Sustainable Living

What is sustainable living?  It can mean different things to different people.  For us, we have to think about our kids, grandkids and great-grandkids.  We want to leave a good place for them to live.  Whatever we do, here on the farm, has to comply with “no-harm to the environment" thinking.  We have been growing everything without harmful insecticides, pesticides or fertilizers since 2004.  We want to live a healthier life, eat healthy food, make better choices every day about the things we put back into the earth and become more aware of what we put inside ourselves or even on our skin that could be harmful.  Any food we need, that we don't grow ourselves, should be organic.  That is not as difficult as it sounds.  We have the Internet to use as a resource to find organic products and I have found many organic foods at markets and a health food store here in Mountain Grove, MO.  

While thinking about how we feel about sustainable living, on June 18, 2007, we read "Our Daily Bread", a daily bible reading and found a wonderful explanation written by Dave Brannon.  It expresses exactly how we feel and I will enter it here:

God gave us an incredible gift-the beautiful world in which we live.  Naturally, though, as we share this planet with so many others, we run the risk of seeing it's beauty diminished and it's resources depleted.

While we have every right to use the resources God placed in and on the earth, we also need to recognize our responsibility to respect the earth as His and to preserve its resources for future generations.

In Genesis, the Lord told Adam (and, by extension, all of us) to "tend and keep" the earth (2:15).  Because we don't know when Jesus will return, it would not be responsible stewardship to leave our children and grandchildren without the resources that God provided for them as well.

We might think that our individual efforts to preserve God's world aren't valuable.  But we can all work together to do our part.  Buying and consuming less, simplifying, repairing instead of replacing, reusing, and recycling are all good stewardship practices

One way we can testify of our love for God and to express our gratitude for what He has done is by tending and keeping the earth and all that it offers.  Until the Lord returns, let's use our world wisely.

God created the world and placed it in our care.

The pictures below are from 2006 to 2010 gardens.  We had more flowers in 2007 due to the ease of starting seed (I am an avid seed collector) in the greenhouse.  If you see something here that could be easily improved upon, please let us know by making a comment in the Guestbook.  We need all the help we can get, just remember, we are on a squeaky tight budget!

Update 6-22-2007 It would seem that growing without all the pesticides, insecticides and non-organic fertilizers doesn't have an adverse affect on the look, size or quality of the vegetables we grow here.  I say that because while putting in some hours with my friend, at the fair yesterday for the women’s group, I counted the ribbons we received on the veggies Dan & I entered in the competition.  We received 15 ribbons for the 15 different things we entered in Horticulture.  Nine - first place ribbons and six - second place ribbons.  I saw some beautiful vegetables that we haven't tried to grow and am already thinking about seeds for next season.  We will try to get some pictures posted as soon as we can of this years garden and some of the produce we have picked.