It was about time that my young friend finally found out why it's so important to protect the garden. I've been training him all summer long on how to chase the birds away and keep the squirrels away from all the old man's plants. Now he'll finally be able to see the fruits of our labor, and hopefully snack on a few of them too.

The old man had his basket for the tomatoes and was already busy picking a big share of what he wanted. What I wanted was the sweet melons that rested at the bottom. They taste the best and there's always plenty to go around for all of us.

While the old man plucked the ones he wanted, I showed my young friend where the best stuff was hidden. Down below the thick brush of leaves were the melons. They were scattered here and there, some of them smelling sweet already. My tiny paws made nimble work of the hopping around, but my shadow wasn't as adept to such maneuvers, squishing the leaves and rising a growl out of the old man. We could be in here during the harvest just so long as we don't tear anything up. A few mishaps and we'll be kicked out of the garden for the rest of the day.

"I told you to watch your paws," I woofed to my friend.

"Yip," he woofed back, trying to be careful what he was trampling.

I sniffed a few of the melons before deciding that this one was the right choice. It was almost as big as me and half as big as my appetite. My shadow was in agreement, so all we had to do was dig around it to make sure it wasn't getting eaten by the buggos. Yeah, I forgot to mention that if you don't double check, you can end up eating the bugs too.

My friend was the first one to find the buggos. Sure enough, there were some digging around in the dirt, but it doesn't look like they'd snacked on the melon before we could. We managed to scare all the critters off and the ones that were hard cases got digged out and burried.

I left my shadow there and went to fetch the old man. He was going to have to get it out for us. It was too big for us to roll out, so we needed his help. He was a little reluctant at first, but after begging enough, he followed me over to the spot and found out what we needed from him.

Some tugging and hefting got the melon free of the bushy leaves and then he tossed it out into the grass where we could get to it. And sure enough, it had opened up and spilled out all the goodies. Yes, we were finally going to taste the victory!

I pulled me off a piece of melon that had cracked off, slurping up the sweetness while my shadow had shoved his face into the side and was just making a mess. I guess there's not really a wrong way to eat these things, but that seems like it might result in a bath later. I don't know, but it's a lesson he may have to learn the hard way. He could get lucky and the old man just turns on the sprinklers for him to run through instead. Yeah, better not think about baths on a find day as this.

And what a grand day it had turned out to be. We had all the sweet melon we could slurp up and the old man had filled his basket up with plenty of goodies for later. I'm sure there's more snacks to be found in the garden, but this one was the best, and that's why we're going to eat it first. At least after I show my young friend how not to eat the outside of the melon.