Passing For Normal

Day 3, hot damn, I'm on a roll.

This year for the first time in more than ten years, I have done a bit of gardening -- something that feeds my soul and my joy, and I've missed it with a dreadful, yearning ache. I started much too late in the season, and my efforts were on the tiniest scale -- two tomato plants and some beans, four pots all told -- plus some sunflower seeds I tossed on a whim into a hole dug by visiting dogs. *g*

It has made me happy to go out and visit them every day, and within the last week or two they're actually doing some very rewarding things that make me grin like a fool.

I grew candy! This is a crappy shot (sorry) of a yellow-orange cherry tomato whose name I forget (it's not Sungold, but I'm sure it's a close relative) and it is incredibly sweet and indecently delicious. I've harvested a dozen or so already. These never make it inside the house; I just pull them off and pop them straight into my mouth. Should get maybe a hundred, all told, if I'm very lucky -- I'm not in a tomato-friendly climate, unfortunately -- before the weather stops production.



And I grew sunshine! These are two different sunflower plants, both of the multi-branching sort with multiple blooms in the four- to six-inch size range. They make me ridiculously happy. This is the color of joy.