just another day

yesterday morning i weeded and strawed another row and a half of tomatoes. 32 more plants to go. during my breaks i would walk over to the melon rows and pull the biggest weeds. lots of little melons in there and a few the size of slightly deflated volleyballs.

coming home i drove on past my house and down the lane to Neighbor Dan's to drop off some tomatoes. Cherie and i reflected on the 'sweat' a couple of weeks ago and made plans for another in mid-July. (so...if anyone is in the neighborhood, bring a towel. you will want it for the midnight swim afterwards.)

Dan told me he was going to put the blade on the tractor for a small project of his and this would be a good time to blade my drive. i've had a big ditch down one side of it since a huge rain a number of weeks ago. he showed up at my house about 3:30 and preceded to drag the washed-down gravel back up the hill and expertly leveling it out.

later we sat in the shade on the deck and enjoyed some bottles of Negra Modelo and talked of drying tomatoes in his hoop house and possibly packaging them in his production kitchen for marketing. a little side note here. Dan has an organic apple orchard and also grows much produce for farmers market. google blueheronorchard.com

Dan and i had just opened our second bottle when Tom called, inviting me over for darts and pizza. "All my attempts at work backfired so i'm done and you can come over anytime. What are doing now?"

before long Tom, with a 6 pack of Dos Equis Amber, had joined Dan and me on the deck. the three of us sat and drank and smoked and talked of the pleasures of our lives in small farming.

i'm pretty sure i thru darts last night. and in the mirror this morning i think i saw the remains of some pizza sauce.