Shovel in hand, Mateo declares that he is going to the garden. Stephanie and I look up from our respective basket prepping tasks to watch him wander off. After a few minutes of wondering how far he decided to go and worrying that he might slip in all the mud and hit himself with the shovel, I follow. I am continuously amazed at how task focussed this little guy can be. He is most certainly in the garden, the furthest corner of the acre garden actually, digging for potatoes – in the right row no less! “Viens maman. Moi récolter patates! Moi trouver ver de terre. Beaucoup vers de terre!” I join him and watch. I try to help with a pitch fork and quickly see that his enthusiastic flinging and my proximity will become problematic. So I go harvest some green peppers in a nearby row. The survivors were sheltered from last night’s killer frost thanks to their ample foliage. They are small, but we are used to that after all these years – plump and colourful peppers are definitely from greenhouses. Mateo comes over to check out what I am doing. Grabs a big (relatively speaking) pepper and eats it, apple style, then returns to his wiggly worms and clay covered potatoes. He is such a wonderful helper!