Are we truly free on this Independence Day?

                   In the United States, we celebrate Independence Day to honor the signing of the Declaration of Independence—the defining moment in our country’s history—a break away from tyranny, from dominance over our people and our growing nation. Yet, on the 234th anniversary of this magnificent event, many may ask us why we are questioning whether our country is free or not? It’s unpatriotic, un-American, some have even called us communist, socialist-or whatever “-ist” fits their argument.


To us, the American Dream is to own your own land, grow your own food, be healthy, live long and prosper, without threat of outside invasion. Isn’t that the general idea of what the founding fathers envisioned for us? Aren’t these the basic freedoms that our soldiers are defending for us with their lives?

As husband and wife, our own dream is to have a small piece of land, in a beautiful but modest home that is surrounded by the wondrous beauty that is Mother Nature, where we can grow our own food. A bonus would be having a nearby river or lake where we can swim and kayak. We also thought having our own water on our property would be an aide to helping us should we, some day, want to ‘get off the grid.’ We have been to Pennsylvania, Upstate New York, Vermont, Oklahoma, Tennessee, California, North Carolina and numerous other states where we have thought of settling down into our future home. We fell in love with Pennsylvania and have spent countless hours hiking the Allegheny Forest in Pennsylvania, walked along the Susquehanna River, and driving through many beautiful counties. But our dreams and the dreams of millions of other Americans have been put at risk, or outright destroyed, because those in power in this country—the government and big business—fail to respect what our soldiers are fighting for… because those people who think they’re above us, who think we’re all ‘small people’ believe they can erode our freedom and we’ll only smile, nod, and thank them for the opportunity.

Why should you have your own food & herb garden?

Over the last six years Jessie and I have lived in a two-bedroom apartment that is part of a larger two-family home. In that time we have sought to do what we can to grow indoors what herbs and food we can. From pots in a window, to indoor greenhouses.
It was not until recently that we asked our landlord to utilize a small portion of the yard for a raised-bed garden. Our efforts this year were in part inspired by this article in a recent issue of Mother Earth News Start a Quick and Easy Food Garden

This is the first of a continuing series on our own efforts to grow our own food, how and why we educated ourselves on the necessity of this and what cheap and easy alternatives there are to buying supermarket produce.