Where Tomatoes Come From

When Jamie and I moved into our house we had a pitiful but generous backyard. It reminded me of a moonscape. It lacked anything but space and splotchy piece of concrete. The story of its development in one of blood, sweat (mostly Jamie's) and tears (mostly mine).First of all, it blew my mind that a house that had existed almost thirty years had nothing, absolutely nothing in the backyard. It was obvious that at one point there had been some attempts at making something happen. Someone had installed a pretty intense sprinkler system--obviously to no avail since there was no grass. There were not even weeds.

Our first backyard accessory was our dog Buddy. This was a passionate decision made one Sunday afternoon following minutes of thought and discussion on a trip to the Humane Society. Buddy had captured our hearts with his post-surgical cone and the way he barked at us from behind the hurricane fence inside his concrete pen. We decided to bring him home. We didn't have a fence that properly enclosed the backyard, so Buddy got around those first few weeks. All our neighbors soon knew his name.Our next project was building a fence. Jamie and my dad constructed one in an afternoon. Did I mention this fence was installed because we acquired our second dog, Tiny? We didn't want him loose as he was only 1.5 pounds. Logically, as a homeowner, we made decisions on how to progress based upon the pets we owned.

(Here's where you can insert story of an annoying cat we owned for twelve hours. I think we called him Simba. He wanted to cuddle all night long and lick our hair as well. We thought he'd make a good outside cat.)Our first summer in this house my dearly beloved built me two little gardens. He did this when it was piping hot outside. He did this so I could garden. Isn't love grand? Isn't Jamie? We also had a patio cover built. That was nice as we live in the desert where it's hot and shade is a commodity to be bought and sold (especially at bus stops!).

The biggest thing that Jamie did was in March of 2005. (Well, the biggest thing he did was probably in February of 2005, but that's another story!) Jamie hauled twelve tons of dirt from our frontyard to our backyard with a wheelbarrow. Then he laid sod. Later that year he fixed our sprinkler system. Along with the trees my dad planted for us in April of 2004, that grass made for one nice backyard. It's a great place to sit in the early morning and evening. It'sdefinitely increased our enjoyment of our once soul-less moonscape.

Our backyard is now a thriving metropolis of fauna and a few select flora. Our most majestic showpiece is currently the one edible thing that has bloomed:In addition to that, here is Tiny showing the sprinklers who's boss:


And here's Stella enjoying her backyard. She could sit out there for hours watching. She's an observer. She takes it all in. She likes her toys for a while, but when she gets really antsy, nothing takes the edge off Stella like a little Bumbo time out back.