War of the Weeds

The Little House on the Prairie books are some of my very favorites, and growing up I ALWAYS envied Laura Ingalls her exciting pioneer life. It sounded so romantic to get to play in the creek, bake "green pumpkin" pies, get a Christmas barrel in May, and help with the haying. Somehow I think my imagination must have glossed over the most important point of being a farmer's daughter: it is HARD WORK!!

Yesterday, thanks to some research I did on pesticides on our produce and, well, LOOKING OUT THE WINDOW AT MY YARD, I decided I need to plant a garden. The trouble is, the weeds have pretty much taken over. A few years ago, my parents helped us dig up our yard and plant beautiful grass everywhere. However, thanks to a winter of not living in our house and then a summer of no rain, hot sun, and no maintenance (Daddy too busy at work and Mama with a new baby), our poor grass is mortally unhappy. At least, I hope its not mortally, but it doesn't look too good...And then it rained tons in late July, which perked up the grass a bit but also gave carte blanche to all those weeds which had been germinating unchecked! Ack!

So yesterday afternoon, armed with my shovel, I went out to tackle the weed problem. Ha. Ha. Any envy I ever felt for Laura is deader than my grass! I spent more than an hour in the hot hot sun (because apparently Baby will only nap and let me work during the hottest times of the day), hacking and digging and chopping and pulling, and by the time she woke up I was filthy, exhausted, sore, aching, hot, sweaty...and had cleared about a square foot of space. Okay, maybe a little more than that. But not much more! Whew! In the War of the Weeds, so far they are winning.

I got up this morning determined to go out in the early morning while it was still cool...well, it was cool! So cool it started raining 5 minutes before we went out. So it was back inside for a few hours. Poor Joseph was SO excited about going out - his Daddy had bought him a new pair of gloves and a trowel to help weed, and he was DYING to use them - and he was heartbroken that he couldn't. He stubbornly insisted that is was NOT raining. I told him to go look out the front door. He came back and said "Well, it may be raining in the front yard but it is NOT raining in the backyard!" Oh boy. We finally made it out about 11:30, and I was hoping the clouds would stick around to keep things cool, but no such luck. On the upside, the wet ground made it a lot easier to pull the weeds out! But eventually it got so hot we couldn't take it, and Baby woke up right about then, so we came in for lunch. We made another small dent. But maybe with time and persistence, we will eventually win the war.

someday I hope my garden looks like this!

I have never tried a garden before, but with food prices soaring and finding out all our favorite fruits/vegetables are on the "Dirty Dozen" list of most pesticide-contaminated, I am willing to give it a shot. The kids love any excuse to play in the dirt!

Still, I am glad my livelihood does not depend on farming. We would starve! And I have one thing Laura Ingalls did not, something I am infinitely thankful for: a shower!