Perseverance Pays Off

My garden is showing some progress. And by progress I mean SPROUTS. Yippee!! I have melon sprouts, bean sprouts, squash sprouts, and random old seeds that have decided to sprout. I can almost taste the fruits and vegetables. I’m so excited. I know there is a long way to go before there’s anything to pick, but just seeing green in the brown dirt makes me hopeful. I’m so glad I didn’t give up. Stubborness Perseverance pays off.



Zuni Basin Method...Melon Sprouts in a Ditch



The last 2 posts have been laundry related, and I can’t help but to once again connect my garden to washing diapers. I have experienced setbacks with both my garden and my laundry routine. And I have worked with other moms that have experienced the same thing {laundry issues, not green thumb issues}. The best advice I can give is to not give up. Things change as your baby grows, so flexibility when washing is helpful. Some examples of situations that will change your wash routine are when baby begins to sleep longer at night {more ammonia in the diapers} and when baby begins eating solids {transition between EBF poo and food poo}. More ammonia and more poo will mean rinsing diapers in the toilet is the first step to rinsing away stinkies before the pre-wash cycle. Less urine and poo left after the pre-rinse will allow for the wash cycle to do its purpose…wash with soap. If you are still fighting ammonia {a very common problem for nighttime & toddler dipes} using Funk Rock or Thirsties Pre-Wash in the pre-rinse cycle may be just what you need. It is worth buying either product to help battle the stinkies. Let me tell you from experience, it sucks to have a wash finish and find that there is still stink. Talk about wasteful when you have to rewash the load…waste of water, electricity, soap, and time! A little Funk Rock or Thirsties Pre-Wash is worth using when you know that your diapers are going to come out clean! For any newbies reading this, I hope I’m not making it sound like washing diapers is difficult. It’s easy, and with washing anything sometimes adjustments need to be made. {Think about the stains that didn’t come out of a shirt, so you end up having to rewash.} When it comes to washing diapers, it is as easy as pressing buttons on your machine!!

Perseverance

CW playing in my 1st garden. Yes, I grew that honeydew!

I am currently experiencing a major setback with one of my favorite hobbies, my garden. After two years of successful and productive summer gardens, I have nothing but dirt outside. I won’t get into details about what’s been going on, but I will focus on how disappointed I am. It bothers me so much, that I hate to talk about my garden or anyone else’s garden. I hate taking the trash out, because then I have to walk by the desolate ground. It’s a huge failure, and I hate failing. But it’s time to stop wallowing in my personal pity-party and get back out in the dirt. This past week, I spent time “working the land” as I like to call it. Really, I was just tilling it with a metal rake, and then flooding the garden with a lot of water. I was working to get it back to a good starting point before I begin again. Sunday morning, I replanted. This is my third time planting since March. *sigh* So depressing…so much work and nothing to show for it! Anyways, it’s been replanted, and I’ve been spending a lot of time making sure the ground isn’t drying out. {This may have been one of many problems this season.} Now I’m optimistic. I feel good about this replanting. It’s difficult to pick yourself up after failure and trying again.

BW staring at the 2 lone squash plants.

Cloth diapering for me has been a lot like my garden. I’ve had good experiences and have also faced a setback. My washing machine was broken for quite some time, and it took me and Mr. GBE awhile to figure out what the problem was. While the machine was broken, it took forever to wash diapers. I’m talking 4-5 hours. I dreaded wash day. Some of it was inexperience: not using enough soap, using too much & not rinsing enough, and forgetting to pre-rinse. But the main culprit was not enough water! I would take buckets of water and pour them into the washer during the pre-rinse, wash cycle, and rinse cycle. It was insanely time consuming. It was unbelievably frustrating. *Ack* Looking back, the only thing that kept me going was my stubbornness to make cloth diapers work. I just loved them so much, even with all the work I had to do. Thank goodness Mr. GBE realized this was crazy to spend so much time washing diapers. He watched me do laundry one weekend and called the repair man as soon as they opened on Monday. Once my machine was fixed, my wash routine was so simple. No sitting around and waiting for the right time to add water in the cycles. I felt liberated by my free time! I’m so glad I stuck it out during the rotten time. Wash routines are meant to be simple!

I’ll be discussing wash routines next, as well as keeping you all updated on my garden. For my local followers, we used Authorized Technical Services {520.903.141} to repair our washer. And for my gardening buddies, I’m working with Westwind Seeds to rehab my patch of dirt. Neither one has asked me to pass along word of their businesses. I am just pleased with both, so I thought I’d like to share with you all.

~~Tonya~~