First tomato

There are some things worth paying for, such as the taste of tomato -- real tomato -- in May. They were grown in a hoop house, but they were the closest thing to an August tomato right off the vine I have ever tasted. I even shared with Ryan (and offered to the boys, but wasn't disappointed when they declined). When the scale showed that my tasty tomato would cost more than the bushel of spinach I had just bought, I was glad I only wanted one, but at the same time, happy to pay it. Two-fifty, after all, is less than a gallon of gas or an iced latte (which I did not buy in lieu of tomato). Set next to an all-beef brat from a farm down the road wrapped in a bun made on hwy Q near my parents' house, I couldn't be more happy with the first feelings of summer. The local dinner was topped only by the wiped-out boys who spent another afternoon at the children's park, this time with a cadre of almost-five-year-olds. The dirt and sand in the bottom of the tub is a small price to pay for an afternoon of exploring, no fighting, happy-to-eat-dinner boys.