To Be a domesticated man

Tonight (07-05-07) I bought two tomato plants. Such thin little things, soon to be so full of delectable orbs as succulent and juicy as they are shimmering red, that I hopefully won’t know what to do with them. Misti got a sweet basil bush and as a result we are surely on our way to a summer full of tomato and basil sandwiches, homemade pesto, all the Caprese salad one man could ever hope to consume.

After we bought our little plants we proceeded to the library where we checked out some books on gardening. Misti has long since gone to bed, but while she slept I read, and filled my mind with images of our future/present home together. I was reading and reading about these back porch plants, envisioning my green back yard speckled with colors that span the whole spectrum from yellow, to purple, blue and white. I see vines crawling up trellises and beans sprouting in pods, pots full of herbs and lettuce, and I like what I see.

Maybe planting a garden isn’t as masculine as hunting, but I like animals too much to shoot them. Don’t get me wrong, I sure do love eatin’ me some venison, but I don’t think I could bear to shoot the deer to get it (that’s what my in-laws provide for me - who as fate would have it don’t even like venison). Gardening isn’t planting 40 acres, it’s just gardening - it’s planting a small crop for the shear enjoyment of the bounty they produce and the great (or small) work it took to get them that way. I think I’m going to be good at it too. I think I’m going to be good at it like my granny and granddaddy were good at it – I think it’s in my blood.

I don’t know if that really makes me a domesticated man, maybe it just makes me industrious, full of the spirit that made this country great. Maybe it makes me a glutton for the fruitta di terra, maybe I just want to reconnect with my grandparents in a way that I was never able to before granddaddy died. Either way, I can’t wait to get my hands dirty with the tomatoes and basil and watch my garden grow in the red Greenville clay.