The Modern Victory Garden

Daphne from Daphne's Dandelions has passed a meme award along to me.   If you have not checked out her blog, I would encourage you to do so.   Daphne is passionate about her vegetable garden and although she gardens on the other side of the United States, she seems to be in a climate very similar to mine - a kindred spirit in many ways.            

I must confess that I am uncertain if I really understand the concept of a meme (rhymes with cream) but as I understand it, these are the rules for the meme award:

• Link back to the person who gave you the award
• Reveal the 7 things about yourself
• Tag 7 other bloggers at the end of your post and link to them
• Let each blogger know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
• Let the tagger know when your post is up.

Revealing 7 things about myself is a difficult assignment because ...

1. I am a very private person.   You are probably wondering how that could possibly be considering I maintain a blog and website on the Internet - but it is true.   I really do not reveal much about my life outside of the garden and the role it plays in my everyday life.   I have yet to even post a picture of anyone in the family with the exception of ....
2. My most faithful friend and companion is my cat Sid.   He came to us in the midst of an extremely bitter winter while we were living in central Washington.   It was 10 degrees below zero and snowing.   Not a fit night for man or beast and yet apparently he had been out in the elements on his own for some time and was dieing.   Abandoned to fend for himself by some uncaring fool, he became emaciated, dehydrated, and extremely ill.   With some last reserve of energy he dragged up to our back porch and deposited himself there to either die or be taken in.   When I found him curled up there, he was so ill and emaciated that I was immediately moved to tears of sorrow.   I thought I would be burying him in the morning.   Of course, we took him in.   My husband being the kind soul that he is was also immediately moved by his situation.   To this day he loves this cat as much as I do.   Between the two of us we nursed him back to health.   It took more than a full year for him to regain strength and he will never be a big or robust cat as a result of his trial.   In fact, he has very few teeth remaining (a result of his illness) and is quite slim and small.   He is however, an old soul that returns love to us in every possible way.   He keeps watch over me while I am in the garden and sleeps with us at night.
3. I am the Chief Financial Officer for a large public entity. I love what I do and I am good at it.   I have essentially worked for only three organizations in my entire career and each one has been a challenging and rewarding experience and each of them have been public or government agencies.   My current job is particularly rewarding because I have a vital role to play in helping bring transformational change to a community and many individual's lives.   It is also some of the most challenging work I have done.   As a result, I am away from home for long hours at a time and must work my more domestic interests around an already overfilled schedule.   I get some help with this though because...
4. My husband does not work outside of the home.   He has a medical condition that puts him in moderate to severe pain much of the time.   He has good days and bad days.   As the condition progresses he has more bad days than good.   We chose many years ago to have him step out of the working life role (which was proving more and more difficult for him to manage) and instead he contributes to our family by doing major projects around the house (on his good days), keeping the house spotlessly clean, and providing an adult at home during our daughter's years of growing up.   Which brings me to number five...
5. I am a mother. My daughter is 17 ½ and rushing along (like all children do) to embrace her own life that will eventually lead her away from us.   I never knew and no one could have prepared me for the intensity of love that I have for my child.   It takes my breath away sometimes.
6. While I am a big advocate of eating real food and locally grown at that, I must confess that my favorite foods do not come from my garden and are anything but healthy - Cinnamon Rolls and Ice Cream.
7. Flowers and ornamental gardens do not generate the passion for me that a beautiful workmanlike food production garden does.   I have had a kitchen garden all of my adult life.   Over the years, I have challenged myself to increasingly produce more of our own food supply.   The food production garden allows us to eat really healthfully and really well, live frugally since we are a one-paycheck family, and gives me great pleasure by providing a quiet sanctuary from life's daily stresses.   This blog and website is just my way of sharing this enthusiasm for the modern victory garden.

Now I have the task of choosing only 7 blogs to share with you.   I have many I frequent and enjoy so it was very hard to narrow it down to only 7 - but those are the rules and so here they are:

• GrafixMuse's Garden Spot
• Urban Veggie Garden Blog
• Chiots Run
• Down On The Allotment
• Heather's Homemaking
• Sicilian Sisters Grow Some Food
• Sustainable Eats

Now I need to go post at these sites and let them know they have been tagged!