I was whistling the morning of July 1 as I walked out the door to check the tomato farm. I shrieked when I looked up and saw Sammy Squirrel devouring my red before the fourth tomato. Their diet is supposed to be nuts and seeds not my crop of tomatoes. As I watched my prize being stuffed into that rodent's jaws I almost gave up my lifelong aversion of hunting and guns and thought that a 30.06 slug would be the perfect dessert for that destroyer of a man's dream.
I quickly ran to my children. There was still three days until the fourth. Maybe, just maybe, he left one or two but as I gazed at my vegetables there was only nil, nada, nothingness when just the day before had been promising orbs of pleasure.
I put aside the plans of revenge after I saw that Sammy had a family to feed and decided to go on defense instead of the offense. I spent the rest of the summer planning for next year. Chicken wire fencing around the crop, double the amount of plants in the ground and my best stroke, plant at the base of Sammy's tree . Let him and his family have each tomato near his home base and maybe he would leave the rest alone.
I checked and rechecked the weather almanacs for the day of the latest frost in the San Fernando Valley and dutifully on the day after I planted. Tiny stalks of green started to reach for the sky but there was a snag in my plan. Southern California had the coolest spring on record so once again it would be a race to the wire. When oh when would I get that supreme taste sensation?