It was a stiffling summer Saturday. After waiting a few too many days for us to carve into it, the watermelon succummed to a bored boy, being smashed into pieces on the back lawn. They say that curiosity killed the cat ~ it also stuffed the dog. Oscar, ever-so-starving, grabbed the biggest chunk he could find and dragged it like a dead whale from the sea into the flowerbed bark. Several minutes and one nearly-splitting fat belly later, we pulled the rind from his grasp. That took a few days to recover from. His bulging middle rocked from side to side as he walked uncomfortably from room to room, frequently running outside to dispell of his overabundance of melon in one way or another. After a while, though, he resumed his daily routine of stretching out on the lawn, seeking the morning sun.
Fast-forward one year.
It was a stiffling summer Saturday. Dave and I were enjoying the heat out on our patio when we noticed a strange vine that neither of us remembered planting. Day after day, we watched it lengthen and flower. Each evening, we positioned it around the large rock in the bark, only to find it stretched back out onto the lawn the following day, seeking the morning sun. It finally sunk in. One of the seeds left from Oscar's foray into melon-overeating had sprouted. We have ourselves a weenie-melon.
And so it begins.