Fish and Chips Story — The Story of Us

I sent my family pictures of Alora in an outfit that her Nana Minear got her.

So, this is my response… Nana Fisher went shopping

And these Videos

psu_Dial-up

psu_high_speed

I haven’t updated things on my garden in quite sometime but I have been pretty busy.

We planted a few of the tomatoe and pepper plants that we grew from seed but they are way behind the ones we got from the nursery.  But we will still hope to get a harvest from them.

Today I harvested some spinach, lettuce and scallions from my garden and made a little salad.  I think I waited to long because the spinach was pretty bitter but it feels great to actually pull food from dirt and eat it.

It has also helped me to understand more of the parables of Jesus because he was speaking to an agrarian culture.  A great deal of his parables had to do with natural thing that we have gotten far away from.  I can’t wait to have my first batch of salsa 🙂

On Easter Sunday (3-23-08) Alora and Daddy planted our first seedlings together. We started our tomatoes, peppers, safflowers, Lavender, Chamomile, Cilantro, and Cumin.

It was so much fun to sit and watch my little girl “help daddy” which is becoming one of her favorite sayings. She loves to get her hands dirty and she had a great time. Frankly so did I. We planted them in little peat pots so they can be planted directly into the ground if we want to.

Anyway, I have kept a written journal so I will hopefully know where I went wrong or know where to improve next year.

3-30-08

The seeds started to poke their heads out through the soil but we quickly realized that they weren’t getting enough light with our window. So I moved them to the flouresent lights in the laundry room. Next year I hope to buy a few extra lights and be able to it up right.

4-6-08

• Began hardening the seedlings 30 minutes per day
• Fluffed the mulch against the house
• Planted Heather’s Easter lilly

Ok those are just for me to remember but we also did some more planting. We had a couple of old planters we had and back filled them with bricks, plastic pots, and plastic grocerie bags so we didn’t use to much soil. Then we planted our greens, three lettuces and some spinach. They began to sprout after only a few days.

4-10-08

Ok this was the hard part, to get the most out of our garden I have been doing some reading about a method called double digging. It will be a ton of work but I believe it will help for a great harvest. Plus it was great to watch Alora try to help.

I started by clearing the sod on a 5×10 space, by the way I am sooo out of shape for this.

Next I will dig down one foot and pull out the soil then loosen the soil below that down to 18-24 inches. I have gotten through two rows so far but if the harvest increases like I think it will it will be worth it.

Heather and I have been committing ourselves to simpler living in a few ways that have been very helpful.  Why?  Because we believe that life have become to complicated and we want to focus on things that are more important.  We are trying to make our lives easier to deal with, here is what we have done and maybe they will inspire you to do the same.

•  De-clutter — We have worked through our office/junk room twice now in an effort to get rid of things we don’t need.  We have sold a book shelf full of books to a local used book store and moved that book to where it will be more useful.
•  Budget — We have set ourselves on a budget and although it still needs some work it is below our means which means we are able to pay off debt (almost done) and invest some money.  By doing this we should be able to pay off our house in 14 more years.  And that assumes we never make another dollar more a year.
• The Garden — We are working on growing some of our own vegetables this year, organically so we know there are no chemicals in them.  This may seem hard in the beginning but I am sure as we get used to it it, and Alora gets bigger, it will be well worth it.  Not only will we be able to eat with peace of mind but we will expand our diet and eat more cheaply.
• The board game closet — We have decided that we love to play board games, of all kinds and we put them all in our hall closet for easier access.  We try to play instead of watching TV so that we can spend more quality time with one another.  Or we play with friends when they come over so no one has to spend money for an evening.

Heather was trying to nap on Sunday and it was becoming painfully obvious that Alora wasn’t going to sleep so I decided to put down the Wii and take my daughter outside.  It was a little chilly but I decided to take out some of the gardening tools out and get some work done.  I was a little shocked to realize that the weeds are already beginning to grow up through my mulch out back.  I showed Alora how to stomp on the ‘bad’ plants and we turned the compost pile over.  Me with my shovel and Alora with her little hand spade, she was throwing compost up in the air and helping daddy.

There was even a moment where I was leaning on my shovel and she tried to lean on her little spade; my heart melted.  We dug a ‘bed’ for the ‘baby’ plants, we had some bulbs that should be fine there even though it is cold.  I guess I realized that although I will remember my Wii game I will remember my time with my daughter even more.

Heather and I bought our heirloom seeds last night. I can’t wait to get them, we can begin planting our greens as soon as next month. It is amazing how quickly things have come up on us.

I heard news reports today about the price of food going up next year and it is good to know that we will at least be able to grow some of our own food and save our money. Between the vegetables we can grow and Heather looking at buying ingredients instead of packaged food we will be able to not only save money but eat healthier because I know what I put in my soil and it will all be natural and organic.