Wednesday, August 04, 2010

Dear Mr. Mouse

Or Mrs. No offense, but I couldn't tell the difference.

We have obvious communication barriers, you being a mouse and all, but I think we need to have a discussion on boundaries. I appreciated you staying outside (to my knowledge) and keeping to yourself up until last week. I'm not going to apologize for Steve trying to flood you out. That's what we do with mice who dig around in our yard. I didn't realize what a vengeful little creature you were, though.

You probably didn't know this, but I have a hard time keeping plants alive. Even in a climate where you can supposedly grow anything at any time of year, I struggle. One thing that I've found that I can do is grow tomatoes.

Uh huh. I know you've noticed them, too. Don't look at me like you don't know what I'm talking about.

Imagine my surprise when one of my three beautiful, tomato-laden plants, after daily watering, began to wilt. When another one followed suit, I got suspicious. Of you. I figured you must be chewing on the roots and killed my plant, so I began removing tomatoes off of it in preparation to yank them out of the ground.

Imagine my surprise (once again) when I lifted it effortlessly off the ground and noticed this:

08 - August

For a moment I suspected the mysterious plant snatcher who stole my rose plant a few weeks ago, but those edges look awful jagged. It was you, wasn't it?

If you were hungry I would have let you have a few tomatoes. Heck, I would have chopped them up, put them in a bowl and tossed them in a little vinaigrette. And then given you a little fork to eat them with.

Look at them. Look how sad they are. That's about how I feel right now.

10.08.04-10

At least I have one plant left. You better leave it alone if you know what's good for you.

10.08.04-16

One more thing . . . what the heck am I supposed to do with these?!

10.08.04-15

For your sake, I hope fried green tomatoes actually taste good.

Drowning in prematurely-plucked tomatoes,
Natalie

10 comments:

Sarah said...

Awww Nat, I am sooo sorry. My mom gave me a green tomato and I have no idea what to do with it. Her backyard garden keeps getting attacked by gophers and possums, so you're not alone, but dang that is so sad. Have you put out any traps or anything?

Lorraine said...

You can put green tomatoes in a sunny window sill and they will turn red. I did that last winter when I still had green tomatoes before the first frost. We had ripe, red tomatoes when it was freezing outside.:)

Chelsea said...

Good news for you. Do not feel like you have to use green tomatoes. I pulled off some green tomatoes last year at the end of the season so the frost wouldn't kill it when it killed the plant. I had the tomato on my counter for 3 weeks and it turned red and ripened beautifully! Leave them in the box for a week and then put them single layer in something (just so the bottom layers don't ripen and you don't see them) and you can enjoy perfectly red ripe tomatoes in a month or less.

Natalie said...

Really? They'll turn read still even being picked so early? That's good to know. I'm making fried green tomatoes anyway... just out of curiosity. :)

Natalie said...

I mean RED. Sheesh.

Heather said...

I guess we all might all have a mouse story! At least yours was outside, right? Oh the joys of those duplexes!

Chelsea said...

yup! they'll turn red.

Cassia said...

That's great to hear you can still get them to ripen! Sorry about the plants, though. What a shock!

(But thank you for the post - your "letter" was fun to read, even though the news was not so fun.)

Sarah Junsay said...

Mice are way better outside thank inside Nat. We killed 15 mice in 2 weeks one year at our old place. I started all nice with the sticky traps but then I had to pull out the snap-traps. Sorry mice--I don't share my house! How are you feeling?

James and Monica said...

I'll take them with a nice vinaigrette, thank you! That mouse doesn't know what he's missing. :D
Yep, they'll turn nice and red. And taste delicious! Tomatoes are one of the only things I can grow. Sorry he/she/it chewed on them.