Temperatures like we've experienced this week should be what summer is. None of the unbearable heat and humidity that is par for the course for east coast summers. Instead: sunny, warm, a slight breeze coming through with a couple of thunderstormy afternoons (like we're having today) for good measure. I think I would just move into a tent in the yard at that point.

I spent this morning in the stunning (I'm running out of adjectives...) weather - slightly overcast, warm enough to break a sweat - planting my mom's tomato plants.

You have to understand something about my mother: she has all of the best intentions in everything she does. She loves to buy flowers, garden and set up sweet accommodations for the resident wildlife (which consists of birds, squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits and one portly woodchuck. But mostly squirrels.) The problem is, she is such a busy lady. She gets up before 5am every weekday, hops around to her exercise video for a while, sits in a crapload of traffic to get to and from work and isn't home until usually 7pm. At which point she's exhausted and just wants to eat dinner and go to bed. So her weekends get jammed up with stuff that she doesn't have time to do on the weekdays. She always goes to visit her mother on the weekend and almost always has a nap, and by the time she turns around the weekend is over.

Every year she buys tomato plants. Every year, she doesn't get tomatoes, mostly because of pests (cough woodchuck cough) but also because she never waters anything. Once she tried that weird hanging basket thing but squirrels just busted into the basket and made a nest. So when she told me she was going to get her tomatoes this past weekend, I decided that I would take over the tomato scene.

Danny constructed her a pen with metal stakes that hold up a coated chicken wire, about two feet high. Around the base are railroad ties sunk into the ground (pre-existing for my dad's fence) and we figure/hope/pray that it should be critter-proof. This morning I went out and churned up the dirt soil, shoved some composted cow poop manure into each of the four holes and planted those darn plants (which had already begun their death march after being neglected on the patio table for a week. Sigh.) I gave them a good soak (and it should be raining this afternoon) and came back in. Tomorrow I'm going to give them some MiracleGro stuff specially suited for tomato plants. And then I will water them consistently and hope for the best.

Keep your fingers crossed, folks. I have a feeling this won't be as easy as it seems!