I've recently planted the winter crop of my window sill herb garden. Even after a successful season of basil and parsley growing last year, I'm still amazed that if you put a few little seeds in a pot of dirt and set it in a sunny place and water it regularly, little green sprouts appear in a matter of days. Grow, little plants! Grow!

My chives and parsley haven't come up yet, but they've got another week or so to go, according to the seed packages. The basil actually came up earlier than the package predicted.

Brian asked me the other day why I don't have cats. "Because yours have fleas," was my response. Honestly, the expense and responsibility of pet parenthood are major reasons I haven't gotten an animal companion of my own, but the ultimate reason is that I just couldn't handle the potential trauma of having an animal die on me. Yes, yes, 'tis better to have loved and lost and all that, but I wasn't ready to set myself up for any more loss just yet.

So I decided to start slowly, with plants. Particularly, culinary plants. I figured that if I was growing them in order to EAT them, it wouldn't be too traumatic if they died anyway. My successful season of edible plant growing last year has given me the courage to branch out -- I now have annual herbs AND an Aloe Plant under my care. If I manage not to kill these, maybe I'll eventually work my way up to something petable. Until then, I'll make do with visits to my godkittens.