This morning I went to harvest the last of the lettuce, and enough basil for pesto, and to check for any beans we missed last week. Which there were some of. I set up the sprinkler, since it is another brutally dry day. The pumpkin patch has spread out like a newfoundland on a love seat. Elephant ear sized leaves are sprawling across their own corner, and elbowing in to the squash section. For the first time I saw an actual pumpkin, perfectly camouflaged in green. It is as cute as the cantaloupes which are equally unripe and promising. 

The tomato plants are as tall as me, and so congested I am dubious about squeezing between them to find the fruit. Up until now the cages have been bursting with green foliage, but today, today I saw red. 

In its own sweet time, something inside the tomato decided it is ready to change. It suggests to me the likelihood of the pumpkins one day blushing orange, and the butternut squashes too.  

It is exponentially easier to spot pumpkins and tomatoes when they change colors. They jump out at my perusing eye.

But they were there all along. 

There is a video of a man taking care of his wife of fifty years,  combing her hair, gently setting her feet in the wheel chair pedals. He calls it a privilege to provide for her, and the story is tender enough to have garnered seventy thousand views. It stands out like a red tomato in a world where selfishness is as ubiquitous as the leaves.

Yet my own husband has been providing for me in ways that are less likely to show up on You Tube. It is more camouflaged, like green tomatoes. He deposits his paycheck in our joint account, and brings home five jars of spaghetti sauce because he knows we like it.

He even shuns adultery every day, which gets less media attention than basil.