My Chicago Garden

Before we get into the meat of this podcast I need to apologize for not getting out the podcast on Wednesday as I had planned. My family and I are currently trying to relocate from northern Kentucky to an, as of yet not purchased, home in the western suburbs of Chicago. I’m doing my best to release a weekly podcast on Wednesday so you have plenty of time to schedule some reading or work activities for the coming weekend.

So you want to be an organic gardener. Good for you. There’s nothing stopping you except some basic education and a little extra work. The book definition of organic gardening is a form of gardening that uses substantial diversity in pest control to reduce the use of pesticides and tries to provide as much fertility with local sources of nutrients rather than purchased fertilizers. That seems a little wordy to me but before we go any further, a few gardening facts.
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This is the last part in our series on ‘Getting Started with a Vegetable Garden’. This espisode will cover the basics of square foot gardening.
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It’s hoppin’ now at work!  I have at least 6 projects I’m managing with lots of different deliverables and more coming down the pipe.  I’ve never been this busy at a job in my life, learning new things, feeling a little on the edge since I’m trying something new and I’m loving every minute of it.

I’ll be spending the weekend with our realtor looking at homes in the Wheaton, IL area.  There’s a particular house that Melissa (wife) and I really like from the outside, but I want our realtor’s opinion.

Still no offers on the house in Northern Kentucky, but our KY realtor says that she’s seeing an increase in traffic and we’ve not had any major "issues" brought up by any prospective buyers.  Just none of them have pulled the trigger yet. I’m still hopeful that the house will be under contract in the next 30-60 days.

I really need to get back into a house of my own soon! I’m joansing to get started with the new garden and have my wife and kids running around the house driving me nuts

Oh yeah…the book.  It’s Ed Viesturs new book "No short cuts to the top". It’s the story of his climbing life and how he was able to become the first American to climb the 14 highest mountain peaks in the world without supplemental oxygen. This was a total whim purchase while standing at an airport waiting for my plane to take off. I read the entire thing on the plane during the flight. AWSOME book! I have to say I’d love to climb to the top of Everest but I don’t think I have the will to put in the time to do it right (eg: not paying $50k for somebody to guarantee me the summit in my current physical shape and risking my life or my fingers/toes)  I can really respect Ed for not taking what he thought were unnecessary risks, while others did. He would never say they took too much of a risk, Ed doesn’t want to talk bad about his friends (some of them dead because of the choices they made). I can respect that too. 

His book has inspired me to get more exercise and maybe…just maybe..do a bit more hiking with my family. For the first time in my life I actually looked at the distance from the apartment to my office and said…"hurm..5 miles isn’t that much, I wonder how tough that would be to walk every day". Too bad our trip to Yosemite in May is too early for the cables to be up for a Half Dome summit….stink! Also there are no mountains in the upper midwest. The highest point in IL is something like 1200 feet above sea level. ahahahaha.  Another reason I want to move back west a little more…Wyoming maybe..hurm…one can only hope.