Monday, September 7, 2020

The Thirty-Fifth: Gifted Fence Tomatoes

Part of a series inspired by Ross Gay
that starts here: 

Last Thursday, lucky for us, N had something he wanted to take a drive to check out. We hopped into the car and he drove us across the bridge to the west side of town. And then up the main road, through the residential area of apartment buildings and houses (some older, sagging houses, reminding motorists, that these haphazardly divided lots were once acres of farmland), and then the orchards, barns, rolling fields--some still growing and some harvested and a few tilled under, with the hint of the river, mostly hidden, on our right.

The Willamette has a greenway and water trail. We pass it often, as that particular drive beckons to us, but had never taken the time to stop. And that's what we came for this time--to finally stop and check out two of the access points. We didn't walk the trails far in the lose, dry, fine dust, that puffed up around each step. We walked just far enough to see what the access area offered and to watch a young couple cooling off their big dog in the water. And then home again, home again, jiggity jig. [As I type this, I'm surprised we didn't head to Dayton to pick up a fruit or pot pie. Doh!]

The pups were happy to see their tenders returned home before dinner time--so little trust after all these dog years! I opened the sliding glass door, to step outside to do some watering of the shaded plants in back, when I heard a man's voice say, "hello?". My brain decided it was our hard of hearing neighbor on his phone, but no--it was another neighbor, Ron. He said, he had too many tomatoes and couldn't visit friends to share during "our current situation". Would we like some? Amazingly, I didn't grab that tomato filled container right out of his hands, but I did make two batches of galette dough and we enjoyed bruschetta for dinner that night. And now I'll try not to wait on the deck, peering at the fence, waiting for more fence tomatoes.

Nearly forgot to brag--today we were given porch eggs, from the sweet fam across the street.

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