I Can Explain!

Hello WA community! Some of you may have noticed that I have been away from the WA platform for some time now. The past few months have been busy on other fronts. Some of you may recall that my wife and I are 'homesteading' out on Canada's east coast. We're aiming for food self-sufficiency. Toward that end, in addition to the conventional garden we planted last year, I built 3 raised gardens, based on the Hugelkultur model. A log base, then smaller branches, then leaves and hay. The topsoil then goes on top. The ones I built have walls because the lot is sloped toward the road so they had to be terraced. So creating walls around the raised gardens was, I thought, a better way to contain everything. In the end this was a wise choice since the seeds had to be covered with netting so the birds and other wildlife couldn't dig them up. Having walls made that easier. And, we are going to have to chicken wire each of the new garden beds to keep the rabbits and deer out! The wooden framework is going to allow us to do that. The pic at the top is just one of the new beds. That pic is from April while the beds were still under construction.

Anyway, I ordered 10 yards of topsoil and, from there, it was shovel the dirt into the wheelbarrow, haul it over to the gardens and then shovel it out! Man, that was a lot of work! I'm 71 now so I didn't press things too hard but, I'll tell ya, I'm in better shape now than I have been in ages. Lots of other activities around this little hobby farm too so there's no shortage of exercise! I'm grateful though because I know all of this activity is going to keep my wife and I healthy.

In March we started planting seeds that we put in little trays in the front window. Those seedlings are now all in the ground in the new beds and everything is coming along nicely. It's kind of a thrill watching everything grow! We have cucumbers, squash, three varieties of tomatoes, peppers, brussels sprouts, peas, beets, yellow and green beans, garlic, dill, arugula, chives, radishes and parsley. I even have a new apple tree that I planted from seed in a pot! Going to have to find a good place on the property to plant it!

cucumber seedlings

tomato and pepper seedlings

Our first, conventional, garden - tomatoes, beans, beets, squash and garlic in the back

tomato jungle in the foreground; next level up is peppers and brussels sprouts

cucumbers and tomatoes - the little yellow tray is water and dish soap (kills the bugs)

peas - that's our big boy Elijah in the background

Elijah up close and personal :D

squash in the first bed - beans and tomotoes up top

dandelion flower fritters - don't snicker they were awesome

Elijah and our mini 'Dwayne the Rock Johnson' - his name is Malechi

The other thing that has occupied my time is this. Check this out. A lawyer in the neighborhood stumbled upon some of the websites I have created here at WA (I have 10 sites altogether including a wellness for seniors site, a homesteading site, a legal information site, a site designed to help small business and others. Anyway, this guy thought (for some strange reason) that I was a pretty interesting guy. So he sent me an email asking me to have lunch with him. I accepted and, long story short, I now have a position with one of the largest firms here in western New Brunswick and I'm getting very busy very quickly. I never would have imagined that my activity here at WA would have led to an opportunity that is absolutely life-changing.

Anyway, I'm going to have more time now that the gardens are planted. We still need to weed and water but the really heavy lifting is behind us now (until harvest time that is - will be a lot of canning to be done then). Bottom line though is that the content that I have created here at WA has led to an absolutely fabulous opportunity for me.

Now I'm really anxious to get back into more engagement with this totally awesome WA community and into more content creation which, by itself, I have found extremely rewarding. So I hope that you'll be seeing more of me as we move forward. I certainly don't have to mention that there are so, so many truly exceptional people here on the WA platform and I look forward to resuming the discussions that I have had with so many of you!