There’s a sign on the front porch, Eggs $4, that Suzanne flips to reveal or hide, depending on how the chickens have been laying or how many neighbors have been by recently. Or even how many eggs I’ve been eating.

The other day, a stranger stopped Suzanne and asked, and yes, there were eggs available, so she and Suzanne had a pleasant exchange at the gate. I was cooking dinner at the time and could overhear them. When S came into the kitchen to grab the eggs, I said, “Tell her she can only have the eggs if she’s willing to take some tomatoes, too.”

I have been using tomatoes at almost every meal, cooking them in everything. We’ve had seafood soup with tomatoes (extremely delicious); tomatoes topped with pesto and goat cheese and broiled (also delicious); caprese salad (of course, delicious); tomatoes in salad; pasta with tomatoes; pizza with tomatoes (gluten-free, of course)… I’ve done all the things I can think of to do with tomatoes, and yet the tomatoes keep coming.

This is not the worst problem to have, of course. It did just occur to me, though — for the first time — to wonder what Suzanne would be doing with her tomatoes if I weren’t in her kitchen, using them up as fast as I can. I’m pretty sure a lot more of them would be becoming chicken food. I wonder if that makes the chickens sad?