5/24/07 And the Clouds Rolled In

It's been quite a day here in Missouri. New tasks were the order of the day for one of us. Bob is still working on picnic tables but due to a late afternoon digging accident he will be splicing electrical wires tomorrow morning to get electricity back to the cabins in time for the busy weekend.

It didn't take long for our morning sunny skies to turn to clouds. We have rain predicted for the holiday weekend and for a few days beyond. We're hoping the outlook changes for at least next Tuesday and Wednesday, our days off.

Today my tasks included weeding the children's playground area, the usual checking in of campers and manning the desk for store sales and making pizza boxes.

The children's area is covered with pea gravel so the weeds came out relatively easy but all the same I'll be glad when the weed killer goes down after this Memorial Day weekend.

As I've told you earlier this campground has a cafe in which one of the offerings is pizza. Somebody has to fold the boxes for these delicious pizza pies and today that task fell to me.

I think by mid - June I'm going to be sick to death of these yellow t-shirts but they do show off my tan!

The ants are staying away from our hummingbird feeder so the moat seems to be working. Of course the Vaseline worked for a few days too so we're holding out on our final decision on whether or not its a real fix.

I'm very happy to report that we have tomatoes on our plants!

I sat on the picnic table admiring these little green gems and thought back to a dirty trick a neighbor played on me about ten years ago. At the time I wrote about it to my online friends and I saved it. Here it is.

The Tomato Caper

I live on a street where there is a friendly rivalry between most of us as to who has the best lawn, the prettiest flowers and the best veggie garden. Me and Chemlawn put a lot of work into my little place on earth. Of course we do have some neighbors whose idea of landscaping is putting a crooked pine tree in the yard or are thrilled with the riot of color dandelions provide. You won't find a dandelion in MY yard!

This year I got a jump on planting my veggie garden. I had my tomato plants in a week before anyone else, I bought beautiful big plants, real bushy and healthy. I went out every night and watered and mulched and weeded and "talked" to them. For example, I would look lovingly at them, caress their tender leaves and say, "Grow sucker or I'll rip you out by your roots!"

Anyway, Bob and I took off for an extended Memorial Day weekend, taking six days at the beach. I left my garden in care of my neighbor, Diane. Now Diane is one of my biggest rivals but I knew she wouldn't over water or not water or lead all the stray cats in the neighborhood to my garden to use as their litter box. I left for the beach feeling confident my plants were in good care.

When we returned the Tuesday after Memorial Day it was too dark to go out and check on the garden. The next morning at 6am I let our dog out and stood on the deck for a minute checking out the day. As I turned to go in I caught a flash of red out of the corner of my eye. I looked at the garden and thought I saw a tomato. I shook my head and thought, "No, it can't be". I didn't give it a second thought and went into get ready for the work day. I'm in the shower and thinking about that flash of red color and thought, yes, it was a tomato I saw! Now, I'm really getting excited at this point and then reality set in. I thought to myself, "Jeez, Snook, you left here 6 days ago and you had yellow flowers, you can't possibly have tomatoes yet, much less red ones!" Curiosity is getting the best of me now and I rush around getting ready so I have time to go back out to look at the garden before I leave for work.

OK, I'm standing on the deck which is about 15 feet or so from where I have tomatoes planted. I looked and sure enough the "red" is still there, and what's that I see? Another flash of red in a sea of green? At this point I'm convinced, tomatoes already! Diane comes out of her house across the street (we're both on corners and her house faces my backyard) and I yelled to her, "Hey, Di, I've got tomatoes, come on over and see". She replied, "I'm running late, can't, see you after work".

I step down off the deck to walk over to the garden and notice four red things. I'm now 12 feet away and sure enough ....TOMATOES! I am on cloud nine! Wait till the neighbors see this! 10 feet away now, just as pretty as you please, four red tomatoes. Five feet away, my heart is pounding, pulse is quickening, wondering if Guinness Book of World Records has an entry for earliest tomatoes. Gosh, they are beautiful! Perfectly shaped, the prettiest red you ever saw. Two feet away....and then I saw it! Fishing line! Poked through the tomatoes and wrapped around my plants! My world came tumbling down around me! DIANE!!!!! No wonder she was running late. I got home before she did and was standing in the middle of the street waiting for her. Here she comes. I'm not moving, no how, no way. She sees me, stops her car, gets out and laughs hysterically. She says to me, "Snookie, I laughed all the way to work, I laughed all day and I laughed all the way home." Of course by now I'm also laughing and more neighbors are coming home and they all know what is going on and are pulling over to join the laughter.

The next year I fixed them all. I planted my garden and put a sign on the fence.

NO FISHING LINE BEYOND THIS POINT!