I’ve added a bunch…

If you’re interested in our homesteading plans, I’ve posted a lot of content elsewhere on the site (that is, not on the blog). With pictures! You can get to it from the Homestead link at the top of the page, or using the links under Navigate on the sidebar.

 

What’s up?

So it’s been a little while since I posted last. I am going to use the holidays excuse. So here’s what’s been up lately…

 

What do you need?

Do Not Worry

5″Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

28″And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

I think much of the damage we North Americans habitually do to the environment is because we don’t really listen to what Jesus is saying when he says ‘Do not worry’.

 

Garden gumption

On Saturday morning I was playing in the yard with our elder urchin and looked at the largely fallow vegetable garden I had started a couple years ago. We have a few pepper plants, one eggplant, a baby grapevine (the only one of seven cuttings to survive since I took them this past winter) and a rather depressed cherry tomato plant, all in pots. None of the garden beds are in use because of our otherwise lovely mesquite trees. Gardening tip: never plant anything with any water requirements whatever under or near a mesquite tree unless you use containers. The mesquite will aggressively take all the water.

Anyhoo, I decided to try gardening again. Partly to experience the struggle of working the earth after the fall. Partly because I realize that the only way to really fail as a gardener is to stop trying, to be unimpacted by all I have learned from my past failures. Like, ‘Don’t plant a garden near a mesquite.’

 

Genesis

Some thoughts on the first three chapters of Genesis.

 

Space conditioning without conditioners

I spent entirely too much time this afternoon trying to figure out why our furnace wasn’t working. Was it plugged in to the wrong outlet? (No.) Was the fuse blown? (No.) Did the furnace need servicing? (No.) Was the thermostat broken? (No.) Turns out the batteries had died in the thermostat, even though it was displaying its settings just fine.

This all got me thinking, as I spent about an hour climbing up and down a ladder, removing and replacing service panels and whatnot, that our next house should have a heating and cooling system that didn’t need so much maintenance, use so much fuel (gas or electricity), didn’t dry my skin out or drench us in humidity during the summer without actually cooling… okay, a pipe dream? Maybe not.

 

Parables, storms, and pigs in the sea

I was reading Mark last night. I noticed a few things about Jesus.

 

Scriptures

If I’m going to do an honest inquiry about what it means to follow Jesus and be concerned for the environment, I’d better consider what Scripture has to say about creation. I’ll post some verses and comments soon.

 

What to do with the food issue…

The year we got married I started cultivating an interest in gardening. We planted a square foot garden a-la Mel Bartholomew. We tried salad greens, radishes, carrots and peas in a winter garden. Some of the veggies grew well but it was almost immediately apparent neither of us had any idea how to grow and harvest vegetables. So the radishes were hollow and bland, the lettuce bolted and got bitter, the peas never really produced more than a couple pods, the carrots were tiny and stunted, and the only plants that seemed to do really well were Swiss chard (which we decided we didn’t care for) and nasturtiums.

 

The environment: why should I care?

Given my assumption that God cares about his creation, I think I should care about it if only because he does, and as a Christ-follower who believes he is indwelt with the Holy Spirit, not caring is denying something about what God made me to be. (Forgive me for not getting into the theology about all that; basically I am saying that a Christ-follower not caring about God’s creation is just silly.) So my question is not really, ‘Should I care about the environment?’ but, ‘To what degree should I care about the environment?’