During our COVID isolation time (mid March through end of April) where I was working part time from home (doing teletherapy; the last frontier) and Alex wasn’t able to work we did a lot of gardening. I also learned how to make sourdough bread. And we organized our pantry and kitchen cabinets (and yes, they’ve stayed organized). It was amazing for our little family to have that time together.

Alex did so much weeding in our fairly huge yard. It was a jungle and he restored it to the amazingness it was when we bought the house (clueless about gardening and having two kids in a row shortly after buying it).

He also cleaned out the garden sheds and found an old wasp nest inside of a shoebox, which made a cool science lesson.

Every day we took the plants we started from seed outside and then brought them back in for the night.

Over the course of the summer we got to plant those and more and this whole summer we’ve been enjoying the garden (I’m sure I’ll post more on that soon).

I’ve especially enjoyed the herbs because I learned to cook this year (I started at the beginning of the year in response to a health thing and am now feeling much more comfortable in the kitchen). I’m not sure how to o make healthy food taste amazing without herbs and not sure how anyone can afford herbs without growing them at home. It’s so expensive for a tiny plastic box of basil and I can grow many plants for the whole summer of picking for the same price, for instance.

I was grateful for having a yard before covid but for so so many reasons am extremely grateful for it now. To be outside in isolation, to allow the kids to play outside the cramped quarters of our home, and to grow our own food to a certain extent. This has also become a wonderful stress relieving past time we can enjoy as a whole family (as long as you don’t stress about the one year old taking out all your labeled signs and crawling into the bed you just planted a bunch of seeds in.

Side note: I believe posting about our Hope Garden during COVID times on 9/11 seems appropriate.