I just returned from 8 days in Vermont, visiting the in-laws.

I sat one day in my mother-in-law's living room, chatting with her significant other, who, despite being a virtual in-law, manages to be a really good guy. He confessed to me, as we discussed the state of the world in San Francisco and California in general, that he would hate living in California and didn't really understand why people subjected themselves to it.

As I sat in the 90 degree heat, miles away from the nearest place to buy a loaf of bread, covered in a thin layer of sweat due to the humidity, and constantly swatting at tiny insects, I contemplated his statement.

I decided to silently disagree.

Anyway, I'm delighted to be back at home, basking in the cool foggy days of San Francisco. I've spent more minutes today in SF without my ass sweating than I probably did the entire time I was in Vermont. My ass hates Vermont.

We got home late, after many hours of driving and flying, and the first thing I did, despite the late hour and my general exhaustion, was to rush to the backyard and see how my vegetable garden was doing. You may recall that a few months ago, I used my keyboard-coddled hands and actually built something out of wood, using drills and saws and crap. A few weeks later I filled it with dirt and compost and soon thereafter I planted some seeds and seedlings. We were just getting to the point where some of the veggies were harvestable when we left for Vermont.

Now, I'm the urban farmer! We've eaten chard from the garden, made salads with the lettuce, had a zucchini and picked a bowl of sugar snap peas. It's pretty cool to eat things out of my own backyard, from a planter that I built, but that whole theory about food being more delicious if you make it yourself is total BS. Zucchini still sucks.

Here's a pic from two weeks ago:

There's zucchini on the left, a bell pepper and some cucumbers to its right. Sugar snap in the middle. Carrots to the right of that. Chard and lettuce to the right of that. One lowly green bean on the far right.

Not bad for garden 1.0, but I still have a lot to learn.