Rain

It was raining this morning when I woke up.  YAY!  We need it.

As my usual luck would have it, I spent several evenings this week watering the garden.  But I hadn't yet gotten around to the purple hull pea rows, so it's all good.

The Grandson paid me a visit while I was watering the tomatoes.  This child loves mud with a passion.  I'd used the soaker hose, and I'd built little dirt dams alongside the rows to keep the water hemmed up where I needed it, so the middles, for the most part, were dry.  But the regular water hose had sprung a leak near the soaker hose connection, and I'd aimed the spurt toward the garden, so there was one area between the tomatoes and the green beans where the ground was 6" deep in soft mud.  He dived into it with both feet before I could stop him.

Naturally, it wasn't long before he turned the water hose leak on me.  We were both pretty wet and muddy before the job was done.

He asked me, "Grandmama, did you plant EVERY vegetable?"  I answered that I had not planted EVERY vegetable, explaining that I had not planted any corn because the raccoons always get it before I do.  As we moved around the garden, I pointed to the rows and named the vegetables that I had planted.  When we got to the row where the squash and zucchini were growing, he wanted to know why the squash plants looked just like the zucchini plants.  "They're cousins," I told him, "and they look alike because they are from the same family."  He thought about this for a minute and said, "I think apples and tomatoes are cousins, too." 

We continued our watering, moving the soaker hose from row to row.  At one point he said, "When I grow up, I'm going to plant a garden with corn in it."

"Oh, yeah?  What are you going to do about the raccoons?" I asked.

"I'll stand out there and guard the corn."

"What will you do at night?  Raccoons love to come for the corn at night."

"I'll guard it all night."

"You can't guard it all night," I said.  "You've got to sleep sometime.  Maybe you could get a dog to guard it for you at night."

"That's what I'll do!" he said.  "I'll get a coon dog.  AND a thquirrel dog!"

Sounds like a good plan.  ;)