A Fresh Start

A new home means a new garden.  We are blessed with a couple of great spaces and have a variety of options.  Daughter and I decided to go with some "garden boxes" on the side of our home - nice open space and gets great sunlight throughout the day.  We're not going to do a traditional garden box - build a box frame, add dirt to fill, and then plant.  I don't want to have to buy a lot of dirt or soil, would like to make do with as much of what we have as possible.  We'll add a vinyl picket fence across the yard here so that the garden is a little more protected from roaming neighborhood critters, a.k.a. cats, dogs, and bunnies!

After staking out where our first few boxes were going to be, I set the hose out and watered the area really well to make de-grassing easier!

Daughter and I were able to pull the grass on about half of the box area before we both decided to call it quits.  Within an hour, a few of our escaping chickens had found the freshly dug dirt and were scratching in it.  Hopefully they didn't get many of the wonderful worms that were there!  It's really good soil and glad to see that it was so full of worms - great for the garden!  We'll also be adding a fence across the back of this space to keep out wayward chickens!! 

(The red 2x4's are laid out as guidelines to make sure we are cutting our boxes straight.)

So many seedlings!  I'm abundantly blessed with a friend who is a seed distributor and for a small postage donation, she sent me a box FULL of 'last year's' seeds.  Oh the variety!  And it is so much fun to watch everything sprout and grow.  But .  .  .  all these growing plants need a place to be planted!  So we've got to get busy and get those boxes ready -

I'm really looking forward to gardening this year - maybe because it is our first year in our last house;
maybe because I want to create a strong bond with daughter who loves plants and outdoors and growing things;
maybe because I am enamored with the peaceful ideal of a green, colorful, growing garden, walking amongst the rows in apron and bonnet, gathering the harvest to preserve and share;
maybe because I've always wanted to have a garden but have never really had the time or space to do it properly;
maybe because I want to continue the legacy of gardening and being outdoors that I witnessed with my grandparents - so that when grandchildren are here they can be "out in the garden" with grandma (me!);
 maybe because I love the idea of being self-sufficient and doing as much on my own as possible;
and finally, maybe it's for all these reasons.

The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof

Psalm 24:1

How Did This Happen?

Like most homeschooling families, we’ve been interested in farming, rural lifestyles, and back to the land ideals of growing our own food and raising some animals for quite some time.  We’ve enjoyed watching movies of families who’ve left it all behind to live in the country; dreaming of Little House On The Prairie days with Ma & Pa and chores and old-fashioned fun; and reading of people who lived in simpler times with skills that most people no longer even know of, let alone possess for themselves.  Usually our daydreams would go back to being dreams within a few days and life would go on with its’ relentless regularity.

Last year however we were blessed by a friend who shared some godly DVD’s with us.  One of them touched my heart deeply and changed me:  A Journey Home featuring the Waller family in Tennessee.  I don’t want to over-romanticize about it, but the beautiful simplicity of their lives and the deep love they have for each other as they work and live and enjoy each day spoke very clearly to my own deep longing for those same things.  Yes, it is terribly hard work and yes, it takes discipline, but the rewards are so tangibly evident and enticing.

So Why Now?

Several things are changing within our family that have nothing to do with the present times and everything to do with the present times: My husband is getting closer and closer to retirement; our sons are getting closer and closer to adulthood; our desire to grow and prepare our own food is becoming more important as we are learning more and more about the adulteration of industrialized food; we want to give our children the most basic skills of seeing food go from seed to harvest and from birth to table in order to be able to provide for their own families no matter what the future may hold for them;  and we desire to see our children walk faithfully with the Lord, knowing that a simple life filled with hard work in seedtime and harvest is beneficial for that walk.

It’s late now but I look forward to finishing these thoughts tomorrow -

In Christ,

Denise

(this post originally published  at www.homesteadblogger.com/goinghome)