Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.

A Prayer in Spring by Robert Frost

I am not ashamed to admit that this time of year is a bit scary for me. It takes some extra prayers and a bit of time for me to find the courage I need to go out to work in the gardens alone.

It’s not so bad when my husband or son are with me but that’s just not practical and although I carry at least two EpiPens and my cell phone when I go, I am all too aware that they may not be enough to save me should I be stung out there by a bee or a murder hornet.

I know I often joke about dying doing what I love, but honestly? I’d rather be watching the daisies grow than pushing them up, if you know what I mean!

And it’s not only the bees and wasps. I’ve had terrible reactions to everything from pollen to smoke to pesticides being sprayed all around us. We live with neighbors who use chemicals to control their weeds and we’re surrounded by farmer’s fields so the crop dusters are constantly flying overhead, dousing the crops with the very things that makes most processed food inedible to me.

The wind invariably carries everything from chemical-saturated laundry smells coming from next door to wildfire smoke from as far away as California and Oregon my way, which makes life outside the safety of my house in warmer months challenging, to say the least!

Still, wir müssen leben bis wir sterben, or we must live until we die, as the saying goes.

Yesterday I suited up with long sleeves, long pants and a hat for protection and went out to transplant my basil and a few of the marigolds.

Then I came back inside, where it was safer, and worked on my carrot seed ice cube trays which I’ll talk about in a future post. I’ll be trying a few different ways to sow carrots this year.

Over the years I’ve saved dozens of the plastic pots in various sizes from plants I’ve bought from the local nursery and I’m so glad I did! They really are coming in handy now that I’m trying to grow everything from seed myself.

Speaking of seeds, or grain, rather, my grain mill finally came yesterday. I was so excited to finally get it!

First, though, I had to make sure all the parts were there… 🤨

This was the second one they sent me since the first one was missing a few parts and had to be sent back. I know it happens, but it’s so annoying when it happens to me!

I was pleased to find not only were all the parts there but I was able to put it together myself and, best of all, it’s a really nice quality grinder for the price!

It fit perfectly on my food prep desk and I can’t wait to use it.

Once I got it all put together and set up I realized I didn’t have anything to grind with it so I ordered some wheat berries to try out first. Hopefully this year we will have some pesticide free, freshly grown, non GMO corn from our garden that I can make into corn tortillas and bread.

Then I started looking into growing some of our own wheat, too, after thinking “why the heck not?” and found this encouragment:

First off, most of us think you would need acres and acres to produce even a little bit of flour. Not so. An average backyard of say, 1,000 square feet (93 sq. m.), is enough space to grow a bushel of wheat. What does a bushel equal? A bushel is about 60 pounds (27 kg.) of grain, enough to bake 90 loaves of bread! Since you probably don’t need 90 loaves of bread, devoting just a row or two to growing wheat in the home garden is sufficient.

Gardeningknowhow.com

I do make a lot of homemade bread and actually wouldn’t mind a bushel of wheat but realistically, a few rows would be just fine.

For a start… 🙂

I can’t wait to run the idea by the hubs.