vine that found its way into less than 1/4" of space behind the trim on the side of the garage and decided that this was an excellent place to grow a cuke.

I had to put down the clippers and the basket to pull the trim out just a little farther because the thing was swelling on both sides of the trim. It came out all right. But there was blue trim paint imbedded in the skin and the trim was not interested in going back into place.

... until I cleared the vegetation from the base of the trim and gave it a sound kick. (You can see where the trim paint came off along the back edge between the trellis strings.)

In case you're interested in what a mutant cucumber looks like...

You can even see a fleck of blue paint on the left edge at the notch. I had already flicked off a few other flecks.

Never a dull day...