We're going to build a fence!

I got 10 pallets for free from a friend who had some at work and we're going to make a fence out of them to keep our dog out of the garden once and  for all!

I'll post pics when we do it this week :)

Getting the Garden Ready

I've been hard at work getting ready to garden this year. We have a lot of things going on - garden, house stuff, planning homeschooling for when we start in fall...more and more I can't think of right now.

But garden wise, we want to grow as much as possible! Last year in about March, we started eating differently - whole foods, local produce, organic, no processed foods, etc. And gardening will really save us a lot of money. I've been doing tons of research and have learned sooo much about gardening. I'm excited! We've been asking people to donate to us things they aren't using and are going to throw out - gardening stuff, buckets, clean trash cans - any type of container, so that we can save money and grow as much as possible. Hopefully we'll be able to grow enough for us, enough to store, and enough to share.

Some ideas of what I'd love to grow this year:

Eggplant, Bell Peppers, Tomatoes (slicer, plum and cherry), white or red potatoes, sweet potatoes, radishes, green beans, snap peas, peanuts, maybe zucchini, pumpkins, watermelon, cantaloupe, lettuce, spinach, sunflowers, onions, and carrots. Lots of herbs and flowers too.

Do we have all the room for this? Probably not, but I want to try anyways! We probably won't try it all, just what we have containers and space for. I'd also like to get some small blueberry plants that are self pollinating. 

My thoughts are that a lot of these plants will look excellent in the front yard, so it won't take up backyard space - sweet potatoes grow beautiful vines, cherry tomatoes, lettuce and spinach, and peanuts - they all would look great in the front yard so if I have nice containers to grow them in, I can do that. And if they need more sun, I'll just move them to the backyard! (Our front yard has 2 huge old trees, so it can get shady). I'd grow sunflowers in my front yard, but the bees love them and I don't know if I want to scare off people from my door. Last time we grew them, we'd have about 30 bees buzzing around them, fun to watch and I felt great helping them out while they helped my garden, but I really didn't feel like poking around the garden with that many bees everywhere. I'd like to stick them in a corner so I can feel free to harvest and tend to the garden. 

I'm still trying to gather more things together. Someone from our ward gave us a bunch of buckets with their old food storage in it (they don't need it anymore) and so I was trying to find a use for the stuff inside - salt, wheat - not ground and I don't have a mill, honey, rice I think is in there too. We love honey, we could go through that no problem. And I plan on using salt for playdough and for killing grass on the patio we're going to put together. But it's a lot of salt...like nearly 10gal worth. Maybe if I get a grain mill I could use that grain and make a ton of playdough....hmmm...

Anyways, we also need to build a good fence to keep the dog out of the garden, she always gets past our attempts. This time I'm going full out. I want to get pallets and build a fence to keep her separate from the garden area. I am tired of that dog digging up my onions. She loves to get in the onions. 

I also need to replant my strawberries, I think 2 plants have died but my other 6 might be good, we'll see in a month or two when it finally warms up. It snowed here yesterday...again! But it's still January, so it's to be expected. 

If I decide for sure to plant sweet potatoes, I'll start slips early next month! Yay! Super excited for my gardening adventure!

The Plan of Salvation

The Plan of Salvation is basically God's plan for us, the reason we are here and what has come before and what will come after our Earthly lives. It is also referred to as the Plan of Happiness.

To read more about the Plan of Salvation yourself, here are two links:

http://www.lds.org/topics/plan-of-salvation?lang=eng
http://mormon.org/beliefs/plan-of-salvation

The Plan of Salvation answers the questions: "Where did I come from and why?" Which is a really big question that everyone wants to know the answer to!


There is a God.

Alma 30:44 says, "...all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator." 

He is the Father of our Spirits and we are made in his own image. He is our Heavenly Father and He loves us more than we could ever possibly imagine.


I got the following images from HERE

So here we are, spirits in our premortal existence.

The Plan of Salvation starts here, where we are God's children, but only in spirit form. We didn't have bodies and so there were things we couldn't experience. God wanted us to be able to be more like him and to understand joy and happiness, so there were two plans given. One, from Satan, was to have us come to Earth and be forced to choose only right and so we could all gain exaltation. The other plan, from Jesus, was that we would come and make our own choices, and a savior would be provided as a way for us to repent and return to live with Heavenly Father again. Those of us who chose this second plan have come, are here or are coming here to Earth! Yay!! Good choice! 

So, we pass through the veil and are no longer able to remember our premortal existence, so that we can make our own choices on faith.

And because of The Fall of Adam and Eve, we are able to be mortal and experience joy.

In mortality we are tested. Our bodies aren't perfect which gives us temptations and struggles, we have to find faith and learn repentance (which we are able to do because of Christ's Atonement for us). Eventually, our bodies die.

And our spirits go to a place we call Spirit World. If you lived righteously, you are in a place of "Spiritual Paradise" and if not, then "Spirit Prison" which is really a great way of describing what it is like. The missionaries came over recently and gave a great example. They said that the Spirit World is more like waiting in the Dentist office, if you cleaned and took care of your teeth, you have nothing to worry about and you're felling good. If you neglected brushing, you will be nervous and it will feel like torture waiting, which is more what Spirit Prison is like, not fire and demons but more of a personal upset that you now have your eyes lifted and feel bad about how your Earthly test went.

What is great though is that our Church teaches that ins the Spirit World you can still choose to follow Christ. Remember that God is our loving Heavenly Father and will always want to give us more chances, this is kind of like his final plea.

After the time that Jesus Christ returns to Earth, there will be a time that all of our bodies are resurrected and restored to a perfect state.

And eventually we will have our final judgement, determining what reward we will gain.

Yes, reward. We don't believe that God wants to punish us for all eternity. But no unclean thing can dwell in God's presence, so unfortunately not everyone will be able to be in the highest degree of glory. But there are three degrees. The Telestial Kingdom is a wonderful place, as is the Terrestial Kingdom, but the Celestial Kingdom is where we will be the happiest and is the highest reward. Scriptures relate the kingdoms to the brightness of the stars, the moon, and the sun. 

 We are here to live by faith, not knowing our premortal lives, and to use our faith in God and Christ to be good people and follow the commandments and make sacred covenants (like baptism) through the proper authority (given by Christ) and return to live with our Heavenly Father in bodies, which we didn't have before. We are here to be able to have joy and happiness.

1 Corinthians 15 talks about the different glories of Heaven and basically the whole plan of salvation! I suggest reading it. Here is a link to it http://www.lds.org/scriptures/nt/1-cor/15?lang=eng This is the King James Version of the Bible, which we believe to be the most accurate and full version. I'm no so keen on random people trying to make my Bible easier to read by changing the words ;)


 This Plan of Salvation is what I believe. It is our purpose in coming to Earth. It is amazing and it is a perfect plan. I am so grateful for my knowledge of this plan and my purpose. It gives me an eternal perspective that helps me get through daily tasks and challenges. I love it!

We believe in the same organization that existed in the Primitive Church, namely, apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, evangelists, and so forth.

The title of this post is Article of Faith 6, you can read the other Articles of Faith HERE

Take a look at these pictures (I got these HERE if you want to look at more pics or download them for your own use):

All of these pictures show Prophets acting with Priesthood Authority to do what Prophets do! What is a prophet exactly? A prophet is a man called by God to be His representative on earth. He is a special witness for Christ, he teaches truth (of the gospel) and interprets the word of God, calls unrighteous to repentance, receives revelation and directions from the Lord for us, he may even see the future to forewarn us (think of Noah!) There have been many prophets throughout history and we can read about many of them in the scriptures.

If you lived in Noah's time, or Moses's time, or Jacob's time, would you want to hear what one of these Prophets had to say? Would you want to go listen to him preach and share the word of God? Would you want to try your best to obey the commands he tells you and want to follow guidance and warning given?

I think it would be very interesting to sit at the feet of a prophet and hear what he has been told to convey to us.

Well, there's some great news. There is a living Prophet of God on the earth today. His name is Thomas S. Monson and he is the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It can be a lot to take in, for someone who has their own beliefs and is suddenly given this news. Honestly, a lot of people think us Mormons are nuts for thinking this. But, isn't that what people in the scriptures thought to? Who actually listened to Noah? Only his family was on the Arc, everyone else thought Noah was nuts.

Wouldn't it be awful, if you met Christ at the Judgement, and he said, "Why didn't you listen to my Prophet?" Isn't it worth looking into, checking out, and finding out for yourself if Thomas S. Monson is a true prophet? If the Twelve Apostles are who they say they are (yes there are Twelve Apostles on the Earth again too!)

This is wonderful news. I don't know about you, but sometimes when I'm reading the Bible and I get to parts about how to cleanse myself of leprosy, I wonder if I really need to know that bit. Well, those instructions were important in that time, but there are things that we need to know now, like how to avoid pornography on the internet or not be addicted to video games. Those things are important now and we have prophets and apostles to tell us these things and other important things. Of course there is always the repetitive "pray, read scriptures, be like Christ" but there is a reason that is repeated over and over throughout scriptures and in the talks of our living prophets.

Christ's established one church while he was on the earth. He gave authority to twelve apostles who spread the gospel. When Christ was killed, the apostles still tried to keep the church going, when one of them was killed, they new it was important to call another apostle. But eventually, too many of them died and eventually, the authority was lost. But like in other dispensations throughout the bible, after a time of turmoil and confusion among the people of the world, a new prophet was called, and the authority has been reestablished.

Amos 3:7 "Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets."

Listen to a prophet of God:

Tomatoes!

So, no watermelon or cantaloupe, lost a strawberry plant...but...I saw a tomato seedling! Yay! I was giving up hope for that little guy! Waiting on the bell pepper seedling still though :( Everything that is still intact after the dog got out there is doing great. I have a lot of work to do though. We bought some fencing that sticks into the ground since we found that our dog was going under the fencing. I haven't worked on the garden like I have wanted. It's been super hot and I'm not feeling well. I definitely need to work earlier next year on the garden.

:(

Well, the dog magically got into the garden. She is determined. I am extremely mad. She could've done more damage, but she got rid of those beautiful watermelon seedlings and one of the strawberry plants. I am sooo mad and sad. I put so much work into that garden and everything was growing so wonderfully and the dog just got in there and ruined it. I have so much repair work to do and I have to figure out how to keep this dog from getting into the garden. I have no idea how to keep her out of the garden without spending hundreds of dollars.

Watermelon!

Phoebe and I went out to check the garden. Looks like we have 3 watermelon seedlings that are gorgeous and now 2 more bean seedlings! Our strawberries are looking great. Some plants look better than others, but all of them have some good green leaves on them. A lot of them have some red leaves, I don't know if that is normal or what, I'll have to look that up. We have one more watermelon seedling I can see popping through and we saw a little bitty green basil seedling growing in one of the cinderblock squares.

Next year I need to mix soils better. The cow manure and compost seemed like a good idea, but it's very muddy. I think it needs to have some sort of potting mix mixed into it or something to keep it light and not packed down when it rains.

Not tomato or bell pepper seedlings yet. I'm thinking it might be a good idea if I try to grow some seedlings indoors so that we get some growing in case those ones outside don't grow.