Harvest

This is the second harvest of tomatoes from the garden. What's left of it anyway, after a week of incredibly sweet tomato salads, BLT's, fresh tomato sauces and sharing with neighbors and friends. These splendid red globes from sweet summer sunshine have topped bruschetta, my morning eggs, sat alongside steaks from the grill and been marinated in soy sauce and ginger for a homestyle Filipino condiment.

Even with a month of outright neglect, drought and weed infestation, my garden offered this harvest. Maybe what effort I gave in the early spring, getting that dry, hard and rocky ground ready for planting actually paid off. And...my roses bloomed again. And the deer left them for me. And my father made it out of the hospital. I'm sure there's some Biblical reference to harvest and reaping and sowing, but I'm not that well read. And I'm too tired to look it up. And I'm not great at analogies anyway. Suffice it to say, the fruit is sweet, I've picked it and savored it and shared it. It'll be gone before I know it and then autumn will come and it'll all be a sweet summer memory. But for now, I have a bountiful harvest.