Solstice Stealth

Our first seeds sprouted today. My paternal feelings are a little odd. Even Matt is suffering from an acute case of anthropomorphism. During dinner, he was silent for few minutes, scrunched his nose and said, "If we go out to a concert tomorrow night, we won't get home in time to water our plants at their usual time."

Matt was the first to notice them. One pumpkin sprout. One watermelon sprout. One cantaloupe sprout. Awed by the fact that the three sprouts appeared on the exact same day, I asked, "Matt, did you dig the plants out of the ground or something?" He confirmed that he did not. Then he added, "Well, one of the plants did have a chunk of peat moss on it, so I moved the chunk to the side."

Later, I pressed further, "So, you didn't brush off any of the dirt from around the sprouts?"

One of Matt's most endearing qualities is that he cannot tell lie. Well, it's endearing unless you're returning a Penske truck to the rental place with a giant scrape on its side and you're almost home free because the inspection paper made a vague reference to a scrape in the exact spot but then he says, "You know if they ask me about it I'm going to have to tell the truth."

So Matt said, "Well, I did kind of take some dirt off the top. Just like a little."

There you have it. Matt unearthed our first sprouts. But today is the summer solstice. So maybe rituals like that are acceptable?