Our First Garden

My wife and I have taken a stab at growing tomatoes beside our house a couple of times in our marriage. We succeeded in Kentucky. We failed in Florida. Not long after we built our house here in Florida, we decided to plant a lemon tree. In seven years, we have had one season of a decent harvest, getting 18 lemons off the tree.

This year we decided to plant a garden. We did it because I somehow heard about square foot gardening. So for my birthday, my dear wife got me a couple of easy-to-construct garden boxes, and suddenly my intentions were void of excuses.

In less than two weeks, I had cleared a spot in the yard, removed the grass, laid down the weed fabric, constructed the garden boxes, and mixed and filled the soil (1/3 peat moss, 1/3 vermeculite, and 1/3 compost). All that was left to do was lay the string to mark off the “square feet” and plant the seeds.

On the evening of Wednesday, April the 13th, we did just that. Below is a chart, showing what we planted, who planted, and when the book says we should expect a harvest. Chase did the calculations on the calendar, so we are trusting his 2nd grade homeschool education is a sufficient foundation for accuracy!

The Maragni Square Foot Garden

The kids loved the idea of planting a garden and stood there waiting to watch it grow in front of their eyes. At one point in the process, Lacey asked our five-year-old son, “Bryce, do you have a green thumb?” He pulled his right hand up, pointed upward with his dirty thumb, looked at it real good, and said with all seriousness, “No, it’s brown.”

Planting our First Garden

That evening for our family devotional time I read from 1 Corinthians 3:5-9:

5 What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8 He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. 9 For we are God’s fellow workers.”

We did our part by taking and applying what God has given: seeds, soil, wisdom to know how to plant them. Now we will water it. God will cause it to grow…we hope and pray.

If You Want to Slow Down Your Intellectual Decline…

…then turn off your computer and pick up a book. I think this is the advice author Nicolas Carr would suggest. Carr says our increased internet surfing is actually causing our brains are being rewired for the worse. So grab a good book and keep your brain sharp.

One of the Biggest Hoaxes in Our Lifetime…

…is being exposed for what it really is: a bunch of bunk. Pardon my poor English, but if there is one thing that continually causes me to scratch my head it is how easily people jump on a bandwagon driven by “science.” I still have no doubt that global warming is a total hoax. The scientists in the mid-70s said we were entering an ice age as Time Magazine reported.

The leaders of the movement cast themselves as caring about the planet, saving the human race, and all this noble sounding blah, blah, blah. But far too many of them are more concerned about securing funding for research or finding ways to line their pockets with the profits of being an expert about the subject. Al Gore has become far more rich than he already was by flying around the planet in a big jet, polluting the environment with his huge carbon footprint, preaching the gospel of environmentalism, all for the worthy cause of saving the planet.

The followers of the movement are people who need a cause. Everyone needs to feel part of a cause bigger than themselves. They need to feel like they are contributing their money and efforts and thoughts toward something great and grand and noble…say like…saving the planet! So they believe the “scientists” who say that humans are causing our planet to warm up and so they start recyclying (not a bad thing) and they buy a smaller car or even a hybrid and they “go green.”

The only problem is that it’s simply not true. The founder of the weather channel, John Coleman, has called global warming the “greatest scam in history.” He recently produced and hosted a show to debunk the scam. You can watch that HERE. I encourage you to watch it, and then pass the word along. Let’s put an end to this ridiculous hoax.

Don’t Be Intimidated by the Intellectual Atheists

Sometimes Christians can be intimidated by intellectuals who don’t believe in God, especially when they have “impressive” academic credentials. But we have some pretty impressive minds on our team as well. Alvin Plantiga is one such mind. Justin Taylor posts an interview of Plantinga by Simon Smart (told you we had some impressive minds, “Smart”!). Of course, I don’t endorse his beliefs on every subject, but hopefully I can post interviews without implying full-scale endorsement of all a person’s beliefs. Anyway, it’s worth your time.

The Heavens Declare the Glory of God

When Scientists Need to Keep the Funding Rolling In…

…they will lie, deceive, and be downright cruel. At least that is what appears to be the case among a certain group of scientists, the ones who want to keep the public believing that the planet is warming, despite their own evidence. This Wall Street Journal article provides an overview of “Climategate” while this Telegraph column goes into more detail.

Ask anyone who knows me well…I have been a skeptic of this non-sense all along. Do you remember back in the 70s when all the science “experts” were predicting another ice age?

Well, dear reader, if you have been duped by the global warning lie, would it shake your confidence at all to know that the founder of the Weather Channel has called it “the greatest scam in history”? John Coleman, the founder of the Weather Channel, wrote an article exposing the lie.  Here is a portion:

If This is True…

…then I wonder if it makes anyone think twice about supporting the death of Terri Schaivo. A man in England, in the same state as Schaivo, turns out to have been conscious all along.

Technology Changing Our World Very Rapidly

We are living in in the midst of a technological/communications/social networking revolution.

One of the main reasons I am on Facebook/Twitter and have this blog is because the future is arriving fast. Our world shrunk tremendously in the last century with the automobile, flight, satellite technology, radio, television, etc. Now we are witnessing another massive shrinking (oxymoron?).

Just consider this amazing quote from the video below…

The computer in your cell phone today is a million times cheaper and a thousand times more powerful and about a hundred thousand times smaller (than the one computer at MIT in 1965)…”

Anyway, here’s the video:

Only One Race – Brown

The Singerl Twins, fraternal twins, are an example of how we are really one race.

People say that I am white or caucasian, but really I am brown, and so are you. You see, to be scientifically precise about it, there really are no “white” people or “black” people or “yellow” people, etc. We are all brown, with differing degrees and variations. Scientific truth strikes a shattering blow to racial prejudice.

To learn more about the facts, check out this fascinating article.