planting the garden

The weather is finally cooperating for planting the garden. I feel like we're overrun with tomatoes. I hope they survive this year. If they don't, my garden will be one big waste! I have high hopes to grow enough tomatoes to can all the tomatoes we'll need for the winter, saving ourselves a bundle of money, AND knowing the ingredients of the food we eat because we made it ourselves. It's really interesting how I'm desiring to do things for myself instead of being drawn to the convenience that was introduced to the generation before me. I feel like I was born in the wrong time period. I would really just like to go back to the Little House on the Prairie era where you did for yourself and traded goods for goods. Life was about your family and survival. Home was simple. (Ma Ingalls had ONE small decoration in their house all those years on the mantle.) You only kept what you needed. Everyone in the household contributed in some way. It sounds so lovely and simple. Gardening brings up all the desires. My dream is for our family to live on a microfarm someday and to experience self-sufficiency, even on a small scale. For now, I have my chickens and my tomatoes. That's enough for this mama to handle!