For the first time since we moved here (2000), we did not start any seeds.

I know.  I know.  Say it isn’t so, but it is.  I don’t know if it is the weather (been just nuts), the scary state of the world (nut-bag in Russia), or my age (just say no), but something is really off whack this year.  If you follow my blog(s), you may have noticed that this is my first post FOR THE YEAR – SHOCKER!!  I did not even realize this until I titled this post.  I keep all of them because I am a writer at heart.  These are my stories of me, and I was dumbfounded to see that this was my first of the year – what is wrong with me?

I think I have to blame it on the weather (or climate) because I have not seen any of our spring flowers yet, and it is almost May.  The leaf buds on the lilacs and honeysuckle are just now showing up – so not normal!  I did get a minor reprieve last weekend when I heard all the frogs singing in our pond.  Their music did bring on a brief moment of spring excitement.

I almost forgot; I simply went to burn some of our trash in our burn barrel and accidentally set our south field on fire.  Our fantastic local volunteer Firemen were all over it, and there was (thank God) NO WIND!  My sister and I were looking at that field now and were impressed at how green it was.  So I think I got a bit of a boost seeing that even that dried-out field can come back to life. 

We decided to just go with seeds right in the ground this year.  The drought, the fires in our state, the crappy air (mainly smoke from all the fires and the dry dirt flying in the winds), and the battles over water have convinced us to cut way back this year on our gardens.  I will keep cleaning them up and tending when needed, but the water is the biggest fear.  I want to keep our trees going (fruit and others), and I want to start some new herbs in the herb garden, but watering this year is tough.  We have our own well (a bit of good news), but we are also very conservative in its use. 

It is too late for our regular early cold crops (broccoli, cabbage, etc.), but I can put in some root crops that we can, dehydrate, or freeze.  Our pantry is pretty full of veggies.  We purchased half of beef from our friendly local natural grower, so we have a freezer full of that.  We will be helping our other friendly local natural grower butcher their chickens later this year, which will take up another part of our 2^nd freezer.  I have been trying to buy extras of things like flour, sugar, and salt, but the price of everything has gone nuts this year.  (Don’t get me started on the gas!)

Our final decision is to grow less, use less water, use more of what we already have (duh – we store it for a rainy-day situation, and this is one of those days.), relax and remember what mom used to say:

This too shall pass.

Dang, don’t ya just hate it when mom is right!  I’m pretty sure she is up in heaven yelling “I told you so” at us right now.  And life goes on.

You can also check me out at:  https://lifelessonslived.com/ for all the fun things I have learned in life.

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