We’ve had an adventure-full day!  We began at Lowe’s, studying the soil bags and trying to figure out what we needed to do.  We eventually bought 10 bags of organic Miracle Gro and 2 bags of vermiculite.  We also got some seeds (cucumber, beans, peas, and pumpkins) and some 2×4’s for the sides.  2 strawberry pots that were on clearance also jumped into our cart – I’ll share when and if we figure out how to germinate the seeds.  A quick stop at Marshall Grain Company yielded us a bag of molasses, and we proceeded home to where our muscle men were digging a hole.  We quickly ran into clay.…

I made my first grocery trip in a while last night and came home with more fresh produce than ever before!  (Kind of sad, I know, but hey!).  I also read a lot of labels – did you know that Walmart brand mayo has high fructose corn syrup but the Kraft brand doesn’t?  I know now!  I was happy to use $8 or so worth of coupons and still came in under budget!    I have plans to try a few simple recipes this week and enjoy our fresh produce!   I also picked up some Truvia to try and some whole wheat flour for baking. I’ve been praying about…

I’ve been receiving and forwarding a number of different links this week that I think are really helpful.  I’ll post them here for you to take a look at as you’re interested, and so I can keep them in one place! For garden planning:Fall Direct Seeding Guide – A&M gives a great guide of when to plant!GrowVeg – The White House uses this to plan their gardens and it seems very helpful on our scale!Thanks for the great research Cara! For parenting:Ricky Chelette from Living Hope Ministries taught at Antioch recently on raising gender healthy kids.  He did sessions on boys, girls, and practicals.  Here is the link to the free download.…

My wonderful friend Carrie put it well today.  “I think you’re having a renaissance.” It does indeed seem that way.  We’ve progressed from looking at changing our eating habits to seriously researching how to have a mini-farm in our backyard.  I found a book called Mini-Farming: Self-sufficiency on 1/4 of an Acre and I am fascinated.  The author gives clear, step by step directions about how to grow 85% of the food for our family on just 1/4 of an acre!  I don’t think we have that much land, but we have a great size backyard, and a nice size front yard!  I’ve seen some pretty gardens done in front…

So I’ve never been a health food nut and, for years, thought “organic” was simply a marketing ploy.  Chris had some allergy tests done recently that have caused us to really re-evaluate our diet.  After meeting with a friend to learn about her healthful habits (she goes so far as to grind her own wheat!), I read The Maker’s Diet and watched a shocking documentary called ‘Food, Inc”. My views on food have been forever changed. I knew, thanks to my mom and Jamie Oliver, that processed foods were bad.  I didn’t realize how bad until recently.  Jordan Rubin, in The Maker’s Diet, compares and contrasts the health of different…