82 animal, vegetable, miracleest tendrils of annual growth—leaves, shoots, and buds—filled out with
early production coaxed from overwintered roots. Grocery- store-
habituated shoppers may only have eyes for the Fourth- of-July-fi reworks
kind of garden bounty: big, blowsy tomatoes, eggplants, and summer
squash. But many weeks before that big bang, subtle pleasures begin
pushing up through the chill, come and gone again if you weren’t ready.
I’d offer the same advice I include in my directions for finding our little
town: Don’t blink. You’ll miss us.