A little Country

My entire life, I lived in the country.  Well, except for a 1-year stint "in town", which technically wasn't within the city limits but certainly in a subdivision.  I would consider my growin' up years to have lived in the rural parts of Marion County.

It was where I became comfortable holding earthworms, created a new home away from our play area for those pesky ants, learned quickly about the circle of life, had many opportunities to run, play and get dirty, imagine I was just a talent-scout away from Broadway and most importantly - felt safe.  We had chickens, a pig, a cow named Molly, more dogs than I can remember, cats, horses, ponies, roosters that liked to chase little toddler boys around the yard, unwelcome snakes, moles and plenty of mosquitoes and ants.

We even had a midnight visit from a raccoon that made one trip around the house and hopped off the trail.  Sam, (not sure if it was Sam #1, Sam #2 or Sam #3) our beagle hound, caught the scent and commenced to howling to let the calvary know he was on a trail.  He was a great howler, like beagles are supposed to be, and he was doing a fabulous job of following that trail.  The one area of the trail he missed was the part where the raccoon left the house's perimeter.  So our house in the country's midnight treat was to listen to and witness Sam #who-knows howl around and around and around until my dad eventually had to physically pull him off the trail.

You just don't run into that kind of fun living in The City, you know?

Fast forward a hundred years or so and now we're raising yungins that are growing up in The City.  Paved streets, curbs and gutters, less than a 10-minute drive to a grocery store and other people's houses close enough to sometimes hear my "mothering" are what I consider, The City.

So, hopefully it comes as no surprise that I'm feeling like I've kind of let down my rural roots by raising our children here.  Don't get me wrong, there are wonderful opportunities they're experiencing by living here that I never had, but I still ache for them to experience living on the other side of the tracks also.  It's a huge grey area.  Like a grey area the size of a beautiful, oak-tree-lined, secluded piece of 10 acres nestled just outside the city limits.

I remember wishing I didn't live so far out.  I liked the idea back then of living in town, having friends down the street that could just walk over and just plain being closer to everyone and everything.  Nobody from the youth group ever wanted to visit our house because it was such a long drive.  But I also enjoyed the space, green and quiet also.  Even as a kid.

A business report I wrote for a college class at UF, Food and Resource Economics 1101, taught me one very important lesson: if you ever want to make a business in agriculture successful, you have to have the land practically given to you.  Every business model myself and my classmates presented, showed that one common thread.  Land is extremely expensive!  Which also goes for just wanting to raise a family on a couple of acres.  It's still extremely expensive!  Not very cost effective.  Not in our budget.  At least not now.

It doesn't help that I've been completely out of work for 4 years.

The good news is, Jim does a great job bringing rural life here as much as he can.  He had some tomato plants left over from an experiment and he taught our kids how to plant them like he has done many times before.  Twelve, healthy tomato plants, six on one side, six on the other, planted by brown-toed, knee-scratched cuties in the previously landscaped area we cleared for just this occasion.  It's our answer to not having the land to do it on a larger scale.



Tomato plant update:

The slacker in charge of watering didn't do a very good job and now all the plants are either brown, shriveled or have been turned into some type of mini weapon.  For the sake of not embarrassing those who were supposed to be in charge, I will not mention any names.  All I'll say is: she's been known to have butchered a meal or two.

I'm just sayin'.  Might take a little more than land to make an agricultural business model successful or even a yummy taco-topper if this slacker's in charge.

Fall garden

The change in seasons and beautiful weather has spurred on my need to change things up in our house. But instead of the house, this blog is getting the brunt of a full-blown make-over. I still don't feel like it's where I want it, so basically: more changes are coming. I think.

It is time again for our garden to grow. Jim had a couple extra helpers this time.

They prepped the ground...
They learned about planters...
They planted...
And Daddy got out the lawn mower.

Planting Day: October 3rd

I am so thankful our children get to experience this living in the city.

This dog ain't too old to learn some new tricks

Well I just learned something today. This garden has been mostly good for me, I think, because I feel so ignorant when it comes to our food basics.

In the garden yesterday, I noticed our beautiful broccoli plants had turned into even more beautiful flowers. I asked Jim, if the blooms were going to turn into the broccoli we eat and he said it was too late.

Well, that answer was lacking a little in the "explanation department" so I pulled out the modern-day version of an encyclopedia, Google, and found out this:

"Broccoli is a vegetable that will flower unlike some other plants. The parts that we eat are called florets. Each floret has the potential of opening a tiny flower. When broccoli goes to flowering, it has bolted and is not edible. Bolting means the plant has finished its reproductive cycle and is now going to make seeds."

Now, that was off of Yahoo Answers so I'm not sure of its accuracy, but it sounds right and makes sense. We waited too long to harvest, but I learned a valuable lesson and it looks like we might be helping stock a honeycomb somewhere.

Some of the other information I've learned from this little gardening adventure:

• Mustard greens are a beautiful leaf. They remind me of a little girl's ruffled skirt. If they stayed around longer and weren't so scrumptious, they'd be a great landscaping plant for low, green, leafy coverage.
  
• Growing a garden in your back yard is fairly easy. I did start with low expectations too, so that might have helped.
• When carrots are seeded heavily (like Katherine likes to do), they grow very crooked because there's no room.
• Young potato leaves look like African violet leaves.
• Celery doesn't like to grow in our back yard.
  

Cool pics with updates

There's no bigger hero in his little life when Daddy gets home!

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Katherine got some new gardening gear so she had to try them all out at the same time: boots, watering can, spade, rake, tool belt and gloves. The orange and blue was no accident, mind you.

The turnips were harvested yesterday, they looked great and I prepared them tonight, although I use the term prepared loosely. They cut, cook and have the consistency of potatoes, but are a little bitter. It was the first time everyone in our family had ever eaten turnips.

Garden update

Our garden update is this: the lettuce is awesome and the greens taste good too. We're still waiting on the broccoli, cauliflower, carrots and turnips to ripen. The carrots were planted a bit "thick" so they're still really tiny and the broccoli and cauliflower got hit pretty hard from the cold. We're still waiting to see if they will produce produce. (Ha! That was funny!)
Katherine actually ate and enjoyed the mustard greens the other night. She said, "I grow good greens!"
My beautiful hydrangeas were knocked back, but they're already showing signs of new growth. Hardy little boogers.

Flowers, future food & family fun

Couldn't help but take more pics of my pretty hydrangeas.


Our garden is producing a crop. To me, it looks like weeds we call clover 'round here, but nonetheless, it's some type of food we'll eventually eat.


Friday night was Family Camp Out Night at our church. Daddy and Katherine stayed the night in the tent with Uncle R, R, & J and they had a great time.
I was asked many times why I wasn't staying the night and my response was, "Because I know my son's limitations and I love my church family. I wouldn't want to subject them to the havoc he would wreak." I don't think I'll be able to get out of it next year.

Katherine did great. She enjoyed dancing and running around at night with the cousins, sleeping in the tent and cuddling with Daddy. It was a great first-time camping experience.
Nathan and I visited until his bedtime then we went home. I'm not quite sure what he enjoyed. Oh yeah, it was the food. The unsteady, starting-to-get-wet ground that he couldn't see wasn't his cup of tea. Maybe next year, little fella.


One more thing, I've been called "Your majesty" now in addition to "Your highness" by my little princess who declared that "I don't like to wear sweaters because they make my dresses look un-pretty, Mommy." Anybody know of a picture of Cinderella wearing a dress with a sweater? I need one desperately. I'm praying the temperatures don't dip below 60 until I can convince her that princesses wear pants also.

Go ahead, laugh it up, mom. I know you're enjoying this.

Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?

Well, we did it. Jim has been dreaming of planting a garden in our back yard for over a year. School was a huge deterrent and since it's no longer an excuse, a little 10'x15' corner of our back yard is now fertile ground for soon-to-be-eaten yummi-licious-ness. In 60-90 days, we'll be enjoying carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, lettuce and turnips (although I wouldn't know whether or not to boil, deep-fry, bake or freeze a turnip. Any suggestions?).
Saturday was the ground-breaking. I'm actually really excited that Katherine gets to witness this first hand; it's a great built-in math, science and life lesson in our own back yard. Nathan was more interested in torturing earthworms. This particular worm is now fertilizing our crop, thanks to little Ivan the terrible.
We've (Katherine and I) been designated the official weed-removers. I'd like to think we might be at an advantage with this endeavor, since Daddy does work for the University's Plant Science Unit and that's what he does all day, but we have the same insects, fungi and lack of water issues as everybody else. So we'll see.


While I was back there enjoying the sights and sounds, I noticed once again how pretty our hydrangeas were. I will say this, thanks to my mother-in-law and my husband for cultivating and keeping these beauties alive. I absolutely LOVE my hydrangeas. I LOVE that they're a medium, country blue. I LOVE that they're so big and beautiful. I LOVE that they're in my back yard and I can cut some and have fresh flowers. And I LOVE that my mother-in-law took the additional potted hydrangeas from our wedding, grafted them to make more, planted some in her yard and gave us some also. These are actually descendants of hydrangeas from our wedding. That's pretty cool to me.

Earlier that day, Katherine and I participated in the Walk for Life which is a major fundraiser for the Women's Pregnancy Center involving a 2-mile walk. With God's blessings, my goal of raising $175 was almost doubled to raise $300. Thank-you all who donated. As a mother who is thankful every day for her two young children (even when times are really rough), it breaks my heart to know that there are women out there contemplating the idea of terminating their child's life.

I think God might have worked through this little video I attached to an email I sent out soliciting donations...

Translation: "Can you sponsor me to help save the babies."