Heceta Beach

[drbobshields]

We were in Aurora, Oregon about 30 miles south of Portland for a month. It was a backup location when we were denied entrance, due to Covid-19 restrictions, to the park in Portland where we had reservations. While there we found, and bought, a little house in Canby, OR that was affordable and new. It's on just enough land for me to grow a bed of

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[drbobshields]

I, too, have a story about tomatoes. I had a vegetable garden in my back yard for 42 years. Tomatoes were always the core vegetable because I love nothing more than a tomato that’s been allowed to ripen to a dark red on the vine and then consumed without ever seeing the inside of a refrigerator. I had to go to extraordinary lengths to keep the mockingbirds from pecking them to oblivion by putting up bird netting. Even then they would sometimes actually burrow underneath the netting to get to them. One year I was watching them ripen to the perfect point before harvesting when one day I went out and the netting was torn and all of the most ripe tomatoes were gone! This happened several times over the subsequent days until I was certain that some neighborhood scofflaw kids had been raiding my garden.

One day, however, it had rained the night before and I found dog prints in the soft, wet dirt. It dawned on me that I had seen a black emaciated dog, on occasion, up and down the creek behind my house. But eating tomatoes!! I reported the dog to animal control but they said they’d been trying to trap him for several weeks and couldn’t entice him.

I thought that, if I feed him, perhaps he won’t eat my tomatoes so I put out a bowl of dog food by my garden. The next day the food was gone but so was the bowl. The same scenario occurred multiple times-bowl and food gone in the morning. One day after about a week I went out to put out the food and he was waiting in the bushes by the garden. This occurred a couple more times until he finally left his safe place and came out to meet me when I brought the food. I petted him and I had a BFF. I named him Tom, short for tomato, and he followed me around whenever I was outdoors working in the garden or mowing the grass.

I took him to the vet and got his shots but I couldn’t confine him. I put him in our fenced in yard and, within hours, he dug his way under the fence. I introduced him to our neighbors and they all fell in love with him. Thugs would not remain peaches and cream, however. A couple of women were in the habit of jogging down our cul-de-sac and Tom, having seen where my property was due to watching me mow the grass, would bark at them very protectively. They complained to animal control. I got a notice that if I didn’t confine my dog or turn him over to them within 5 days they would fine me $100/day.

I put notices on all the neighbors doors explaining the situation, asking if anyone knew of a person or family with some acreage who could take him because I knew that if I turned him over he would likely be put to sleep. He was fearful of people as he was likely abused and caged as a young dog, thus the reason her would not enter animal control traps even when starving.

I was about to give up when an employee of mine agreed to introduce him to her dogs and, if they got along, she would take him. They did famously.

Weeks later she told me that he was left in the house for awhile and when she went into her dining room he had gotten into a bowl of tomatoes on the table and eaten them all.

[barefoot_cello]

I always had you pegged for an animal lover. That’s a great story. If you haven’t already, I do hope you’ll look up the James Herriot books. They are the joyful and true stories of an English vet.
We had an Asian pear tree and a peach tree in the yard, and I loved eating peaches off the tree on a warm Clear day, when they were a bit warm from the sun. We also had a persimmon tree, but I never got fond of persimmons... of well.