It's been raining off and on here all day. The garden, with the exception of a single tomato plant that is determined to die, looks happy. The grass looks happy. The cats look happy. The mosquitos look happy, although I'm not sure if it was the rain or my brief presence in the backyard that made them so happy. I can feel mosquito bites rearing their itchy little heads on my legs and arms as I type this.

I harvested some chard from our garden and some cherry tomatoes from my neighbor's garden. Our tomatoes are about to ripen but they just haven't yet. My neighbor, on the other hand, has a garden full of ripe tomatoes. I can see them through the dense green vegetation of his garden. The one problem with his garden, however, is that he planted everything so tightly that I can't reach most of the red bits and it's too humid to put on pants and a long-sleeved shirt and go picking.

So, I'm going to have chicken baked in olives, lemon, and capers for dinner tonight with steamed swiss chard and a nice cold bottle of Czech beer. And then I'm going to sit at the kitchen table and sketch and goof around with my new coloured pencils and make some plans and stay up far too late.