At our old house, we had a vegetable garden. It wasn't that big, but it was able to supply a good portion of our vegetables over the summer months and into the winter. Depending on what we harvested over the course of the summer, my wife would preserve much of it in the old mason jars you would see pulled out at your grandmother's house and we would have tomato sauce and in fact most of the other "sauces" you would want for the whole year. My wife did much of the planning, planting, and tending to while I would help with the weeding and take care of the rest of the yard. The beds would get rotated every year so that the soil wouldn't get depleted of any one nutrient too much and in fact would get revitalized by the next crop to come in. There is a science behind having a vegetable garden, and I am not the one to figure it all out. I merely help build it, and the vegetables my wife plants, come. And then we moved to our new house about six months ago, at the tail end of the growing season, and our new house had a single garden bed. We knew immediately that the one bed the old homeowners left us just wasn't going to cut it and we consequently started planning for the new garden. With more land to work with, we could make it as big as we want in whatever configuration piqued our interest. So the planning over the winter began; how many beds, how will they be set up, how big will the garden be? All these questions had to be answered, planned and drawn out, and come this past weekend, begun to be executed. The final plan came down to 9 main raised beds, each measuring 3 x 10 feet. In addition to that, there would be at least six smaller beds to hold perennials such as strawberries, blueberries, asparagus, horseradish, our herbs, and flowers. Over this past weekend, all the main beds were built, put in place, leveled, and filled with dirt... a lot of dirt. It was a long weekend, but it was well worth it. What made it more worth it was that our children wanted to be outside with us most of the time. Our son, three and a half now, would spend every last second outside if he could, and in fact, on Saturday, we had to coerce him to come inside despite the exhausted look on his face. Having pretty much free reign of our backyard, he helped me do a little building, moving of dirt, and leveling. The rest of the time, his imagination took over and he just played.
I absolutely loved it. In fact, it helped me keep working and kept a smile on my face. While I continuously kept my eye on him to make sure he didn't wander too far or get into too much trouble, there would be times when I would just stop whatever I was doing, and just watch him play. There is something about watching a child so immersed in his play that he is completely oblivious to the world around him, or one of his parents watching him. At one point, I stopped to watch out son playing on top of the stone BBQ grill by our patio. He was stacking stones, dropping stuff down the chimney, and probably imagining he was cooking something or building something. Then something made him stop, climb down, and wander into the woods. He walked a little ways, staring at the ground, kicking some leaves, then climbed up onto a fallen tree and jumped off the other side. Finding a good stick on the ground, he picked it up and proceeded to wave it over his head like a wand as he proceeded walking. He whacked a couple small trees as he passed them and made his way over to our fire pit. Crouching outside the rim of the fire pit, he studied the charred contents inside and after a minute or so, picked up a good piece of charred wood and started drawing on the stones around the pit. After a minute or so, he discarded the charred piece of wood, grabbed his wand that he found laying the dead leaves of fall, and made his way back over the stone BBQ grill. Just that short five minutes of watching him put a big smile on my face and brought me back to my younger years when I would go on similar journeys, oblivious to the world around me. I would love to know what he was thinking as he played, but that is for him to tell me. Normally, if I ask what he is doing, he has no problem telling me, but this time, I figured I would let him just keep it too himself. Just the fact that he loves playing outside is enough for me.
And then there is our daughter. She is 15 months old at this point and as of a few weeks ago, now walking everywhere. Although she was around last summer, she was too young to tell if she would love the outdoors the way the rest of our family does. Well, while the verdict is not finalized yet, all signs point to the fact that she will love the outdoors the way we do. So far she has taken to playing with the sticks and rocks around the driveway and exploring as much as she can. I know things can change, but I am hoping that her love for the outdoors merely grows and grows the way our son's did and she has no problem spending every beautiful weekend day outside with us. We have friends who would rather spend every moment inside, or if they do venture outside, do so for short periods of time only, and that is fine. We are an outdoor family, and that is how we shall remain. Over the past few weeks, there has been an item in the news which as brought some people much concern, a tick borne disease that is not curable. Previously, the main one which a good amount of people actually get, was Lyme disease. Now there is this new one, which has mostly been found in animals, but when found in humans could cause major health problems. The onset is quicker than Lyme disease and the effects more devastating. Hip hip hooray. However, I really am not that worried, and here is why. In 2012, the latest year for which statistics are available, only 12 people across the whole United States contracted this disease. Put that number against the 350 million that live here, and I think I have a right not to be too worried. Its really quite simple, check for ticks, remove them if you see them, and move on your way. But enough about that. The fact of the matter is, and I guess why I brought that up to begin with, is that there really isn't too much that will keep us indoors on a warm sunny day. Everything that needs to be done indoors (mostly cleaning) is done in short spurts or at night. When the sun is shining, we must be outdoors, that is all.
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