Making a place for roots

Gardening as metaphor for life...

Robin and Summer brought us out 8 1/2 foot tall garden fencing - 330 feet of it. Shawn and Robin went and picked up t-posts and 2x4's to put it on. We plotted out where we wanted the orchard and set a few posts to mark it out, to make sure it would work for everyone. We hope to get it up this week.

In our plotting and planning, we decided that the area will be a pen for the goats this winter. They can clear it out and manure it and mulch it for us. We'll build a little shed in the corner that can be their barn this winter and then a tool/potting shed in the future.

This spring, when the goats can go browse again, the pen will become the garden. We'll till the soil, mulch a lot, lime a bit and grow annuals for the next two years. We are going to try for year-around greens and lots of other yummies. Then we'll plant a cover crop to till in and... in three years (Good Lord willing and the creek don't rise...) we'll plant our orchard.

Looking at it as I was taking this picture I realized that is a metaphor for life, for place, for what we are doing a Foxbriar right now - we are making a place for roots.