Feels Like the First Time

Our sunny summer day started out right. Breakfast was a "clear out the produce to make room for more" green smoothie with kale, banana, plums, peach, frozen mangoes, shredded coconut, soy milk, and flax seeds. I had one of the those, I don't know why I didn't think of this earlier epiphany recently. I like to soak my greens one to three times before eating to clean off all the soil and any possible little green worms lurking on the leaves. I used to compost the water, but now I pour my slightly green tinted liquid on my house plants/hanging porch plants. I know, I know, what took me so long?

We drink our smoothies out of Dharma Glass straws. I bought a set of four a couple years ago and we love them. Since Rob was usually at work when we enjoyed our green smoothies, I didn't think we needed more than four. He always felt left out and I've intended to buy more so he could have his own, but now we have regular visitors at smoothie time so we need enough for guests so the time to buy more is now. Especially since we are really down to three. Josie and I left a finished green smoothie glass with our awesome straw on the porch one afternoon as we went to pick up the boys from the neighbor's house. When we arrived back home, I was surprised to see the glass knocked over on the porch table. There was no breeze so I couldn't figure out what happened. Then I looked around and saw our glass straw was missing. Josie's quickly found part of the straw on the ground several feet from the porch, but it was broken! These straws are heavy duty and even dropping them accidentally in our old ceramic sink or on the hardwood floors doesn't harm them. What could have happened? I looked closer and I'm pretty sure the only explanation is squirrels...yep, they loved the remnants of the green smoothie so much that they bit through the glass. Now Dharma Glass has a guarantee, but I thought squirrels might be beyond the scope. Now that I'm buying more straws, I will send what is left of this one back and see if they can replace it. I wonder if this will be the first return due to squirrels.

The first tomato sandwich of the summer. Oh so simple, but oh so good! Our tomatoes are still green in our garden, but Rob bought some tomatoes from farmer Greg today while he and Josie were shopping the Market at the Square. The first fresh tomato of the season always tastes like the first tomato ever to me. I rediscover the wonder every summer. Nothing quite compares to the first one. Rob barely unloaded the bike before making us each one of these sandwiches. No frills, just a bit of Vegenaise, so we could enjoy the taste of the tomato. I can't wait to eat more tomatoes as ours ripen, but I'll still have the memory of the first one of the season. Summer is so yummy!