hello, Steve!

So what can I say about Steve. Steve is beautiful, Steve smells amazing, Steve makes me smile. Steve has fuzzy parts and round parts and tasty parts. Steve is my cherry tomato plant. And Steve is all the little cherry tomatoes on the plant. Ok, Jennie's lost it, you must be thinking. Yes, perhaps she has. Especially since she's referring to herself in the third person.

But back to Steve. Steve? Yes, I had a little bit of crazy and back in May when Steve started producing baby Steves, I mentioned that I wasn't going to get too attached and name each individual tomato. Not too long after that, my friend Ms. J was over and I was showing off my little tomatoes and she called them all Steve. And well, it has stuck. In my mind that particular plant and all the tomatoes on the plant are all Steve. My roma tomato plant doesn't have a name, the strawberry plants don't have names, the eggplant doesn't have a name, etc. But Steve. Well, there he is.

And when I came home, I photographed the beauty that is Steve, picked my first baby Steve, took photos of baby Steve, showed off baby Steve to Witchy who promptly decided she needed to eat baby Steve, photographed Witchy and baby Steve, and then, finally, ate baby Steve.

Eating the First Tomato of the Season feels like a sacred act to me. This is a tomato that comes from a plant that has been loved, the plant comes from a seed that came from a plant that was loved. There is a lineage of love and labor and sunshine and rain and toil and dirt and hands and bugs that have all been blessings that over time have resulted in one perfect, bite-sized, red orb.

bluster joy

What is it about grey blustery days that make me feel all snuggly? It probably goes back to my childhood. Grey, rainy, windy days were days for cuddling up under blankets and watching movies and reading books. Days when the sky turned green and the tornado sirens sounded, we'd gather up the flashlights, snacks, and sleeping bags and camp out in our basement. I loved getting all snuggly in my Kermit the Frog sleeping bag and getting scared but really not believing anything bad would really happen. I get the same way around big snow--cuddly, not scared. I think my sibs and I would play our bird game when the weather was unpleasant...we'd gather up a bunch of afghans and blankets and make a giant nest for the four of us. Happy, cuddle, snuggly time :)

But this blustery weather has foiled me two days in a row. I'm trying to get up to the Longmont house to do some inventory for Michael and to dig up my strawberry plants from my garden. I'm really missing my garden these days. But I have planted a little patio container garden with two tomato plants (one roma, one cherry), an eggplant, and basil. Today when I went out to check the plants I noticed the cherry tomato plant had a few little baby tomatoes on it! I got so excited, I had to run out and take some photos.

I'm being good and not getting too attached by naming the tomatoes, but it sure is tempting. I remember my first pumpkin plant in my little garden in San Diego--I named all the pumpkins that grew on it. Am I a bit of a freak? You betcha. But that is part of the joy of...me!