Welcome to The Real Farm Town

Hello everyone. With spring out the door and summer on the way, things are beginning to look more like a mini farm around here. But before we go into that, let me tell you a little about my journey to this point.

Both my husband and I used to be employed. I have held a job almost continuously since my teens (for about 25 years now). Until the bottom fell out of the economy and I haven't worked in almost a year. My husband is facing the same problem, he having been out of work a year too. We decided that while we hunted for work, and since the economy looked so bad, that we would prepare ourselves for the worst and hope for the best.

We made plans to build a more self-sufficient life for ourselves and our children. So on a limited income and from blessings from the Lord and wonderful friends, we have slowly turned our 3/4 acre back yard into a mini barnyard.

This post will be about the first project we got involved in - Grow Appalachia. It is a new charity sponsored by Paul Mitchell co-owner and CEO, John Paul DeJoria. Read about it here: http://www.paulmitchell.com/whatsnew/pages/growappalachia.aspx.

It is a garden project, and each family has their own plot to take care of. We are provided with seeds, plants, and those things we need to take care of our garden. All we have to do is care for it and we will be blessed with the harvest.

According to the website, "Some of most pressing regional needs to be addressed by Grow Appalachia are:

Basic diet-related health concerns – obesity, diabetes, heart disease.

Limited availability of high-quality fresh produce.

Generational loss of knowledge of gardening, cooking, and food preservation skills.

Widespread economic dependency and lack of autonomy."

My husband and I both had sedentary jobs. We sat all day and worked. So, needless to say, we are obese with diabetes, high blood pressure and heart related issues. We have been working in our garden for a couple of months now and if it doesn't kill us (literally), it will be the best thing ever. We are getting regular, hard exercise by planting, plowing, hoeing, watering and caring for our plants. My husband has already lost some weight (that's a man for you) as we can tell it in his stomach, even though there's no difference on the scale. Muscle replacing fat, I am sure.

My diabetes is more advanced than my husbands, so in many ways I am a lot weaker. The high blood pressure medication I take masks the signs of low blood glucose, but it is the only thing that helps my tachycardia, so I continue to take it. However, I nearly passed out hilling the potatoes yesterday and we had to run get me something to eat to get my blood glucose levels stabilized. I thought I was going to have to go to the ER, but it finally straightened out. Today, I took ten units less insulin to compensate for being more active! This is great! Just working in the garden is beginning to affect the amount of insulin I need to use. Less insulin will mean less weight my body hangs on to, because being insulin dependent causes my body to hold on to fat more. (Like I really need that!)

So thank you John Paul DeJoria for your Grow Appalachia project. I hope you know what a difference you are already making in my life. Buy Paul Mitchell products and support Grow Appalachia.

More later. I can't wait to tell you about the chickens.  Happy Farming.