英语博客(A cup of English):Robert's harvest（在线收听）

Beginners.

I walked into the kitchen this afternoon, and I found my son, Robert, climbing through the kitchen window. "What on earth are you doing?" I asked him. "I wanted to open the window so I can pass you all my pumpkins." "Okay," I replied, still a bit confused about why he needed to climb through the window instead of just opening it. Anyway, he passed me all of his pumpkins, about eleven of them. He put them in the sink, washed them off, and then placed them on the mantlepiece as a decoration. He kept one of them in the kitchen. His plan was to open it, take out the seeds, and bake them. So that is what we did. He did most of the work. We have some little pumpkin knives that are not very sharp, but similar to miniature saws. They are good for cutting through the tough pumpkin skin. Next he took out the seeds and the gooey pulp. He picked out the seeds, put them in a pan of water, and washed them. When the pulp had been washed off, he dried the seeds in a paper towel, and put them on a metal baking tray. A sprinkle of salt, and into the oven they went, at 350 degrees. I actually forgot about them until I smelled something delicious. Luckily, they were not burnt. Yum, baked pumpkin seeds from our own garden! Well done, Robert.

Grammar notes.

Vocabulary: pulp, paper towel, baking tray.

Exs:

I like to buy orange juice with no pulp.

If you spill that milk, don't use a kitchen towel. Please use a paper towel instead.

We put the cookie dough, spoonful by spoonful, on the baking tray.

Advanced.

My son said to me yesterday that he wanted to pick his pumpkins. He had planted the seeds in early Summer, and much to my surprise, had had success. He had been shopping with me one day in June, and he saw an aisle with seeds of all kinds. The home store was gearing the sales around the garden, and planting vegetables. So he looked up and down the aisle. There were many kinds of seeds to choose from, but he stuck to the miniature and white pumpkins. He knew exactly what he wanted. "Now, we have to follow the instructions properly, or they won't grow, okay Robert?" I had said to him, knowing that he likes to do things his way, and not necessarily always the right way. "Okay, Mum," he replied. When we got home, after unloading the car of all of our shopping, we headed straight out to the garden. He chose to plant the seeds in a circular, built up area of soil where we have lots of trees and bushes. In the middle of this area is a firepit. "When we roast marshmallows over the firepit, we'll be able to look around and see pumpkins everywhere," he said excitedly as we opened the packets. However, he put  both packets of seeds in one little hole. I told him that they probably wouldn't grow well at all and that we should follow the instructions, but he insisted on planting them his way. Well, wouldn't you know that out of the two of us, he is the one with the bumper harvest! So much for instructions!

Grammar notes.

Expressions:  a bumper harvest/ crop, wouldn't you know, to my/his/our surprise.      Practice of pluperfect.

Exs:

This year we had a bumper crop of tomatoes. The plants just kept producing and producing.

She bought a lottery ticket and, wouldn't you know, she won some money!

At first, the man and woman didn't like eachother at all. To our great surprise, they announced their engagement three months later.

Pluperfect.

He had planted many types of seeds, but had hardly harvested any crops.

Had he had enough of fighting, or did he want to box all night?

They had never been to Greece before; they had always stayed in the Americas.