Tonight we had the satisfaction of eating salad from our garden. Yeah, I live in a condo but I have two huge decks. This spring I decided to plant a container garden, particularly lettuce (we eat a lot of it and the stuff from the store just doesn't keep well). Anyway...I bought one of those long (about 3ft.) window box planters and a few clay pots. I planted a row of lettuce in the long planter and some other leafy things in the clay pots. I also have some herbs. A friend who moved to the island of Dominica gave me a tomato plant and a basil plant and two pots of leafy salad things so I'm all set. Today was my first harvest. That salad tasted so good. There is nothing better than growing your own food.

I used to be an avid gardener when I lived in Illinois, after all I come from farmers. Then in Colorado, living at 10,000FT above sea level it just wasn't happening. When we moved to Idaho I tried and tried but didn't get much support from the family. For two years we did live at a place with a marvelous greenhouse and I had a fantastic garden. One of the years when we had the greenhouse was the year I went through cancer treatment. My blood pressure was so low all of the time, that I was constantly freezing, so I used to go and just sit in the greenhouse and enjoy the warmth and the smell of the dirt and growing things. I miss that greenhouse but of course here in the Caribbean you really don't need it. Today Rick showed me two little blossoms on my tomato plant and you know what that means. TOMATOES.

Tomorrow I'll post a picture of Rosie. She was a part of my Easter present (you know, from E. Bunny). Rosie is a great help with the garden, essential really. You will have to wait until tomorrow to see why.

Finally crossed the 10,000 word mark on my WIP (that's writer talk for Work in Progress or the book I'm working on). You have no idea how good that feels and how hard it is to write 10,000 coherent words even for someone who yaks all the time, like me. My goal is to hit 25,000 words before the end of May. I'll keep you posted.