The Garden: A New Journey.

My family's recently moved to new home. We'd run out of garden space in the suburbs and the garden was the one thing we did as a family that we all truly enjoyed. Eventually we got tired of our kids playing in circles on the plastic turf. We are grateful to God for the beautiful home we had but we thought it was time for a bit more space for our growing family.

We moved into a 14 acre property with a wonderful manufactured home on it. It has all the space we need in the house with 4 rooms and 2 baths but where it really shines is in the yard space. Only about 5 acres are fenced in and that's pretty much where our plans are contained for now.

As of now we've divide that 5 acres into what will one day be a huge vegetable garden, our small fruit orchard, a couple of entertaining areas, a chicken coop area, a composting area, an area which we hope to turn into a small pasture for raising sheep, and an area where we wish to build a large shop.

There are a lot of plans and even more work to be done. We've started by removing some mesquites. If you're not familiar with mesquites they are nasty thorny trees with deep taproots that originate from Texas and have taken over Arizona. The thorns and deep roots make them unpleasant to deal with. We hope with time to clear the land of the and replace them with better shade trees and fruit trees in the orchard. My husband has his heart set on desert willows. Those floral trees have caught his eye and heart since we moved to Arizona a couple years back.

The most daunting of the tasks left, other than the many trees that we yet to cut down and whose stump we will have to find a way to remove, is the rock removal. There are so many rocks that need to be removed from our property in order for the vegetable garden or the pasture to be feasible. It's daunting and exciting, it gives our little family plenty of actionable goals to work on together and that is part of the charm of having moved out to the country.

I hope to document our progress to share on this blog. Hopefully we can transform this little homestead in the high desert into a little oasis. Overall may our work on this land glorify God and please him.