So sometimes life just throws you the unexpected! True story below (or it could be)!
Just when you think you have met every weird person on the plant… a strange visitor comes to dinner. You never really know what Mother Nature will bring to your back door. She does have a sense of humor! Be ready for every visitor my friends!
The story begins in a small suburb north of Chicago, on a fine summer’s eve.
A few days ago, I went outside to pick a few tomatoes from the plant garden out back. Yes, this is the garden which originated the “Spring Gangster’s of 2008.” The evening was calm and warm, like any other summer night, maybe a little too warm. We were making some home made salsa, and nothing is better in homemade salsa than home grown tomato’s. Nothing out of the ordinary tonight, nothing that is, until I saw him…. Who you may ask? Tell us who?
Who? Well… Mr. Tomato-Man that’s who!
At first he just hung there on the vine, with his little orange skin and his little green nose. I barely paid attention to him and went about my business of picking tomatoes. One tomato. Two tomato. Three tomato. Yum! My only thought was of combining my newly acquired bounty with some fresh cilantro and onions.
Then all of the sudden I heard a sneeze. A what? A sneeze? I looked around wanting to give pleasantries to whomever the early flu was surrounding. I saw no one. “How odd”, I thought to myself, “no one is here”. Nonetheless I continued about my business again.
Suddenly, out of the right side of the garden I heard a cheery and enthusiastic “top of the mornin’ to ya lassy”, spoken in a fluent Irish accent. It was as if a Irishman had landed in my backyard. I stopped for a moment and contemplated. Then I thought and thought and thought some more.
And when I finished thinking, I scrunched my eyebrow and wrinkled my nose as hard as I could and I thought some more. I didn’t see anyone in the garden with me. “Hmmm” I mumbled to myself.
After a few minutes of thoughts, “Do tomato’s talk?” I exclaimed loudly to no one in particular. Gosh what the neighbors must have been thinking! Here I am talking to my tomato plants. “Hey, down here missy!” And to my surprise I saw a little orange and red face popping out from underneath the tomato vines. What a lovely surprise to have a visitor for dinner, especially a noble!
“Mind if you take me inside for the evening miss, it sure does get scary out here at night and it sure does look nice and cozy in there ma’am. I’m not sure how many more nights I can hide from those backyard critters scurrying around these parts.”
Well, as if the day couldn’t get any weirder, I responded in my most courteous voice “but of course fine sir, a gentleman should never be outside on such a stuffy evening, you’ll catch a tomato-cold”. He smiled, took one more sneeze, and hoped into my hand. “Thank you young lady” he said in between yawns, and closed his eyes for an evening nap.
We made salsa that evening as planned, but with one less tomato in the batch. It tasted just fine for us!
And that, my dear friends, is how I came to know Mr. Tomato-Man. Now, maybe he wasn’t really Irish and maybe he didn’t really speak out loud. But you just take a look at the photos attached and tell me I am wrong. Maybe it really did happen? 
Happy summer everyone
P.S. These photos were taken (by me!) the next day, after his nap of course.
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