My summer garden

I am canning for the first time in my forty-one years. It is rather amazing, the older I get, the more the small things and sometimes older ways fascinate me. My garden is filled with sixteen tomato plants, two rows of okra, one row of zucchini, one row of squash, a row of peas, and five rows of corn. Out of those five rows of corn, I was disappointed to have only twelve stalks rise out of the ground. But all is not lost, I have had the thrill of a little girl at Christmas morn at each vegetable I pick. Right now, bags of frozen squash and zucchini sit in my big freezer and a towel laden with freshly washed green tomatoes, wait more patiently than I, to turn red; salsa and spaghetti sauce await their fate. Fall is my favorite time of year, but I must tell you true, summer has flown by like a weekend and I will miss my garden as it slowly withers. My hopes are turning to the single pumpkin plant that arose out of six spots, reseeded twice with three seeds per small pile of dirt. Now if that wasn't a disappointment too. But I smile as flowers bloom, foretelling the future of round orange, soon to be canned pumpkin or a jacko-lantern flashing a warm glow Halloween night. My garden is a happy place.