What did you do in the garden today?

[Artichoke Lover]

I worked with people with drug addictions for a number of years. It is amazing how good people can be brought down so low by illegal drugs. It seems to be very rare that a person can escape that life, but I still hope for the best for everyone. From my point of view, where I used to work, most people with drug addictions don't get the help they need to reboot their lives drug free. Mostly, they are locked up for a short time to clean up, and then sent right back to the same life they came from with all the drugs.

I don't know what the current statistics are, but when I worked, our charts said about 97% of the people with drug addictions would be back. I personally never saw anyone get and stay drug free. The only people I hear that do manage to leave the drugs behind, are those that completely change their lives, where they live, and dump all their old "friends" from their drug days. Not too many people can do that. So I appreciate hearing stories of those who are successful.

That's not quite true. You can get drugs in jail, just as easy, sometimes easier than on the street. They may not have 'cleaned up'

Also, they do NOT go back to the same life they had. They now have a conviction on their record, many times it's a felony. Good luck getting a decent job with THAT. At least before the drug bust, they may have had a clean record and could get a good job IF they wanted.

Even if they did want to clean up, society has essentially told them with this, $^@ U. THIS is your crappy life, but you better fix it, but we won't help.

If we as a society truly want to help people, then we need to quit with the stigmatism of a conviction. I see you had a drug conviction? Yes I did, are you clean, yes I am, do you plan on staying clean? yes I do. good, do you want the job? YES>>> I DO. great, you start monday.

If a person makes a mistake, make them pay for it, but once they paid their debt to society, it's DONE, you need to now accept them BACK into society and not hold that mistake against them forever. There are exceptions of course but in general, we really need to get off our high horses and get over ourselves.

Just my two eggs worth.
Aaron

I agree with both of you. Our church runs a rehab and has for about 10 years now. Some of the biggest things we have found are that people struggling with addiction need a community both during rehab and especially after they get out. We teach job skills and help create job opportunities whether it’s working at one of the rehabs centers: thrift store, woodshop, or auto repair. Or through one of the businesses in the community that we partner with. Unfortunately it’s true that there are always more people that fall back into drugs than stay clean but it’s always incredible to watch the ones that do turn there lives around, get a job, get their kids back. One of the miracles we’ve gotten to witness is a large number of the leaders of our program who have been clean 5, 10, 20, years used to do drugs together now they are all clean and we get to see them talk, and laugh and teach together and hang out with their kids and grandkids. It’s amazing to watch the kind of restoration God can bring and I’m so grateful to be able to witness it.
(Also I would be happy to discuss this topic more in a different thread or pms if anyone is interested I just don’t want to hijack the garden thread)

 

[gtaus]

Picked some fresh strawberries today and made some strawberry chocolate smoothies for Dear Wife and myself this evening after supper.

For the moment, I am tops on her list for making such a great smoothie. I'll take it. Not that often I get to shine....

Took down 3 trees yesterday and today I have busy cleaning up the debris. Gave the heavier trunk rounds to my neighbor for firewood. They have a nice wood fireplace which they use to heat their house in the late fall and spring. Just when a person needs to take the chill out of the air but not really have to heat the whole house. I saved some of the branches for making wood chips which I will use either in the chicken coop or as mulch out in the garden. Lots of the smaller branches just got tossed on to my "junk wood pile" out in the tall grass and I'll just let it compost...forever...

 

[oldhen2345]

Picked some fresh strawberries today and made some strawberry chocolate smoothies for Dear Wife and myself this evening after supper.

For the moment, I am tops on her list for making such a great smoothie. I'll take it. Not that often I get to shine....

Took down 3 trees yesterday and today I have busy cleaning up the debris. Gave the heavier trunk rounds to my neighbor for firewood. They have a nice wood fireplace which they use to heat their house in the late fall and spring. Just when a person needs to take the chill out of the air but not really have to heat the whole house. I saved some of the branches for making wood chips which I will use either in the chicken coop or as mulch out in the garden. Lots of the smaller branches just got tossed on to my "junk wood pile" out in the tall grass and I'll just let it compost...forever...

Say, how did you make that smoothie?? I drink a lot of protein smoothies- mainly strawberry, blueberry or baby spinach. Chocolate strawberry sounds scrumptious.

 

[Acre4Me]

Say, how did you make that smoothie?? I drink a lot of protein smoothies- mainly strawberry, blueberry or baby spinach. Chocolate strawberry sounds scrumptious.

I was thinking the same thing!

 

[TJAnonymous]

It must be the year of the flies! I just ordered 4 more bags.

I put the fan in the coop & gave electrolytes this am. It's hot.

Same... We put up 4 bags tonight too... 1 in the barn, 1 in the chicken coop, 1 in the duck coop, and 1 in our garage.

Definitely a biblical plague.... Ugh.

 

[karenerwin]

In between rain storms I moved 2 more wagon loads of dirt into the garden and moved 2 green pepper plants to new locations. They were too close to the zucchini plants and would have gotten covered by giant zucchini leafs in another week or 2!

 

[pennyJo1960]

We are still in out heat wave nothing outside marine layer is coing back in heat wave will be gone

 

[chickengr]

It's about to storm. I grabbed some produce from the garden that was ready for picking. There's so much out there growing, but most of it is still not ripe. This one cucumber is overripe though.
View attachment 2738638
Here's a panoramic pic of the garden too.
View attachment 2738639

chickens and ducks love overripe veggies.

 

[gtaus]

Say, how did you make that smoothie??

I was thinking the same thing!

No specific recipe for my strawberry chocolate smoothies. Just start off with some strawberries, add some chocolate syrup, blend it up with a bit of milk. Then I will add some vanilla yogurt, crushed ice cubes, and a few scoops of ice cream. Mix all that together to about milk shake thickness. It's never the same twice, but that's OK with me. Close counts.

I'm just having fun with my first year strawberry patch and fresh strawberries that I pick. I really don't have all that many strawberries at one time with only 16 plants, so throwing about 6-8 of them in a smoothie goes a long way. Dear Wife does not bother too much with my edible garden plants, but she got a kick out of picking the strawberries for the smoothies.

I think when you can get people involved with the food process, even if it's just harvesting some food from a small garden in the backyard, they seem more connected to the food then simply buying it at the big box store. Also, it's nice to harvest the food right before you eat it instead of letting it sit in the fridge for days. We have already had a few meals with fresh Swiss Chard and I suspect it will not be too long before we start getting some beans from my planters. Nothing better than a handful of fresh beans picked from the planter on the deck outside the kitchen and then steamed up for supper.

 

[gtaus]

But just so you know....each time one of you mentions "it's raining today," it's like a knife in my gut..... I know, I know.....thou shalt not be jealous.

I know what you mean. This year has been exceptionally dry for me too. My main garden does not have access to running water, and the plants are just not growing very well. I am going out there every so often and watering by hand, but it's not the same as a good rain would accomplish.

I built some new raised bed gardens in the backyard, and have been using a sprinkler on them almost daily. I started off with good topsoil I bought and chicken run compost for those new beds, mixed 1:1. My main garden soil is not nearly as good. Anyway, the new raised beds have some pepper plants that are about 15 inches tall whereas the main garden (without good watering and poor soil) are only maybe 4 inches tall.

If my main garden fails this year, I think I will dig out the old raised beds and put in the topsoil/chicken run compost mix I used in my new beds. Still have to think about how to water the main garden better when there has been virtually no rain days for weeks on end.

The only plants growing good in the main garden are Zucchini and cucumbers which I planted in hügelkultur raised beds. I think the wood in the bottom of the raised beds is really retaining whatever water it can and feeding the plants above. That is the theory, anyway, and it seems to be working better than the normal raised beds this year when everything is all dried out.