Sunlight and Health

I began growing plants as a little girl. I was amazed at my mom's ability to grow anything in any conditions, and I strived to do as she did. It was one of our bonds in fact. When I got older, my houseplant growing grew into gardening. I LOVE gardening. I love the planting, the watering, the weeding, everything about it. It's just peaceful to me to be outside, in the sunlight, working in my gardens. When I was injured and learned I had a spinal disease, I thought my gardening days were over, along with my hiking, search and rescue and pretty much everything else. One day I decided I would never know what I could actually still do if I didn't try it, so we plowed a garden (Okay, so my husband did the actual tilling, but I did the hoeing and planting). What I started noticing amazed me.

On the days I was physically able to get outside in the mornings, work in the garden and stay out for at least an hour, I felt great. My back didn't hurt nearly as much as it should, my skin got clearer, even my dirty fingernails got healthier. I couldn't place it, but I KNEW sunlight is the reason. In the beginning God created the Earth, sun, moon and everything in between. Then He created man. No where does it say that God created houses, and artificial light or sunscreen.....those are man's creations. We all know well most things man creates really work. In the long run, they don't usually work at all, but usually create more problems. Please remember this is my opinion, and while you're free to disagree with me (I actually hope others believe how they choose in ALL things), debating me won't change my opinions. I don't believe we were created to be inside a house all day, hiding from the sun and heat. We have become so disillusioned to believe the sun is evil, sweating is a dirty hassle and that we can get all the nutrients we need from little pills, that we negate all natural benefits of being outside. Sweat, while if not cleansed can stink, is really cleansing to our skin and the systems of our body. Sunlight, while if taken at the wrong time of day or for too long each day can injure our skin, it also provides us with the tools to build our bones and heal our bodies and our minds....for free! And those pills we take as vitamins may help us for a while, but for how long, and should we have to rely on them forever to live?

Back at the turn of the 20th century, many people stopped farming and moved into cities where they stayed inside buildings most of the day. Rickets, TB and other plagues began to overwhelm us, and doctors started looking for cures. One doctor, Dr Auguste Rollier started studying the effects of sunlight on disease, and in 1903 he opened his first sunlight (heliotherapy) clinic in Europe. From the images I have seen, they put beds on the balconies so patients could receive sunlight directly on their skin, even in winter! What he found was sunlight and a healthy diet were all that was needed to cure even TB. In about a year people were being cured of diseases, just by eating right and allowing the sun to touch their skin. So I have to wonder why the CDC or FDA or whoever controls this stuff, keeps saying sunlight is evil to us. Yes, over exposure to the sun can cause skin damage, but all the evidence saying sunlight alone causes skin cancer is really lacking. I am curious now, and I want to study this more thoroughly. I'll try to keep you updated on what I learn........
Until then: Have fun playing outside in the dirt!
Peace.

Heaven on Earth....Or They're Alive!!

Look how sad they looked!

Sometimes God shows me that He is really in control of things, and regardless of what the experts say, it's still Him in control of things. This week was one of those times. A couple weeks ago, on July 4th, we moved and transplanted fully loaded grape vines. July is NOT the month to do this, but we are selling the house, so they needed moved...now! We dug as much of the root soil as possible to make the move as easy on the vines as possible, but I still didn't think they would make it. Not only did we move them at the wrong time of the year, we also moved them during the mid-day sun, the hot, South Carolina in July, mid-day sun. If one has never experienced South Carolina in the summer, think of walking on the sun, and you have a slight idea of what it's like.

We drove them to the farm, and picked a place where they had support and full sun....the fence. It's an old barbed wire fence that was used for cattle and horses. Why anyone would want to keep a horse in barbed wire I'll never know, but maybe they had a problem with them I don't know. We dug the holes, filled them with water, let the water soak into the red clay holes, then planted the vines. I meticulously tied the vines to the poles and to the barbed wire loosely, hoping to cut the ties next spring when they put those little curly cue things out to support the plants. Needless to say, all the unripe grapes turned into little black raisins within hours.

I went over daily to water them for the first few days, then every other day and so on, but they dropped their leaves, and I sincerely thought they were dead. My husband said we'll leave them there over the winter, and maybe  they will come back with new growth next spring....if not we could plant some new ones in their places. I was bummed!!! My Mother's Day Grape Vines, that the girls had not only went to buy for me, but also planted for me a couple years ago looked dead.

This was after 2-3 weeks. New Life!!

My husband and two youngest daughters have been working hard lately building a storage building. We were over there yesterday working, when I noticed the plants looked funny. Of course I went to check it out. I thought the birds had been pecking at the dead vines or something. No, the birds hadn't bothered them, bugs hadn't eaten them and no animal has been bothering them. They were all sprouting new leaves and new growth.....this season even!!! I am so thrilled to know that my precious grape vines are not only still alive, but they are starting to thrive in their new homes!!! Yay!!! I was so thrilled I squealed, scaring my older daughter a bit.

More new growth!

Yay Yay Yay! My vines will live!! To me seeing something like this happen reaffirms my belief that I live in my own little piece of Heaven on Earth.

Until later....Have fun playing in the dirt.
Peace!!

Life is Good!

Wow! Did things ever get busy around here! We're packing to move, building at the new land, having showings on our current house, and trying to sell another piece of land, so we can begin the actual construction on the new house. We're doing all of this while trying to live normal lives with teen kids and every activity that goes with that....."Mom, can you take me here?" I think I will call my new (to me) car Benson, after the butler in that old television show, "Benson". It carries the groceries, runs errands, chauffeurs kids and does pretty much anything I need to do to keep a house running.

Learning how to care for a greenhouse in the SC heat and sun has been a learning experience. I would call it a challenge, but I so enjoy every minute I spend there, that "challenge" just doesn't fit the need. I have learned, so far, that plants will go into a bit of shock even moving them into a greenhouse, sometimes shade cloth is needed, and mostly, be patient and remember this is all under control. I am glad I am doing all of this learning now, instead of later when I move ALL the plants in there. I almost lost all my coffee trees, but they are all bouncing back now, even without shade cloth. I left the dead and dying branches on until after I got them into larger pots, and then once that shock was past too, I pruned them heavily. I noticed, while pruning, that everywhere a branch had died, there were little buds growing, and by pruning back the dead stuff, within a week I had scads of new growth all over the plants. That made me feel amazing!! Granted the plants didn't cost much, as they were on sale, but I still had cared for them for a year before this time, so losing them would have been a major bummer. I am totally thrilled!!

My stevia and lavender seeds never germinated. The greenhouse was getting up to temps over 130 degrees! I think they just cooked in the soil, but try try again. We installed 2 vent fans. One is a small 5watt solar fan, which we installed first. It just wasn't enough for the South Carolina heat. We converted an attic fan into a wall mount fan, added a power cord, and plugged it into our system. It's a 14 watt fan, and between the two of them they move the air nicely, and keep the heat down below 120 degrees in the heat of the day....a definite improvement.

Once we installed a water system on the land, I added a timer and automatic drip watering system. That was a whole new learning experience! I flooded the greenhouse twice trying to get it all adjusted, but over all, the plants are LOVING the drip system....now that I have it set to drip and not spray, the length of time better and the number of times per week regulated. My rain plant even bloomed inside the greenhouse.This is MUCH better than trucking in water every week!!

The sunflowers are almost as tall as the garage! They are forming flower heads, so I am excited. I had to transplant three of the sunflower plants, because out of that entire package of seeds, only eight plants sprouted. Seven of those eight were within a foot of the row, so instead of simply pulling a couple plants to thin them, I transplanted them further down the row. Two of the three transplants lived. Success!
 
So much going on, so little time each day and so few days in a lifetime to get it all accomplished. That saying, "Life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer to the end one gets the faster it spins." is so true! Or at least to me, it seems to be true.

Today is a down day for me, with my only needing to make a few phone calls, send out a few bill payments and cleaning my house, so I plan to spend some time in a bubble bath later. Who knows? Maybe I will even polish my toenails. No matter what I do I will get out to play in the dirt a bit later.
Peace!