Tomatoes

My tomato garden has become for me a triumph of hope over experience. (An expression I first heard used to aptly describe second marriages.  I rather liked it.)

Each spring, I put a few plants in the ground, hoping against hope for summer's delicious bounty to be mine. This year, I planted only cherry tomatoes, hoping they'd do a better of ripening than the big ones have, given my limited sunlight.

I hadn't reckoned with the absence of my much-missed sycamore tree next door.

My plants this year have taken off. They have overflowed their carefully sculpted boundary and have taken over a good foot of the yard. They covered themselves with blossoms early, a promise of bounty to come.

It's been dry this year, and I have been diligently watering my small crop, already able to taste the explosion of sweet goodness.

Enter reality.

Turns out a lack of moisture leads to thirsty squirrels. My furry friends may have abandoned their condo in my eaves, but they didn't move far; just to the neighbor's oak tree. They, too, have been eyeing my bounty.

Last weekend I was sitting on the porch enjoying my morning coffee, surveying my kingdom. Scampering along the top of the fence came one of my neighbors, intent on her own breakfast. I saw a chance to temporarily delay the inevitable, and chased her away. She didn't go far, just back to the corner of the yard, where she had a handy tree to jump to if I decided to take this to extremes.

For the next hour, we played our game. She'd come down, intent on stealing one of my green tomatoes. I watched for her, and chased her back down the line.

Inevitably, for she was hungrier than I, I was more intent on my phone conversation than the squirrel, and she managed to snag her prize.

She didn't run far before she stopped, took the precious morsel from her mouth, and took a bite. She looked back at me as if to say, 'I don't know what your problem might be - I just took one, and there are many more on the vine. Surely there are enough for you to share just one.'

*sigh*  I suppose.

I have managed to get a few for myself, by going out each morning and snagging them from the vine as soon as they show the slightest hint of turning from green to red, then leaving them to ripen on the counter top.  And one, one was hidden beneath the leaves, and I was able to pick it ripe from the vine. Warm from the heat of the sun, the explosion of sweet goodness was mine!

I win.