Week 1

Wait, week 1?  Hasn't this blog been running for 2.5 years?  Well, yes, but note the very first words of my first post: "Well, I had planned to start this blog some time from now, when the really big experiment begins..."

Well, it has begun.

This week I planted a couple trays of seeds.  This alone is not all that unusual, I did this for many years while living in the city, but this year I have 17 acres to manage.

Obviously my two trays are not going to go very far in the grand scheme of things, they are just the start of my personal garden.  In the future I hope to have a greenhouse against the south wall of the house, but for now I'm just going to be content with my trays.  The majority of the land will be put to small livestock or hay and sold to support the farm.

I'd like to start chickens soon so I'll have them ready to eat before my June company comes, but I'm putting that on hold until the credit card has been paid off, and at the rate that repair bills are piling up in this old house, who knows how long that will take.  I may have to settle for showing off live chickens to my company...

So what does this have to do with health?  Long before I found my way into the paleo type diet, I theorized that
A) Almost all processed food is bad for me.
B) I'd get a lot more exercise if I gardened more.
C) I seem to be healthier when I eat more meat.
The farm is going to encourage me to eat mostly fresh foods or minimally processed foods, get some exercise producing them, and also provide as much meat as I need.

This is a really huge experiment for me, it is not an ordinary hobby that I can give up easily on, I've moved to another county, and purchased land with an old home in need of lots of repairs.  There is a lot at stake here in me being successful at this.  I have a bit of the sense of the founding fathers when they said "And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."