My new home came with a large back yard. When I first moved in, it was more like a jungle. There was, “brush,” I guess you would call it, growing right up to the edge of the house. You could barely walk outside. There was an orange tree right in the middle as you went out into the yard. But it too was surrounded by growth. Thankfully, my Sig Other’s brother was a landscape designer. Soon we had a beautiful lawn, both front and rear, and a perimeter where he planted many flowering plants and shrubs.

    It was a new experience for me. My parents' house had a small yard in the back. We had an above ground pool that took up most of the area. There were two small trees and a couple of plants, but nothing like what I now had. When I had the flower stand, I got to see flowers after they had already been grown and picked. I got to know a lot of their names and characteristics, but I never saw them grow.

    So now I was able to see them growing, and they brought birds and bees and butterflies and other living things, some good and some not so good. I still have a bit of a problem with things like lizards. I don’t mind them, but I am afraid of them getting into the house or running up my leg or something. I cornered one once, and I hit it and hurt it. It looked at me with an expression of “why did you do that to me?” I felt so bad I was almost brought to tears. I really hate hurting any other living creature. I just wanted him to go away. So now, if I see one, I just “shush” it elsewhere.

    We have also had problems with some rodents, and we didn’t want them getting inside or messing with our dog, so I set up some traps. I went outside to check one of them once, and I found that a bird had inadvertently gotten caught and had died. I felt devastated. It was so little and, man, it just broke me up. I felt guilty and hated what I had done.

    I then set up the trap so you couldn’t get to it from above, and we wound up catching two rats and a gopher. Each time, we had to deal with the dead body and each time, even though they are kind of vermin, I felt sad. I suppose they have a right to live. I only wish there was some way I could just ask them to leave, but it wasn’t doable.

    We also have possums that come and visit on occasion, so I bought one of those super soaker water guns to squirt at them and then politely ask them to leave our yard. Sorry, I got caught up in a tangent. I have issues with death, as will become a little clearer as we move on.

    Getting back to my story, I was having so much fun watching something grow from a little seedling to a flowering plant or a shrub or even something edible.

    We have a small area by the side of the house that gets sunlight nearly all day. We decided to grow tomatoes there. It just so happened that we planted our first two plants in February, and within a few months, they had grown from less than a foot to over five feet tall! Plus, they were producing dozens of softball-size tomatoes. I called them my Super Bowl tomatoes, as that was around the time we planted them. I felt so proud of myself. We do it now every year, right about Super Bowl time.

    I went out there frequently and watered them. I had installed stakes and trained them to grow upwards. I was having a ball doing this. I was hooked. The original orange tree I mentioned gets bunches of oranges twice a year. We have since grown artichokes and blackberries. We also have a fig tree out front that is huge and produces hundreds of fruit.

    This ex-city boy was having a ball!