Sometimes children can be a wonderful source of procrastination ideas. "Oh, I really should go fold laundry, but it is more important to sit here and hold the baby or read to the child."

Other days, they give me the push I need to get the jobs done. I had a load of laundry hanging on the line, and as hot as it has been today, I knew it was dry already. I had another load ready to go out, but I really did not feel like doing it. I was considering procrastinating long enough that there would not be enough sunshine left to dry the second load.

Then I looked out the window over the kitchen sink.

Abigail and Vincent had three quarters of the dry laundry taken off the line. If that was all done already, what excuse did I have not to hang up the second load?

Procrastination killers!

When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hold on a minute longer, never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn. ~ Harriet Beecher Stowe

Some days, I just need to remind myself of the above words.

For as much as we think that we are a unique place and time in history, reading quotes from a century or a millennium previous that echo the rhetoric and catch-phrases of today show me that human nature has been unchanged for centuries. It makes me feel less like an explorer in a new, unexplored wilderness and more like someone who is retracing a path traveled by many people before me. The physical setting may be different than in Beecher Stowe's or Aristotle's time, but the sentiment is still the same.

It is good to have friends who garden and travel.

Our dear friends have been out of town and generously offered me a day in their garden to pick the ripe produce. What fun! All of the benefits of an enormous garden, almost none of the work!

I learned that Simon loves pea pods, and that he will sit quite happily in the grasses playing with Vincent for longer than I imagined he would if bribed with this fresh food. Two gallon buckets of free strawberries have been turned into jam 6 quarts of jam and two quart bags of frozen berries, and I have a bag of frozen pea pods waiting for winter meals now too.

Our own strawberry harvest may be nearing its final days, but the halcyon days of basil and tomatoes are just around the corner. The tomato plants have started to set fruit, and I can see baby squash on the vines already. The cherry tree will have a small harvest this year, but the young blueberry plants have a few berries on them that are growing fatter each day. Summer's bounty has begun.

Has the general public of the United States forgotten what real, ripe produce tastes like?

I wonder about that question at this time of year as the bounty of the harvest begins. We stopped buying much of our produce in general supermarkets a few years ago because, after comparing the taste of our garden produce to the supermarket produce, we realized that supermarket produce was wooden, tasteless.

As I dip my fork into a strawberry shortcake made with berries that were ruby red in the sun only a few hours ago, I relish the taste of the perfect ripeness. No berry picked half a country or half a world away last week and flown in to the supermarket can possibly compete with the flavor explosion of a berry picked and eaten the same day. Even if we are gifted with fresh strawberries in January, I would rather feed them to my chickens than eat them myself because I know from experience that I will be disappointed with the flavor, the texture. Summer fruits are a treat because they are fleeting. I am okay with eating these foods only when they are locally seasonal because the flavor is worth it.

A friend has a t-shirt that reads "Does your tomato have more frequent flyer miles than you do?". No, and I prefer to keep it that way even if it means no BLTs in March or bruschetta in May. I'll savor these foods all the more for it.

Her name is Roxy and she just happened to follow me home (after I put her in the back of the van...).

Isn't she pretty?

The children and I will be tooling around town this summer on wheels of the self-propelled kind. It is a quick ride down to the park where the girls play softball, and less than a ten minute ride to the park where the swimming pool is and where Vincent will have Little League. I bought a trail pass, and we discovered how easy it is to get to the grocery store or produce store by hopping on the bike trail. I still have to work with Vincent a little on bicycle safety, but he is getting the hang of riding on the road with the rest of us.

Simon enjoys the bike trailer, but I do have my eye on an iBert front carrier for him. Won't the mint green go so well with my sherbet pink Roxy? For trail rides of a longer variety, we want to pick up a trail-a-bike for Luis' bike. Vincent wears out more quickly that the rest of us, and I would rather not pull both boys in the trailer.

Yesterday, the children and I went on a ride to the car wash to say hello to Luis who was down there. Thanks to the nice low center bar on Roxy, I did not even have to change out of my summer skirt to ride down there. I felt so June Cleaver-ish!