During a summer of elections, war, earthquakes, floods, and volcanic activity, a little miracle has been quietly growing. What used to be a pile of blue tarp and roofing material, has become a breeding ground for nature. All poetics aside, I dug, composted, planted, weeded, and watered my very first garden. Being a big fan of life, nature, and God; this experience has brought me closer to the rythm of the planet. The handful of seeds, donated by Kim, and the small area of backyard, donated by Tom, have yielded a summer of excitment and beauty, and a fall of harvest and gratitude. As the flowers begin to bear seeds, I find myself looking forward to next spring's sowing.

In the beginning, there was a pile of trash and a spring fever. The fever developed into an urge, which became a plan, which quickly turned into sweaty work. I found a pile of rocks, and swapped the trash with the rocks. From the rocks, and some logs, and the lid of a wooden trunk, I built the walls of the garden, with a nice place to sit. Then I began collecting compost material : cardboard boxes, egg shells, coffee grounds, old vegetables, grass clippings (which were not a good idea, I learned), and anything else that bugs might eat. The living matter was mixed with dirt, and I watered, covered, and dug up the mixture for a few months, until it looked like dirt.

Then, after I had a place and some soil, I begged Kim, the gardening webmistress of Kim's Backyard, to recommend some flowers for my garden. She gladly donated some zinniah, marigold, and sunflower seeds. When slugs came out of the woodworks, she even gave me some slug bait, which gave my sunflowers a chance to grow, instead of being slug snacks during the night. The zinniahs were the first to bloom, and such an array of colors cameout : red, white, pink, blue, and purple. Kim says that she didn't even have all those colors this year. Then the marigolds little pom pom flowers popped out, followed recently by the sunflowers.

Late in the summer, Kim brought me a young pumpkin plant. Earlier that day I had seen a flower that looked just like the pumpkin flower, in a field next to a trail. I drug Kim over there, and we decided the young pumpkin was going to be trampled where it was, so we relocated it to the garden, with the one she gave me. After a bit of research, I'm not positive that it is a pumpkin, perhaps it is a squash or some other type of gourd. But the flowers still look the same.

Now I am gathering seeds from the zinniahs, sunflowers, and marigolds. I doubt that the pumpkin or gourd will produce any offspring, but the flowers have been a delight none the less. Through this garden, and the entire year, I have learned and witnessed so much about the circle of life.

And don't think that gardening makes me any less of a man. It is the pies that I've been baking that should make you question my masculinity.