Malaika in Africa

Nate and I promised ourselves we'd start a garden as soon as we owned a home. Well--here we are, planting a garden. In fact, it is planted!

Here I am, earlier this spring, marking off the plot of land in barkyard designated for the garden--20 by 12 ft. Pretty ambitious!! Mayumi is looking on, fascinated.

Some weeks later, our neighbors kindly lent us their rented Rottotiller...and away Nate went. We (maybe mistakenly...we'll see) didn't kill the grass first, and just started hacking away at it.

My friend Rachel, who knows all, is my mentor in this project. She has contributed much and is, in fact, sharing this garden with us. Here she is (in the brown shirt) working the ground (you'll notice the nice brown dirt-i-ness of it...we had some topsoil and compost brought in). I am planting the first row of Alaska Peas.

And while I'm at it, I've decided to become as fully 'granola' as possible. To aid me in this plan, my mother kindly gifted me with a wheat grinder! Yay!! here I am grinding my first item--not wheat, as it turns out, but cinamon!! I've since ground much wheat and it makes DELICIOUS bread. Thanks Glo!