Resolutions, resolutions

Last year, I can only remember one goal we had for the whole year.  It was a family goal.  We were going to build a garden.  And build one we did.  

We build four 12x4 ft gardens and hauled in a truckload of compost and a truckload of topsoil (which we then shoveled into the beds.  I must acknowledge that I took 4 kids into Home Depot ages 6, 4, barely 2, and 6 months and ordered all the wood, and then got it loaded and tied onto the roof of my van by myself.  The attendant recommended that I use cedar wood as opposed to pine, but that meant going to a different store, so we stuck with pine.

Then we rented a hole digger, which is a two person task.  We dug the wholes about 2 feet deep and put in our posts, and then wrapped around the fence.

You can just barely see the tiny tomato and pepper plants we started from seed (we planted in February and put under them grow lights).  This was taken in late May. Madeline is quite proud of the visible growth.

Here's late summer.  My parents came and my dad helped build this awesome fence and he and my mom gave us some great tips and advice.  You can see how large the tomato plants are.  It was amazing.  We were so proud of our garden, and w\hen people saw it and we told them we had never gardened before, they would tell us things like, "Yeah, they say it's not really fair to compare gardening in MN because all you need to do it plant a seed and it grows like crazy.  

That's not how it used to be, I read a book about the first homesteaders in MN, called Giants in the Earth, and it was recorded that initially there weren't even birds in MN, it was so barren and desolate. 

While you can't tell because of the comparison to the tomato on steroids, these peaches are quite large, directly from the Amish.  This tomato was from a plant that our friends were throwing away.  It was our most plentiful plant.  It produced incredible amounts of magnificent tomatoes.

And just because I was so proud of the tomatoes, here they are again.

As we were planting our garden, I got the hankering to do some Raspberry plants, and drove over to WI with the girls to get 25 starters each of Golden Harvest and traditional Red raspberry plants.  Here's a picture of the donor's patch.  The girls have so loved the raspberry patch at both their grandparents homes that we wanted one here.

It was a wonderful experience, though many times we complained about the commitment we were making, both of time and effort.  The girls were thrilled to see the process of life take place over a season.  It amazed me as much as it did them.  

I started noticing so many things connecting our garden to our earth;  that the bees would often visit the pumpkins early in the morning, that even though my broccoli looked like it didn't have green worms, a soak in salt water proved otherwise, and so forth.  Ryan would often get home from work and we would all be in the garden checking out the new growth.  This would lead to us laying out watching the sky, or playing on the swing-set, or kicking the soccer ball around.  

 The boys loved sitting in the compost pile and making mud.  I think choosing one family goal is the way we'll head in terms of NY's resolutions.  

For 2011, we talked about implementing a second language in our home.  It wasn't something we were really ready to move on. I suggested that we identify some of our child-rearing goals and values, and that we work on establishing a culture in our family that meets our desires.

So, it's something that we are working on and exploring this year.  

(any other goals that we made for this year, we went ahead and scheduled them on our calendar.  We think this way we'll be more likely to achieve them).