Gardening on Mars and Other Alien Zones

--I've been feeling some seasonal anxiousness.  I feel a similar anxiousness as we approach mid-April, with its grim anniversaries that are getting to be decades old now (Waco siege/stand off, Oklahoma City Bombing, Columbine High School shooting).

--My late August anxiousness comes from these anniversaries:  three years ago yesterday, I'd have been told that I was losing my job with corporate restructuring, but I could apply for a job in the new structure (I did, and I was chosen).  Ten years ago tomorrow, hurricane Katrina roared through South Florida, and we spent the 6 weeks cleaning up, just in time for Hurricane Wilma to blow through.  I didn't watch the devastation of New Orleans because we were without power for almost a week.

--So I have dealt with my anxiety by writing a short story for our word prompt "afternoon."  I have a vision of three vignettes, and I've been working on the one about a colonist on Mars who looks back to Earth in the afternoons, instead of the evenings when others gaze at the home planet.

--My writing took an unanticipated twist:  the colonist grows tomatoes that rival those of our grandparents!

--If I was writing this story in a different season, would it have gone another way?  Am I writing about tomatoes because I have that late season longing for a Farmer's Market meal?  I'd love a meal of corn on the cob, perfect tomatoes, beans, cantaloupe,

--We saw a PBS show where the chef has moved back to North Carolina; the episode that we watched on Sunday had her searching for the perfect butter bean.  I remembered shelling beans on my grandmother's porch or snapping the ends off green beans and taking off the strings.  I remember thinking that the effort wasn't worth the final veggie side dish.  But now, I'd love to taste those beans again.

--We have started our own garden, but we won't be growing beans.  We've planted lots of tomatoes and peppers.  We need to grow everything in pots, and those plants do best.  We also planted lots of herbs, and seeing these pots of herbs makes me incredibly happy.

--In the midst of all these herbs and vegetables, my poinsettia bush continues to look healthy with its emerald green leaves.  Christmas will be here soon.

--In October, I brought some pumpkins home.  Most of them have long since rotted, but the far right one in the picture below had been happily perched on my porch (although we did move it to a side window/arch sill). 

It's finally fallen from the porch and met its end.  Strange to think that soon it will be time to buy this year's pumpkins.