Hope

Captain Kindergarten (renaming STILL in process) is a two-wheeled bike rider.  Today he made it down the driveway and back up without stopping.  He might as well have won a gold medal at the Olympics a couple of weeks ago for how proud this Momma's heart was.

He's no early-learner, he didn't start popping wheelies once he figured things out, but having seen the process, having watched him overcome fear, gain confidence, fail and fail and fail, and then try again, it made me want to hug him a hundred times for succeeding.

When I came back from vacation I found that my garden had started a game of hide and seek on me while I was gone.  It was hiding all it's produce in a knot and tangle of tremendous weeds.  I think it giggled when it saw me tiptoeing between plants hoping with all my fingers crossed that a snake wasn't where I couldn't see it as I grudgingly did my part by seeking.  The tomato plants had all fallen in a heap on top of each other which left most of the ripe tomatoes dragging into rottenness on the ground.  My jalapenos had all gone redder than I can find use for and my peppers were looking tired from holding onto their overgrown fruit.  The watermelons were about a week past good.

BUT, I came back to five more pumpkins then I'd left, I can salvage enough tomatoes to keep me at about a two-a-day tomato habit for a month or more to come, maybe I'll get some more green peppers, and I have a boatload, an absolute titanic boatload, of butternut squash.

Last year I got a couple of zucchini and a few tomatoes.  So what that means is, I did better this year than I did last year.  Which means in twenty years I'm totally going to have the garden I dream of and lots of vegetable-filled mason jars on my shelf all winter.

Hope, thank goodness for it.