Hi

I really wanted to vent,but my mind is all over the place right now,so I'll just leave it at hi. Maybe I'll get my thoughts together enough to blog about my feelings for another day.

Waiting For Tomorrow

I really hope this happens for the Atlanta area. As much as I love a good rain shower, I must admit that I'm really tired of so many rainy days now, and would love to have a completely sunny day. I don't want a partly cloudy day, I don't want 30 percent chance of rain either....I want a full day of sunshine and my garden would probably love a full day of sunshine too!

Home Grown Food Summit Talk Part 2

Yesterday, I told you about the wonderful work that Brad Lancaster is doing about educating people and communities about harvesting rainwater. Brad was one of my favorite speakers. He spoke mostly about gardening without irrigation, how to look toward nature to get ideas of how to care for your plants, and he peaked my interest in hugelkultur, a German word for raised bed. Just like Mr. Lancaster's presentation pulled me in about gardening without irrigation, John Jeavons' did the same with his Bio-Intensive gardening presentation, however, it wasn't actually the system that drew me in, it was the revelation of soil loss do to modern agricultural practices world wide, and if we don't change our practices now, the Earth will become less farmable over the years. Bio-Intensive gardening isn't a new gardening technique, it is an ancient practice that's slowing finding its way back to the people. Until Next Time, Keep Growing

Let's Talk About The Home Grown Food Summit

If you checked out the Home Grown Food Summit last week,how many presentations/talks were you able to view and what was your favorite topic? I was only able to view six presentations;last week was Spring Break for my children and I wasn't able to listen to as many talks, but I caught a few from time to time and learned some new things like harvesting rainwater and hugelkultur from Brad Lancaster.  Brad's talk wasn't just about collecting rainwater in a barrel, his talk was more about how a gardener should really consider nature when growing/caring for plants and how to collect rainwater. He says," as gardeners, we must look around at nature to see how to care for our plants." Check out this short video called Free Water with Brad in it. I love the idea of making curbs more circular to reduce downstream flooding, but most importantly it helps to feed the soil and plants around. Such a genius idea, don't you think? Here's another video of him giving an overview of water harvesting at his home. What do you think of the system? Now, I'm not at all on this type of level of collecting rainwater....I just collect rainwater for my garden, but I just like to see what others are doing in the world when it comes to conserving natural resources and Brad Lancaster is definitely a leader in the area of harvesting rainwater. Finally, Brad touched on many things in the presentation, but the word hugelkultur spiked my interest, the word is German and it means soil on wood or basically a raised bed. People that grow plants in a hugelkultur don't have to worry about watering their plants as often because as the wood begins to rot, it becomes a sponge to water, and less irrigation is needed. I might actually try this out in the top area of my backyard;however, I'll have to start it for next year's garden season and work on building the raised bed over the fall when the Atlanta area's weather is cooler to work in. I started of this conversation asking, did any of you check out  the Home Grown Food Summit  last week, and how many presentations did you listen to, and what was your favorite presentation? Well, I already shared with you, that I only got the chance to listen to six presentations, and you probably already figured that Brad Lancaster was one of my favorite speakers too. But, there was another speaker that I absolutely enjoyed as much as Mr. Lancaster, and I'll be sharing his information tomorrow because I'm still exploring his many different websites and videos. Until Next Time, Keep Growing.

We Have Ice

Yesterday our brand new refrigerator was delivered to us and the whole household is still beaming with excitement! My kids even got excited that it didn't take hours or overnight for the refrigerator to make ice. Bear with me, I can't contain my joy either and when you're a family of any size no one wants to throw out any food, but when you have a large family,finding ways to stretch the family budget is extremely important, and cutting food cost is highly important. Over the past three weeks we have lost about 30 lbs of food because of our old refrigerator.

Here is a photo of my freezer an hour before the delivery guys took it away.As you can see, we have our milk in the freezer(we store our milk in the freezer whenever we stock up anyways)because it doesn't spoil up there, so we had to keep all our dairy products in the freezer. The freezer was our saving grace for months while the rest of the refrigerator was  fluctuating between cold and warm ,we could always depend on the freezer to be consistently cold. However, in the past three weeks the freezer has become inconsistent too and because of the inconsistency I really couldn't stock up on meats,milk or anything else that needed refrigeration that was on sale. We became limited in the amount of groceries that we could buy at a time and I couldn't freeze and put away homemade broths, soups, greens, or any leftovers.

Now I can do those things again! Stock up, Freeze,and Save Money! Woo-HOO!!!!

Here,  I packed the rest of the meat in a small cooler with ice until the new refrigerator made it home. I'm so thankful that we didn't lose anymore meat before the new frig came. 

The new frig finally made it to our house and guess what.....it was taller than we expected and we thought it wouldn't fit underneath our top cabinet, and I suggested maybe switch the washing machine and refrigerator around, but one of the delivery guys thought he could lift the cabinet a little bit for a tight fit. Well, he lifted the cabinet and pushed the refrigerator right in place, and now we have a new refrigerator,cold food, and freezer that actually keeps our food completely frozen----and oh yeah, we have ice!!!

Our Spring Break

Well, spring break is over and the kids and I didn't go anywhere over the break. I really thought about going to Dunwoody Nature Center, but we decided to stay home and hang around the house. Mostly the kids played video games, board games, cards, and they worked on Spring Break Packets(I love my teachers, but come on...homework during spring break is just plain wrong!!),oh yeah, we got our movie watching on. I did get some help in the garden too, but I forgot to bring the camera outside to get some shots; I was just in the moment and wasn't thinking about taking photos at all. Well, that's what I did with my kids over Spring Break.....what did you do or what are your plans for the break?


-peace-

A Few Garden Snapshots

Red Romaine Lettuce

Lemon Balm

A small batch of garlic growing nicely

Arugula plant flowering

Mustard Green plant flowering

Should We Stay or Should We Go

It's Spring Break for my four younger children and we don't have any plans for the week,but I've thought about trying to get out and enjoy a park or nature center. I would really like to attend the Chattahoochee Nature Center,but the center would require us to have a car to get to. We could take the train and bus,but the bus only goes so far,and a taxi is needed for the rest of the trip. So, because if this fact, I've been looking into going to the Dunwoody Nature Center. Dunwoody's Center is on the bus line, and this would be a great adventure for myself and the kids. My kids don't get to travel to the north side of the city that often anymore, since we don't have a car right now.  

Now that I've picked out what nature center to attend,I find out that our weekly forecast could be rain filled. Rain isn't expected all day long,but when I'm traveling across town,I dont want to get caught in a heavy storm and have to wait our trip out.

I just don't know what to do, do I take a chance and just go, or should we just stay close to home and hang out at the nature park down the street,and pack a pinic,play baseball or throw a Frisbee around for a few hours?

Well, whatever we decide, we'll have fun and that's all that matters!

Home Grown Food Summit 2015 - Welcome!

Free online summit from April 6th- April 12th. Check it out @ homegrownfoodsummit.com.

Hello Old Friend

It feels good to be sitting down in front of this keyboard typing, but I needed a little break from blogging while I put my time and energy into taking care of my husband as he healed. I truly debated with myself about coming back to blog this week or wait until next week, but I decided if I wait another week, I might wait another week and then lose interest again. So, now I'm back and I can't wait to share some awesome pictures my daughter and I took in the garden later in the week, and I just can't wait to grow this little community that I hope to create here!

-Peace-

Happy Easter

Happy Easter to everyone! Hope your day is filled with pure joy with family and friends!