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Being outside is the best!

Though Earth day isn’t a major holiday to us–it’s no Easter or Christmas or Halloween–it’s one of those days that we take a few moments to reflect on all the good things that come from Mother Earth. Really though, it’s like Earth Day, every day around here.

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Like when we went to the nursery to get ready for our garden. Having a bit of cabin fever from the elongated winter we had this year, I surrounded us with beautiful, green things that were meant to fill our garden and flower bed…
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Snickers is disgusted with me.
…and promptly (yet inadvertently) killed several of them.
I’ve told Jack many, many times, plants aren’t my forte.
Maybe he’ll believe me now.
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Or on those few warm, non-rainy days we had, we hit the ground running. One of the first spring projects was redoing some of the front landscaping. We drastically widened it to allow for planting some new flowers and shrubbery and so I didn’t have to mow under the gnarly crabapple tree with the low-hanging boughs.
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Of course, sometimes in the middle of work, it’s nice to take a break and just enjoy the warm sunlight.

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Once we got the stones placed and the landscaping fabric down, we mulched and mulched until we couldn’t mulch anymore.

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Seriously, we were pooped.
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But all our hard work paid off and it looked fantastic. Now for landscaping!
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Teething on a stick and learning to walk on the grass.

But, on the farm, there’s hardly any time to lose, even if we are tired. So, after the landscaping, we got to planting the Department of Natural Resources tree bundle we’d ordered. Nothing says Earth Day like a 100 wildlife mix trees native to Indiana that need to be put in the ground.

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Getting started on our front hedge, made of wild plums, gray dogwood, and elderberries

One of the many benefits of a couple of cows is the very rich, very abundant, er…fertilizer they provide. After a couple months of composting, it’s as good as black tilth and could make anything grow. I bet it’d grow a money tree if we stuck a few quarters in the ground.

Now that I think of it, maybe we should give it a try…
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Parton practicing his headbutting skills against the wheelbarrow.
Once the first thirty shrubs were planted, it was back to mulch, mulch, mulch…
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Employing his dump truck and keeping cool with a popsicle.
…and with a little left over, we drove over and mulched the orchard trees, too.
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One of my favorite days this spring was the morning of our last freeze. That meant a lot of the plants that were barely clinging to life atop our piano, kitchen table, or bookshelf were free to go outside.

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First, that meant we had to work the garden plot a bit. Last fall, we’d used a good number of our empty moving boxes as a base layer to keep the grass down, then piled a whole lot of manure and shavings on top. Come spring and a bit of raking and a load of topsoil mixed in, voila, ready for planting.

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It was Jack’s job to make a berry patch, so naturally, he got out his trusty flamethrower and weeded away.

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We even recycled a few of the old tires the previous owner had left in a shed to be used for our potatoes…

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…some of which are a very interesting heirloom variety.
Purple mashed potatoes it is!
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Once the berries were all in, we put in the cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts and other plants…

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…and rotated through the ever-important job of keeping Zoey happy enough that she’s too distracted to eat dirt, one of her favorite pasttimes.

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Not even running into a few thistles or burrs or wild roses are enough to keep us from enjoying the great outdoors.

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And on the official Earth Day, the girls all decided to celebrate by wearing flowery dresses to church, and spending some time out in the hammock, soaking up sunlight and rocking in the breeze.

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Earth Day is every day here.
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True stories of raising children, remodeling, braving the elements and plotting out life, all while living on a humble acreage in central Indiana.

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