The Perfect Day?

The last day of May was as close to a perfect day as I can recall. I'm already living in the past, if only a week past. We were up and out early, marveling at the dawning of a new, misty day, and picking for Saturday's baskets. For those of you who haven't seen dawn in a while, wake up! It's worth it. And just tell me one good thing that happens late at night. I didn't think so.
The cabbage loopers hadn't made an appearance yet (can't say that anymore), the harlequin beetles were under control (can't say that anymore, either), and the day promised to be hot, bright, and good. All three happened. Then something else happened. I picked, sliced and ate a tomato, ripe on the vine. In May. A first for me in my entire life. Even as a kid in southern Mississippi we never had ripe tomatoes in May. This year I got lucky, guessed right, and got rewarded. With any luck at all, you basket-getters out there will be rewarded very soon, too. There should be enough for a small tomato or two real soon.
The squash is coming along, and has started blooming. We have our fingers crossed that the blossoms make squash and don't just drop off like they sometimes do. Tomatoes and squash in June makes my head go all giddy. And I'm not a giddy kind of a guy.
We're hauling hay right now, and it goes like this: After we work all day, and have decided to knock off and try some new cold beverage instead of working until dark, the phone invariably rings. The folks we get hay from are very good at calling us first, but it's always after 6pm, and it's always "we've got 150 bales of hay if you want it. Come get it and bring money." So we heave ourselves more or less upright, hook up the trailer, and head for the hayfield. After 3 years of buying from the same people, we've started paying them to load it for us, but we still have to get it home and throw it up into the hayloft. It's a lot of fun early in the morning, less so late in the afternoon. Anything over 90 degrees is just a bonus, too. That's how I keep my skin smooth, and my countenance so youthful. Sweating out pork fat will do that, you know. Every time I take my shirt off and wring out close to a quart of liquid from it, I thinnk I'll sell off all the animals. But when I go down to the barn the next morning and catch the smell of new hay, and feel the welcome tightness of muscles seldom used, I change my mind. Just think of all the money I save by not going to the gym. Plus, the gym isn't full of ticks, so I'd still have to find a way for blood transfusions if I didn't work outside at home. Whoever said that guineas will keep ticks under control was just trying to sell guineas. The only control for them is a pair of tweezers.
But back to May. After a genuinely good day, and just as night was falling, I went to get the tractor and trailer from where I had parked it in the middle of the field (having stopped halfway to the house to move cows from one pasture to another), I saw the first lightning bug of the year. Last year Wendy saw the first ones in mid-April, and we had decided this year that the drought had killed them all off. But finally they've come out. Not in the numbers we're used to, but at least they are here. We've been looking for weeks. In those areas where Roundup is used routinely, they never come back anymore. That poison kills them, just like it kills honeybees. Another time I'll tell you my opinion of the poisons that are routinely used, and the monstrous companies that push them off onto us, but for now, I'll just smile and remember a good day.