More on the Garden

Here is a picture of our good friend Chad who helped me the whole day. We are so thankful for his willingness to help us out with his time and talents. I do not think we could have accomplished as much as we did on this day if it were not for him.

Here I am consulting with my head contractor to see what we needed to do next.
Here Jarod is helping to plant some tomatoes with his Mama.

Barbie is showing the seeds to the children before we start planting.

Here the garden is mostly seeded and 3/4's of the way fenced in. Barbie has tagged each of the spots to know where and what everything is.

Tomatoes are down. Yay!!! Beautiful picture. The LORD blessed us with a gorgeous day to get all that we accomplished done.Here Ayden is helping with the garden. This type of gardening is referred to as "Square Foot Gardening", popularized by some guy, some where, for some reason. It is a very neat idea and we are super excited.

Putting up the fencing. We were afraid that the one roll of chicken wire we bought would not be enough for the bottom of the garden and to fence it in. But the LORD was good and we had just enough to do both. Praise the LORD!

On a side note, somewhat related topic: Barbie bought me a 5 piece power tool set. The Ryobi set came with a power drill, circular saw, reciprocating saw, a work light, a charger, two 18 volt batteries, and a tool bag. I got to use all the tools this weekend for the garden and to drill and cut our compost barrel. I have the most awesome wife ever!!! More pictures as the garden progresses. We love you all and miss you all so much. Bye for now.

A Busy Saturday

There was a lot planned for this Saturday. First on the list is our family tradition of taking our breakfast at that notable chicken establishment of Chick-fil-a. We all look forward to that special Saturday meal, because it means the weekend is upon us and that means Family Day!!
After breakfast, I was meeting my friend Chad to go look at mycycles (as Jarod calls motorcycles). We fist visited the Victory shop. If you have not seen a Victory motorcycle, you are missing out. They are all-American made and beautiful to boot. The down side to Victory bikes is the price tag. The cheapest bike I saw was $14,000 and that was for a 2008! Next we were headed to the Honda dealership to visit my new favorite - the Honda Fury...or as I call it the Kraken!! She is Honda's very popular (sing the song from the show "Wicked" - you know you want to Lika) VTX 1300 engine mounted on their chopper frame. Stylish with attitude. Definitely a head turner - just like the price, not as bad as Victory, but still pricey, I think it starts at $16,000. On the way to the Honda place, we were sidetracked by a very large demo truck parked in front of the Triumph dealership. Triumph, for those who do not know, is a Brittish bike maker, probably most well known on the racing circuit. This was the second time visiting this dealership, and the last time I remember being in awe of the styling of the bikes but turned away by the pricing. This time, I saw a 900cc (the Triumph America and the Triumph Speedmaster) with a price of $9700 - both 2010 models. What I previously saw as out of my league, was now amazingly within reach. Even their most expensive bike was cheaper than the cheapest 2010 Victory. Crazy! Dad, what kind of motorcycle did you have when we were growing up?
After the drooling stopped and I was pulled to reality, it was time to get to work. First, cut down the tree in the front of the house. Why? Because it was a nuisance, because it was ugly, because it was blocking the walk to the front porch, and last and most important, its root system was growing under the foundation of the house. I had borrowed an electric chainsaw from a co-worker to do the job. Bad move on my part. No offense to any who own an electric chainsaw, but it just did not cut it - ha! I made a funny!! I made two cuts and then the chain stopped moving. The motor was running, but the chain just was not doing anything. Solution: rent a GAS-powered chainsaw from Home Depot for $50 for a 4 hour period - more than enough time to bring down my adversary. Round 2. I was Bilbo and that chainsaw was Sting. Sting made short work of the troll. True story: in less than fifteen minutes the tree had fallen to the sword and was more that 50% chopped up for pick up by Waste Management.
On to the next task - building a vegetable garden for my Baby. We bought a kit for a raised garden from Home Depot. It is 4ft x 4ft and eight inches deep. This is before we broke ground.
Here we have the ground pretty level, and we staked out a 5x5 square to work in.
We now have the box assembled and set inside our staked area. The sides are finished cedar planks. Smelled great when we opened the box. You can see our friend Chad Poorman in the background looking over the directions (I mean suggestions) for the next step in the process. Next, we put down an energy field to keep rabbits and other burrowing creatures from entering the garden from below. This field is very effective and is powered by a power station that is on the nearby planet of Endor. Okay, so the "shield" is a layer of chicken wire. See, that did not sound as cool as the first description. We then put a Weed-X barrier down over the shield to keep the grass and weeds from growing back into the garden. Look at the helpers! Mr. Chad told them to stand like warriors and hold the Weed-X from blowing in the wind.
Below, we have the garden divided up into sections for growing various veggies. On the right side, the largest sections will have two Roma tomato plants each. The other eight sections will have basil, oregano, cilantro, green peppers, jalapenos, onions, and green onions. It is a salsa/spaghetti sauce garden. At the corners, I have u-posts for chicken wire fencing.

Here is Dianna and Barbie placing the first seeds into the garden. Matoes first. That is what Jarod calls tomatoes. More on the progress of the garden in the next post. We love you all so much and are excited about the garden and the prospect of cutting some more costs. Pray for us, as you all know that I am in no way a green thumb, that we will have good success with our garden. Until next time. Love you.