So, dinner. Tonight I have to drive Locket to Keene for a rehearsal, which I only just found out (at 5:45 p.m.) -- I won't be making dinner but this is what I would have made if I had: salmon patties with chili mayonnaise, green beans with tomatoes and garlic, rice, salad. The green beans are ones that I froze last summer, grown by my somewhat austere truck gardener friend. They are still delicious, even four months away from August.

It's my experience that all truck gardeners are gloomy and melancholy souls, whereas dairy farmers are calm and cheerful.** I think it's because everything conspires against gardeners -- it's too wet for some things and too dry for others, you've got too many bad bugs and not enough of the good ones, you plant a boatload of tomatoes and then nobody wants 'em. It's no wonder they're depressives. I have planted vegetable gardens but I have discovered that I do best when I garden with someone: they keep me from abandoning the thing in late July when it's hot and buggy and muggy and the beans need to be picked everyday, sometimes twice. Right now I'm farming out my farming, as it were, by participating in my farmer friend's virtual farmstand. He posts what he's got available on Wednesday, we order by Thursday evening, and he delivers on Friday. Fabulous.

** Dairy farmers are cheerful and placid because they get to hang around with cheerful and placid cows all day. Plus, they get to stick their fingers in the calves mouths anytime they want. There is nothing so soothing as having a new calf suck on your fingers. Try it, you'll see.