New Life In The Spring: Under Construction
Spring is one of my favorite times of the year. It always seems full of new energy, new hope and promise. I love the beautiful sounds of the birds and smell of fresh air that jog childhood memories of Spring. Today I heard my first turtle dove and I saw a majestic bald eagle flying near our home! I was so excited to see it that I stopped in the middle of the road just to watch it. There is a wonderful sense of new life in the Spring with the daffodils and tulips breaking through the ground and trees budding into bright colors. With every warm day we see our honeybees out flying around. Our neighbors chickens are exploring everywhere searching for bugs and are back to laying an abundance of eggs.
Grow Your Own – THE TIME IS NOW
Vegetables, herbs and fruits are a vital part to good nutrition. With the rising costs of healthy food options, growing your own may be an alternative for you. In addition to the obvious notion of eating your produce, there are the added health benefits of working outside (exercise is essential to health) and the enjoyment of reveling in the beauty of nature (recreation – Re – Creation; new life and freshness for you mind, emotions and spirit).
Part of our passion is to give you resources and to cheer you on into this area of gardening. If gardening is an interest to you – now is the time to begin. We have tried a variety of gardening techniques and one of the books we love is “All New Square Foot Gardening” by Mel Barthelomew.
Under Construction
This year we have launched a new construction project of putting up a small greenhouse (10’ x 12’) in order to extend our growing season and to attempt the possibilities of hydroponic gardening with a tank of Tilapia. This is totally a work in progress, but we wanted to bring you along on our journey. We were blessed to have our neighbors, Bill and Tarey Shipley, join us in this endeavor so we split the costs and the effort. We want to encourage you by giving you the resources we found so that you may be inspired.
We bought our greenhouse at Harbor Freight
We bought seed starting supplies at Growers Solutions
We collaborate with Sullivan’s Greenhouse and buy small organic plants.
We bought our hydroponic supplies at Allied Aqua
Nutrition
Regardless of whether you grow you own or not, our challenge to you is to eat and/or drink as many veggies as you can each day. A great place to start is to drink a smoothie everyday making sure it is comprised with 50% vegetable (organic spinach or kale are a great place to start). You can find an easy smoothie recipe option that can be adapted to your personal tastes here.
Our foundational books listed in Resources are “Grain Brain” and “Wheat Belly”. This month we would encourage you to read “Brain Maker” (We will use this book as a reference for next week’s post).
Challenge and Encouragement
When it comes to vital health and wellness, we believe it is best to be pro-active and focus on prevention of illness and disease whenever possible, so that you can more fully enjoy quality of life, not just quantity of years. Our challenge for you is to examine areas of your life that may be negatively affecting your health now or potentially in the future, and commit to making small changes.
We want to offer encouragement by giving you suggested resources that can help turn your health around. Remember we are all “under construction” and there are always opportunities for “new life in the Spring”.
