Yard Sale Spoils

Scored big time with the 2 x red cedar chests.

  • The simpler of the two is a circa 1935 Jacob Bloom Cedar Hope Chest made in Philadelphia. 
  • The rounded top one is a Lane Red Cedar Hope Chest (hopefully one of the Art Deco models). 
I'll need to do quite a bit of paint stripping and refinishing on both of these. Amelia helped me start taking apart the Bloom. She was responsible for writing a letter on each piece.

The tiller is perfectly sized to handle our 12' x 12' garden.

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The Garden: Last Carrots, Crazy Peppers, and more Melons

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The biggest & the last carrots if the season. 5 pepper plants are still producing amazingly sweet Bells, and a brutally spicy Spanish Pepper hybrid!

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Our 1st melon was harvested too early, we still ate it of course. 6 more have taken it's place. Like the song says... we'll be sure these rattle before lug them.
 
"Hey... Watermelon Man.
Bring me one that rattles when ya lug it One that's red & juicy when ya plug it Do you understand?
Watermelon Man."
  written by Herbie Hancock
  lyric by Jon Hendricks

The Garden: Late Summer Thinning, Insights, Mission

[UPDATE]
We've thinned out most of the summer crops to start preparing for Fall planting. The bunnies are all grown up and have left the carrot patch. I spied one of them wearing a little blue jacket and a sack of wee carrots sprinting across the yard yesterday. Onions, Scallions, Asparagus, Cabbage, Romaine... and more are on the planting list! We have 2 watermelons developing nicely and will serve as great refreshments next weekend.
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[INSIGHTS]
Last night my good friend Scott Kinnebrew http://truthandsalvageco.blogspot.com/ referred to our garden as a "Victory Garden". At first I didn't know what he meant, but a quick explanation by him helped me realize that the "Victory Garden" as a response to food shortages during WWII is the style garden we've established. Let's revive the "Victory Garden"!
http://www.revivevictorygarden.org/
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[MISSION]
Our reasons for building and tending this garden are both financial and lifestyle in nature. Working our little garden as a family has been a tremendous morale booster! Rooted in the desire to reconnect with our origins and as tenants, not lords over the earth we have created a space for our family to use the land in a respectfully productive manner. 

[THE FUTURE]
I hope that our daughter's memories of working in this garden grow to become some of her fondest and most lasting. They will stay with Mary & I forever.
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