By Tilly Nichols
It dawned on me today my blog posts have been super abbreviated lately. I have become so obsessed with being outside, and moving around, I find it hard to sit still long enough to write much. I want to catch up a little today. Art and I are doing great. Our garden is growing so well. Even the old timers that come around insist we have something special as far as our green thumbs. When we arent in the yard, Art loves to dig for bottles, and we have inherited a stamp collection. Who knows the value, but I can say its very interesting to sort. We also watch a lot of animal planet and food network. Lately our big faves are next food network star,  top chef, hells kitchen, last american cowboy, whale wars, and of course all the CSI we can get. We are working tomorrow doing weed abatement.... and its heavy thick brush. We seem to enjoy the work though, and the money helps. We will be off meth for 100 days on the 3rd of July. So our independence day marks true independence from that poisonous trap. 

Approaching triple digit days

by Art Nichols 

    Today is June 28, 5 more days and we both hit 100 days into our new lives. To me, 100 days feels like 1/2 a year has gone by.  I have been really busy.  A friend of mine and myself, discovered an old root cellar and we have been digging up blanket loads of old bottles.  Talk about fun!  Now you see why I have not been posting much lately. The days go by fast and faster. This month of June, even though it is 1 day less the the rest of the months went by like it was 2 weeks.  

     I just received a box of old stamps from my mother and sister.  These stamps look old and the values are unknown.  My thought is these are very healthy hobbies for a person.  

By Tilly
I spand all my time working. I love it though. I cant get enough of it. There are baby plants everywhere needing love, and others blooming and fruiting giving back the love. We had over 30 quail in the sprinkler bathing today. Its dawning on me again what a blessed time of year I am in. The days are as long as they get, and nights are short and sleep is deep, since we work so hard by day. Amazing how in 6 months the nights will be so long and the days so short. I have watched the moon all month too. Just another awareness i have gained from this experience. We have church tomorrow and praise hour at night.

More Pumpkins Please

The day after tomorrow is the last possible date to plant pumpkins for the season. Any later and the crop will suffer. I have one last packet of seeds. For me planting pumpkins has been so fun, and meant so much to me . The last few months would have been much harder  had I not  found my love for pumpkin farming. Art and I are 91 days clean today, and we are super involved in the farm, and Art is really busy collecting old bottles he and Eric are digging up from the old root cellar his dad buried in the 50's. Rabbits ate all the cantaloupes and beans. They too must be in the ground within 48 hours or so, if I want them to do good. I cant believe how fast the days go by. I have been watching the lunar cycle this month, because I see the moon every afternoon rising above my garden. It was such a sliver and now almost full again. Art is too busy with all the cool bottles to blog much....but me him, and mango and melon are all happy healthy and enjoying these first few days of summer. 

Fear

 “Perfect love drives out fear.” (1 Jn. 4:18)
Today Art might be running some errands in town, going with some friends. Crazy me freaked out inside worrying, what if they crash, what if they get in trouble, what if they get high, and as the very familiar feeling of fear welled up in me, I turned to the bible and found this quote. Once it put things in perspective for me, I lost all anxiousness entirely. We have visitors on the ranch today. Plants goin in like crazy, and our craigslist/recycling business is still pulling a solid lead in the income area. Church tomorrow. Keep checkin back, chickens are still coming.

Insane Green thumbs!

By Tilly
We got insane green thumbs. When we began in March I feared death in our farm plants, but nope we got green thumbs like no-one i ever met. Art is outside cutting a new plant area....if you could only see the insanity, or sheer beauty of the amount of plants we now foster. Life is everywhere, and 90 days clean creeps up. I am blissful, introspective, prayerful, saved, forgiven, and in love. I have learned to love even more through these green babies we birth, almost passionately. Art bought me more pumpkin seeds with our paycheck from yesterdays labor. I have gone through a dozen packs at least....our plants are in the higher 2000's now! Our craigslist retail side business is taking off...its so fun learning how god chooses to bless us...but we continue to survive, and eke out a sober livin here on the ranch doin what comes natural and what feels right. We are a well oiled machine these days. Im so proud. Keep checkin back, we might be gettin  some chickens!

Imagine that

      BY TILLY NICHOLS

Today I stayed indoors most of the day. That almost never happens. Tomorrow we have to work, so it will be two days I haven't been in the garden. Even though I have let up on the hard labor some, we are eating our ranch grown veggies now. We have had lemons, radishes, beets, sugar peas, jalapeno, Serrano, basil, mint, and zucchini. I have been trying to get the house in order, and the kitchen has taken days. I can hardly imagine we are on day 83. A week away from the elusive 9o days. It has been awesome. I find so much joy in our simple life. Even the earthquake last night hardly messed with me like usual. Tomorrow will be hot and our job doing manual labor gets tough, but the money is nice, and anything we do together is bearable. I made Art a great bag lunch, and mint iced lemon tea all from the garden. 7 hard hours at sunrise. Ill take photos and see y'all tomorrow.

77

By Tilly
Its a quiet day on the Ranch. I am here alone, and I love that. I am working on the rental, doin laundry, watering, and feelin like a cowgirl. Art and Eric are out hiking, and have been digging up old bottles from an abandoned root cellar on the ranch. life is real good and I remain focused as far as being clean, and can't wait to see my kids. Time just  zooms by. I have so much I need to do and even though the days are longer and summer makes its mark, I crave more long summer days . Winter might be odd for us after getting so used to being outside all the time.  I feel so peaceful here though, especially on these days I am  farmer in charge, haha.  Well I better get back to work cleaning the rental. 

Peace within, peace without.

Today began with the end of my two day long headache, and a few new clothes. Along with the clothes, and the characters that brought them, came a lot of food for thought. I feel like our sobriety is part of a larger scale picture as I felt compelled to try to help persuade this girl to clean up off Meth....either that or I just climbed on some huge box of soap and need to hurry down? Who knows. I cant remain silent about my decision not to tweak. I have been buying more seeds so I have a lot of work outside. Its hot, and summer has crept in.

So Happy

By Tilly Nichols
My last post wasn't my most positive one. I need to catch up although the farm is calling me. The days are getting hot, and everything needs work...its a race to keep it all alive. I couldn't imagine taking a vacation now. Even though its all been so much to do Art and I took some of our hard earned money (yes weve been blessed enough to make some) and we went to San Diego. We had a blast walking through Logan, Eating Tamales, cruising seaport village, wandering the midway and all the military memorials, looking at the modern art along the waterfront, watching the planes land at Lindbergh field, happy hour at Fat City Steakhouse, a walk through little Italy and lastly dinner and beers in the Gas-lamp. All this on the bus and trolley. I have never been so tired in my life, but what a blast I had. We do manage to get off the farm now and then, even if its only to the little lake to feed the ducks (at Art's insistence) Things have never been this right for me. I love Art, I love pour farm, our kitties, Mom and Johnnie, goin to church and dreaming. Even the pastor has said thats enough right now. Any demons I have to slay and ultimate battles between good and evil we intend to fight, can wait. Why spoil the times that I am learning just what a perfect peace I am fighting for.