Garden: Day Two

Well I worked a good chunk of hours last night on my garden. I was able to break up the next three inches of soil pretty easily. I mixed three bags of Organic Miracle Grow and finished the box section next to it. This weekend I'll mix up the dirt more and pull out the smaller roots that I see. Both my neighbors came out and talked to me during my time. It is amazing how working outside draws people around. Instead of the typical playing video games inside and not talking to anyone.

How this started

It started with finally getting caught driving like a mad man everyday to and from work. I passed an unmark cop in the right lane on the highway one morning going to work. In Virginia that's illegal, but regardless, I had spent the last fifteen years driving irresponsible on a daily basis. My punishment was to lose my license for one month but be allowed to drive to from work during that time. The bad part was that my wife was pregant and due at the end of that month. So my poor choices had affect someone else which finally bothered me. So I drove the speed limit every day, found that it didn't add hardly any more time during my commute. When I got my license back, I continued that safe pattern of driving.

Being a confessing christian, I started to wonder how my actions place me in this world. When I went to defensive driving school for that aggresive driving ticket I got, I found myself looking at life differently. In a class of thirty I was the alone person who volunitary signed up. Everyone else was ordered to come and felt it was the cops fault they got in trouble.* Could any of them look at me and see that I followed Christ in my decisions? I think not. So I started evaluating my life that day (during class of course).

So I started thinking how can I stand for God, and not be of this world. Thought about my life now that I was a father and had someone really dependent upon me. Having a baby really changes everything in your life.

Some how I ended up listening to Vineyard podcast about "How to Live More on Less." Not sure how I grabbed that podcast or even why, I guess just something God wanted me to hear. But the message really spoke to me that day at work. I also came across an article about Benjamin Franklin and his pursuit to being a better person. And later that week someone at our church talked about Stewardship (of the earth). It was just a combo of things that all clicked together for me to wake up and take action.

Recycling was the first thing I started doing again. I stop a while back when the city cut bottles out of the program. Then I started planning to grow a garden in my backyard and learn to eat some green stuff.

*Of the people that spoke out.

Garden: Day One

I decided last weekend to grow a garden, start with some vegetables and herbs. Saw a book online called "Square Foot Gardening", I asked my local bookstore to order it. That should come in this week. But anyway, so on Monday I dug a section in my tiny back yard (0.11 acres) for a garden. Four feet by twelve feet, it doesn't seem big but I got tired pulling grass out of that area. I dug down two inches and now planning on break up the next three inches and mix some organic compost. So on Thursday afternoon hopefully I can out there and finish that step. This weekend I am planning on sowing some seeds indoors. I have one type of carrots, lima beans, two types of lettuce and a bunch of herbs for my wife.

Reasons for this blog

Welcome to my blog. I have considered documenting this adventure I have set myself on to keep record of process. My adventure is too live more simply than I have over the last thirty years. It is not something I am able to do over night and not without mistakes. Hopefully this blog will allow me to reflect on my decisions and actions with a larger global community that might share my thoughts. Hopefully over the next few post I can consolidate a short entry on why I am chosing to do this. Thanks for any interest or insight that you may have.
Satty