My poor tomatoes were sitting in the front window all week, gazing out at the big green world, moaning about the puny confinement of their pots...

Yesterday, I'd had enough! I couldn't look at their drooping leaflets or hopefully stretching roots a minute longer, so, despite the gloomy weather, I set out to finish my cloching mission. after all, I couldn't just put the wee tender things out in the cold spring night air without protection.

I'd begun last week, with sod removal and the transplanting of the stray raspberries from the bed earmarked for my 'maters. Now, I unwired the flimsy bamboo supports-utterly inadequate for the heavy glossy clusters of ripe multi colored tomatoes I'm envisioning-dug up the stout extra 4by4 post to hold the middle section of the trellis...

Nate kindly volunteered to dig the hole for it and then my deputy clochepin whacker got to work!

he did a great job,

except for a few rebounds that caught him on the noggin!

Even practically KOing himself didn't stop his enthusiastic whacking yo-pretty soon(well, actually not that soon, since we had to run to the hardware store for plastic and we needed to return 'Return of the King', the extended version and we had not yet watched the appendices.... Sam simply had to see how the castles were built, not to mention-destroyed! So it was really several hours later...)we had our beautful cloche all built and our 'maters and basils happily ensconced.