So, our tomatoes are not looking so good. In fact, they are dying. Some of the 14 varieties seem more resistant, but it's just a matter of time before they succumb to it. What they've got is called late blight ... and it's everywhere in the Northeast this year. The wet weather helped the conditions for it, the spores are airborne and it was bound to happen. For weeks we've heard nightmarish stories about farmers losing their whole tomato crop. Some farmers grow upwards of 20 acres of tomatoes and sell them all to canneries. And it's sad, cause tomatoes sell for a premium and farmers bank on them every year. Farmers are hurting. So we worried, and sympathized, but thought we might escape its wrath. We started our tomatoes from seed. Our plants showed no signs of it. Blight? What blight? Or so we thought. Then, in one day, it happened. One freaking day. The plants died. Some show a little sign of green. The fruit that already formed looks good, so that's a glimmer of sunshine. We'll pick them clean. We'll enjoy what we've got. It's funny too, because we reached a point in tomato season where it was getting overwhelming. So many tomatoes. So so many tomatoes. We've sold a ton, but they were producing so many and ripening so quickly that we started to smell the funk -- the rotten, over-ripe tomato funk that gets all over your clothes. Once you reach that point in a season, you start thinking about the good tomatoes differently. The good tomato smell starts to remind you of the rotten tomato one and once that blends, salads turn strange. Anyway, now that the season will be shortened significantly, I'm looking at each tomato tenderly once again, just like the way I did when that first tomato came in. Things that are fleeting tend to get looked at tenderly, with much sweetness. Once a thing becomes a permanent fixture or if there's an over abundance of it, it can be taken for granted. It becomes a given. I don't want to sound too depressing or too inspirational here. I don't want to make this a profound meditation on life and its lessons. It's simple, really. We grow plants. Plants are a part of nature. We do what we can as farmers to make sure everything goes "right," but ultimately, nature is in charge. We'll eat (and savor) the rest of the tomatoes and move on, as all farmers do.