Greenhouse Planting

The greenhouse is officially cleaned out,  repaired from winter weather,  and holding heat.
 

Today I moved all the flats that were already planted with cold weather crops, hot peppers, and sweet peppers into the greenhouse from the kitchen.
 

 

 

 

 

And I planted 360 tomato plants.  We are heirloom tomato snobs, and we really only garden so we can have tomatoes. :-)

 

Not really....but we are tomato snobs. 

 

I plan to review what we grow this year for any other budding heirloom tomato snobs.  Our favorite to date is Chocolate Pear. It is to die for.  We dried a bunch and ate them into the fall.  Perfection!

 

Last year I tried to garden in crocs. Didn't work so well,  and I was stressing about saving up $140 for new work boots.  We went to the store prepared to splurge on boots for me for the season,  but when we took one last minute look at Walmart we found these sweet babies for less than $40. Amazing!  My feet were happy all weekend.

 

 

A great Sunday sermon from a passionate pastor,  laundry on the line outside instead of in the kitchen,  hands in the dirt,  hardly any snow in the yard,  a big fat jiggly pig in the sty, a happy goat, and two chickens that decided it was time to start laying again. ....life is good.

Planting time!

Did you know it is only 13 days until Spring officially starts? We celebrated that this week by starting our planting and cleaning out the greenhouse!

Hopefully the greenhouse will be holding heat soon, and we can get the flats out there to grow in the wonderful sunshine.

Identity Swinging

Today I am working on the notes for a session I am teaching at the end of the month in Iowa on Identity Crises.  It's all about how God wants us to live life righteously and keep ourselves safely under his authority and in his discipline instead of using our lives to draw attention to ourselves by creating new identities based on our talents or experiences.

How ironic that God is using ME to teach others about keeping our identity in our union with Christ, not using bulimic bursts of energy to accomplish things, and allowing our satisfaction in him to be what draws the attention of others.

Good one, God.  You obviously have a sense of humor.  :-)

2 Corinthians 3:18  But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.

Psalm 72:18-19 Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, Who alone works wonders. And blessed be His glorious name forever; And may the whole earth be filled with His glory. Amen, and Amen.

Me and Social Media

About a month ago I realized that maybe I should try living without Facebook.  I also quietly went about life sparingly referring to other online tools like Pinterest.  I hadn't really used that a lot anyways.  I can't really live without Netflix, because I use it to keep me from going insane every morning on my exercise bike.

Well....a month without Facebook, and I survived.   Actually, I thrived.  And the month away proved exactly what I thought it would. 

Facebook is a great forum, and it's so cool to be able to stay engaged with friends and family, but I think it's feeding thinking problems for me, especially my already huge capacity to be judgmental.  Reading all the one sentence updates people randomly put on FB is like voyeurism into someone's life for me, and I found myself, more and more, thinking rude and hateful thoughts after reading those one or two random sentences.  While I work on being a kinder and more intentionally sacrificially, loving person I probably don't need to feed my inborn tendencies to be hateful and judgmental.  For the time being, I'm going to focus on building face-to-face relationships. 

A couple people have commented that they miss hearing about the little, old farm, so I've resurrected our old blog.  For those that really care about what we're up to, are dreaming of, or are trying to accomplish the blog is probably a better forum anyway.  I like to let my family know what life is like out here on the prairie, but I figured that most of my Facebook friends probably got annoyed by all of the farm stuff I posted online anyways.  No one really cares what we're planting in our garden except for the people that are going to eat it, most likely.  :-)

Because I had more time from not checking Facebook, pondering Facebook drama, or creating internal drama from what I'd read on Facebook I got a LOT done around the house.  I sewed Brian two pairs of fleece pajamas, I finished one baby blanket,  I started another crochet throw project, and I made Shelby a pair of crocheted slippers with leather soles.  Those slippers ROCK!  No more blown out crocheted soles for us.

Anyways,  I'll probably still pop onto Facebook from time to time.  It's the only way I get to see my sister and brothers and parents in real time.  But I'm happy about my Facebook free decision, and Brian is headed that way as well....even though he was only really a FB stalker anyways. :-)