First planting - 5/26/08

The rows I tilled up last week sat empty until yesterday.  When I got home from work, I looked over to the flower bed where I had set the tray of 24 tomato plants and 6 jalapeno pepper plants that I'd brought home a week earlier.  They were wilted.  BAD wilted.  I came straight into the house, put on my gardening shoes, and went to the garden.  Though the rows were still too wet to till, I did it, anyway, and when I got that soil loosened up, I mashed the tomatoes down in the mud an headed home.  It was supposed to rain again that night; Mother Nature could water them in, I thought.

Well, it didn't rain, but I guess there was already enough moisture in the mud, because when I went to check on them this morning, they were perked up.  I opened up two more rows with the tiller, planted the 6 jalapeno peppers, and came back home, intending to re-group and go back to the garden this evening, once the sun had dried up the rows a little bit. 

But, instead, I played Zelda with The Grandson.  :)

Speaking of Zelda, I'd like to give a big high five to the creators of that game (and, no, I am not being paid for this).  Zelda came out in the '80's, I believe, but I never played it until a few years ago, when I bought Skyward Sword for the grandchildren to play.  It is a "hero's quest" story - a theme as old as time - and it is fabulous.  The Grandson was too little to read the captions, so I sat with him while he played and read the words for him.  As soon as he went home, I grabbed the controller and started a new game for myself.  I was hooked like a fish.

There are a lot of fun things for kids to do in the game:  whack things with a sword, ride birds, chunk pumpkins, catch butterflies....  But Link, the hero, has to earn his equipment through hard work, and he has to learn how to use his tools before he can get anywhere.  He never, never kills another human, only monsters and troublesome things.  He does good things for people in his community.  This is the kind of game I am happy for the kids to play.

The latest Zelda - "Breath of the Wild" - came out in March last year, when the Nintendo Switch came out.  I raced out, bought the game, and then spent months trying to locate a Switch.   Finally found one in September.  This Zelda has lots of logic puzzles and side quests.    Even though I've already beaten the big bad guy at the end, I'm still solving puzzles and looking for hidden things.  The monsters are funny.  They sniff the air when they sense Link is around, and laugh at him when they deflect his hit.  And, best of all, they rejuvenate when the moon is right, so he can beat them up over and over.  ;)

The Grandson idolizes Link.  Now that he's a good reader, I'm going to find him some hero books.