I've been dreaming photovoltaics. I've been watching ebay and hoping to buy a good used diesel car to convert to burn Greasel (used cooking oil). I've switched out totally to those curly flourescent bulbs, serviced my bicycle and started using it, filled in our pool, and have my kids trained in shutting off lights when not in use (monetary incentives built into what we save in electricity) but my wife and I made a choice this weekend that flies in the face of all those good intentions. We are planting a huge garden at my dad's house. He lives an hour and a half from us. I figure with all the fuel we suck through our old suburban, all the drinks we buy on the road, all the money we spend on seed, plants, fertilizer, and a decent used rototiller our tomatoes will cost about $45 per fruit. But, (thats the part I play in all these plans-I'm always the but) I got a great photo of my three little ones and my sister's two little ones following closely behind grandpa's old Ford as he rolled huge nightcrawlers and thick juicy grubs from their earthen home. We got to feel the rich black earth with our bare feet, hear grandpa talk about his dad tilling their garden with a horse-drawn plow (my dad still has the plow and a cultivator) and pouring out his farming know-how to my urban gardener wife and my oblivious toddlers. My twin boys each got a turn at 'steering' the tractor. We haven't planted anything yet but we did rescue a couple hundred strawberry plants for a sodden grave and transplanted them to a nursery bed where they can recuperate a short time before we transplant them again into our garden.
2 comments:
Sounds like a bargain, though growing up on a farm cured me of my desire to work the land. :)
It was a bargain. It took 20 yrs. to get back on a tractor but now it looks more like worship than it does work.
Post a Comment