Garden's Farewell

Today while Mary continued her recuperation from strep throat, and while Peter returned from his bachelor party weekend in Austin, and while John cried green and gold tears after the Packers' loss to the Lions, I did a little garden maintenance. The fact that our garden lasted until November 15th—and was still doing remarkably well as of that date—is pretty amazing. We've had a warm and dry fall, but I decided to take everything out today since it was a nice day (I worked in shorts) and I was pretty sure the calendar would quickly conspire against me if I delayed much longer. All that were left out there was tomatoes and peppers. This is what it looked like before I started.

I harvested as many tomatoes and peppers as I could. The green ones will, obviously, turn red eventually. After all my complaining about the garden not producing, it really came through in the final stretch. We have an awful lot of tomatoes!

I cut open a tomato that I had been ripening in the kitchen and ate it with lunch. It tasted as good as it looks.

While I was working, I turned around and looked behind me. I noticed that the blue and white of the sky and clouds were especially vibrant.

Sorry for the sideways picture, but can you see Allie's toy? She put it right over the container I was using to collect the tomatoes. This happened all afternoon. And if I didn't throw it in time, she let me know—it's great to have a companion out there, but it comes with a price I'm glad to pay and that price is play!