Recipes - Tales from the ArcaMax Chef

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Tales from the ArcaMax Chef

As the storm approached, the lightening flashes became much more frequent and the thunder was rumbling continuously. The sky was dark as night but it was still very calm outside. It was almost surreal ... the storm was coming up right on top of us but the winds had yet to reach us. Talk about the calm before the storm! This storm was going to be a real whopper.

The one thing I wasn't thinking about was my tomato garden. In my three years of growing tomatoes, I had never had a storm related tomato loss. Maybe one or two green tomatoes had been knocked off the plants in a hard rain but it seemed like tomatoes were designed to ride out the summer storms.

Besides, in the first two ultra-successful years of growing tomatoes, I hadn't had anything to worry about. It was only in year three when the muskrats invaded that I had to take any action to protect my garden. The muskrats would get drunk off fermented fruit in the yard and then attack the tomatoes to satisfy their munchies. The uninhibited varmints would scale any fence so I had to put a chicken wire roof over the garden. The fence/roof system worked remarkably well and I hadn't had any problems with varmints since.

When the storm finally hit it was unbelievable. I know this sounds cliche but it really did sound like a train was rolling through our yard. We actually grabbed up the kids and went into a downstairs bathroom for safety. It blew and rained and rained and blew for at least a half an hour. We could hear branches and debris hitting the house.

When things finally calmed down, I looked out the window to survey the damage ...

Glory, Glory Man United!!!!!!

God Bless America.

Enjoy!

This news arrived on: 05/23/2008

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