The Grinning Reaper

No words, no mere utterances of lowly mortals can begin to describe the rapture of this harvest.

On the left, an almost ripe, pink pleated heirloom Zapotec. On the right, the pleated wonder of a fully ripe pink heirloom Zapotec. * sigh *

The Black Princes, lovely and splendidly flavoured, were unable to make it intact to the photo shoot. The Reaper is not big on delayed gratification.

So now I stalk the strip-ed Brandywines, following their every movement, listening to their plans to escape their doom, dispersing their feeble attempts to group together and trip me in the bark mulch. It is inevitable. They know this. And still they plot to avoid their Fate by staying green so damn long that they think I will lose interest and go away.

Silly Brandywines, sheltered heirlooms that they are, lacking in the hybrid's street sense that outwitting the Reaper is impossible. They smile and pretend they don't see me, la la la la la and play their stupid heirloom tomato games. What do you expect from such upper-crust stock, always being catered to, protected, hand-watered like pansies, out of touch with the grim reality of life in an urban garden? What do they think the Squirrels will do to them? Well, I can tell you, what! They will visit upon those pompous Brandywines a slow torture the likes of which they've never seen, a nibble here, a nibble there, pulling them from their fellows, stretching their stems, swinging from them like drunken sailors from chandeliers. Then a gang of those long tailed Inquisitors will yank that sanctimonious tomato from its bristling stem and sink its needle claws into it, then go in for the kill with its foul yellow gnashing teeth. Tumbling along the path, gathering dirt and bark and squirrel spit along the way, that now-humbled Brandywine will cry all the way to the compost pile, boo hoo hoo, where he now thinks the punishment is over, how low he has fallen, oh how he misses his tender loving gardener.

But it isn't over. Oh, no no no. Night falls. The whimpers of the injured Brandywine have quieted, and he's thinking of how his progeny will be sprouting next spring in this disreputable spot, but he at least will live on somehow. A small solace upon his deathbed. His tears dry, and he's comforted that it's so quiet. Peaceful.
Then, a rustle, and a scamper over the fence, thump. Could it be, that damned squirrel again, oh the humiliation of it all! But, no. So dark, so evil, so menacing---it is El Rato!! The glint in the darkness comes closer and closer, above which appears beady narrowed eyes and forward-pointing whiskers. The breath is horrible and the black bony claws grasping the helpless tomato are caked with the lost souls of now-forgotten garden victims. The Brandywine has no chance of escape now, and dies beneath this rodent vampire like the wimpy little twit he was all along.

Tomatoes, surrender to your fate! Resistance is FUTILE!!