Reflections on Backyard Gardening and Gratitude

As many of you know, Mark and I are avid backyard gardeners. Each year our vegetable garden expands and we take great pleasure eating the food that we grow.

Recently we were lamenting the failure of a few crops. We didn't plant many tomatoes this year and most of the ones we did plant are still green, even though it is September 2. We were very excited about trying cantaloupe and corn for the first time, but over the course of a few nights some critter took bites out of every single cantaloupe and every ear of corn, just as we were getting excited about eating them ourselves.

Note to self: build a higher fence and plant tomatoes earlier...

We did, however, have great success with radishes, lettuce, spinach, swiss chard, beets, cucumbers, summer squash, sugar snap peas, onions and watermelon (and raspberries, blackberries and strawberries, but the darn dog ate most of those!).

We can also get in our car and drive a few short miles to a choice of three stores and buy whatever we need. No cantaloupe from the garden this year? Dog ate my strawberries? No problem!

I came across this video on u-tube and was reminded of how easily I take both our garden and the availability of food in this country for granted. If you tend to do the same, please watch.

Note to self: remember to be grateful for all that I have...