Self-Reliance?

At Christmas time my brother-in-law, Mike, inspired me to want to read the Ensign more faithfully.  I've had a goal to read it from cover to cover each month since then and I was on track until the Daphanator came along.  However, as I feel like we're finally on a good schedule, I am determined to get back on track.  The Ensign helps me to feel closer to God on a daily basis.  If I read an article after my prayers and scripture study in the morning, it gets me thinking about my personal spiritual progress and what things I can be doing today to improve myself.  

All of this to say that a few months ago I read this article entitled "Seeds of Self-Reliance" that talked about how members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints are planting gardens and doing all they can to be self-reliant.  Even members in big cities like New York and Hong Kong are using containers to plant gardens on their balconies or in the window sills.  Burke and I decided that if those members in high rise apartments with no soil could have a garden, we could too!  We have a tiny enclosed slab of cement outside out behind our apartment with a 1 foot by 15 feet little stretch of dirt that has been the home to nothing but weeds and cockroaches the past year and a half.  So we bought some seeds and a few plants starts and look at it now!

Okay, so it's not very impressive, but it has been really fun to see our plants grow and to pick a little cherry tomato every now and again.  This weekend we also had our biggest yield of the season in the form of a mutant cucumber! 

 So much for self reliance!  I look forward to the day where we can work on a garden as luscious as my parents or the Ridings and yield an abundant crop of our own.  Someday.