Gardening
One of the things that my husband and I are doing now that we have more time for ourselves is gardening. Not flowers but fruits and vegetables. My husband grew up in the country, so he knows a lot about how to do this. I grew up in the city and suburbs. Nothing that I have ever planted has survived to fruition. My mom always described me as having a “black thumb“.
So with that in mind, I let my husband take the reins on this. No, I don’t enjoy the actual planting process. I enjoy watching the plants grow. The literal fruits of our labor. We should have tomatoes, peppers, beans, lettuce, and spinach in just a few short weeks. And what we are unable to eat, we can feed to our new chickens.
Our ultimate goal is to have raised beds. I have chronic back pain and can only do short spurts of bending and kneeling. But time got away from us this year and with other repairs being more pressing, my husband was unable to complete our raised beds before planting season. So we reconfigured the beds that were already here, and added a couple more.
- Galvanized Garden Bed https://www.pntrac.com/t/1-7937-308007-7937?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tractorsupply.com%2Ftsc%2Fproduct%2Fluxen-home-6-ft-rectangular-galvanized-metal-raised-garden-bed-whpl1272-2015532
- Garden Soil https://www.pntra.com/t/1-7937-308007-7937?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tractorsupply.com%2Ftsc%2Fproduct%2Fmiracle-gro-garden-soil-for-flowers-vegetables-2-cu-ft-1112367
Yard Work
I also recently learned how to use the riding lawn mower. I told my husband when we got married that I would never mow the lawn. When I was a teenager, I mowed the lawn and many neighbors’ lawns as a part-time job. I did it so much that when I became an adult I decided that I would never mow another lawn the rest of my life!
Fast forward to moving to the country and living on 5 acres. We have about one acre of lawn. The other 4 acres are grazing pastures. My husband has generally been taking care of all the outdoor things. One day I just decided that he didn’t need to do all of it alone anymore. So I went way out of my comfort zone and learned how to use the rider. I got the hang of it pretty quickly. Unless you count whacking my head on a limb in the first five minutes. Hit it so hard my hat flew off!
I’ll duck next time.
