Week 31 from Afghanistan

Hope all is well.  I depart for R&R in 35 days! Pretty excited about that.

By the time I come back I will be under 90 days left. It is good to see some light at the end of the tunnel. We are getting pretty excited about the move. There are several properties in the area that have some acreage and outbuildings and I'd like to have a mini farm. Mrs. L and I will head out at the end of my leave to look at houses. We may find it easier to buy something in town where the university is, but if we can swing something nearby but with some land to have some animals and a good sized garden, that would be pretty great.

My grandmother had a small hobby farm when I was growing up. How many animals she had varied, and she gradually downsized to nothing so she could travel, but when I was younger she had pretty much a little of everything. Some chickens, rabbits, hogs, a goat, cows, sheep, horses. Her garden wasn't very big, but it was sufficient, and I remember going out to find something fresh for dinner. She never had very good luck with fruit trees, but there were wild berries all over the area and we'd go out for raspberries or blueberries. My parents kept up that tradition for many years, maintaining a large vegetable garden. It was fun to work and see where your food came from.

I look forward to being someplace where we can be part of a community for the long term, and especially a place so environmentally conscious. It will be great learn to be a steward over a small patch of earth and see how things can grow.

As Brigham Young said:

“Fields and mountains, trees and flowers, and all that fly, swim or move upon the ground are lessons for study in the great school of our Heavenly Father, . . . [in what] is open before us in good books and in the great laboratory of nature.”