So here's the short of it, 
Gardening with friends. 

And here's the long.

Tonight as I was pulling into the driveway from work my next door neighbor was standing at the end of the driveway waiting for me.  It was the middle child.  He's about 6 years old.  "Miss Lynn", he says, "can we work in the garden tonight".  Now those of you who read this blog with any regularity have heard me talk about how nice it is to have Sophie making me go for a walk every night.  Because there are many nights that I would not walk but I feel like I must go walking for Sophie.  And tonight it was the same thing in the garden.  I wouldn't have spent a moment in the garden if that little fellow hadn't leveled his gaze right at me and made me feel like I needed to get those boys into the garden.

I got into gardening clothes and shoes and headed out the back.  The two older boys came over and we harvested a bunch of tomatoes.  The Cherokee Purple are really bearing right now.  And they are SO good.  The Celebrity and the TFI's are coming along, but none are ripe just yet.  We got a nice bunch.  I was eager to share with them, but even though the boys are so excited to help, they don't like the tomatoes and don't eat them.  I think that's pretty funny.  Their Mom came and joined us about the time we were finishing up in the tomato garden.  Cute little 3 year old brother was with her.  We were just headed to the back patio to put the tomatoes on the patio table.  We worked for a little bit in the herb garden, and the boys harvested several herbs to take home for cooking.  And it turns out that they really like the herbs.  That was fun for them.  I can give them a pair of scissors and just let them "give the herbs a haircut" and they can do it independently.  Even the little 3 year old had a hand at cutting some basil for his Mom.

So it was nice. I hadn't intended to do any gardening tonight, but I did. And I'm glad I did.