Signs of Spring

The seed catalogs have started to arrive in my mailbox which means spring is not far behind! As I look through each beautiful catalog and try and decide what I don't want to grow this year, I have to plan two gardens. Since I don't know for sure if we will be here in the spring/summer or at the farm we are trying to buy, I need to try and buy and plan for both. Here, I have little to no space for a garden, I grew tomatoes last year and I had a nice herb garden going, but nothing else. I can get a flower garden going in the front of the house since we pulled out all the carpenter ant loaded bushes last summer. Now, if we do get the farm, I will have tons and tons of space. I will have a large area in front of the barn.
This is look down from the barn, I'm not sure how big it is but it is a huge area and it's mostly fenced in which will help against larger veggie eater animals!






Here is a look up to the barn:

As you can see, the barn needs a lot of work---but it's a barn! I would be grateful just to have it as is!
Anyway, back to my gardens. I would have that whole area in front of the barn for a large garden. I would put a herb garden over by the house so I could actually have a kitchen herb garden.



Here at this house I have this area to plant things


Not much space, as you can see, LOL! There are other areas in this backyard but most of the backyard is taken up by our pool and with the kids splashing, I wouldn't want that water to get all over a garden, so I'm kinda stuck. I have the plots above in containers so the roots don't get covered with clorinated water.

I am planning on purchasing all organic seeds. I don't plan on selling produce as of yet, but I would like the ground tested at the farm so I can find out if it's loaded with chemicals. I am considering raised gardens anyway so even if the ground has issues I may be able to get around it with raised gardens. There are 2 wells on the property, I'm assuming that the one has gone dry but having been a city girl my whole life, I'm wondering how we will handle watering the gardens and plants and even the animals we plan on having. I CAN'T WAIT!!!

While I was reading through one of my Yahoo lists, I found a post about a site called Citizenre that is about solar power and how this company will rent out all the equipment you need to go off-grid. DH is totally sold, I am partially sold. I know that DH wants to be able to have battery backups, which this company doesn't offer, what energy we wouldn't use goes back to the grid with their system (I think it is called a Net meter system). Plus, he wants to utilize solar and wind and I'm not sure that they allow other forms of energy to be hooked up to their systems. All things to consider and find out about along the way. All I know is that I want to be able to use my computer and sewing machine whenever I want and for as long as I want so whatever system we have should be able to handle at least that much! LOL! I wouldn't mind living off-grid, at least I wouldn't be as uninterested about it as Ed Begley Jr.'s wife, Rachelle is on their show Living with Ed on HGTV. I think most of their antics are hyped up for the show---they really seem like a very happy couple. We've been getting greener and greener in our living---it's a slow process with the kids, they are used to living a wasteful, un-environmentally involved life. I hope we can change that!

I am still looking for time to work on the quilt. My eldest is moving out this weekend so I'll probably be busy cleaning up her room and moving the boys into it. I wish she would stay home, but she seems happier where she is---seems being the operative word there. I know she likes being in charge of her life and not having to answer to me---so that is something, anyway. I still miss her.

Ok, off to figure out dinner, I may be back later!