Terraces

Most house where I have lived in Africa and now South Asia, have a wall around them.  I am glad this is not necessary in most places in the US.  You can make the area inside of the wall look like a garden paradise, but your gaze has to stop at the wall.  The view is limited.

I have always liked to look far off and imagine seeing Jesus returning on the clouds (Mat 26:64).  The chairman of the board & I are thankful that our base in the US has that kind of view out the sun-room window.  On the other hand, to have a view like that you have to be on the top of a hill.  This adds challenges to mowing the lawn and gardening.  We are not preppers, but is has crossed our minds that it would be nice to be ready if civilization as we know ever collapses.  There was a small garden in the back yard when we bought the house, but it didn’t look to me like they used the terrain right.

I got inspiration from the Banaue Rice Terraces in Banaue, Philippines.  They were carved into mountains of Ifugao about 2,000 years ago by the ancestors of the present-day inhabitants.   The terraces are considered the 8th wonder of the world.  Before I went to South Asia in March I was inspired to create our own type of terraces.  Some day they will be a tourist attraction like the ones in the Philippines.  I didn’t have time for any earth carving.  The property came with a stack of firewood.  Instead of dug in terraces, I followed the build up concept, by laying down the rows of firewood and filling the gap with soil produced by yard work and compost.

While I was away in the spring, the chairman of the board planted our first garden.  A neighbor helped her put in a rabbit proof fence.  We hardly bought any vegetables over the summer. It was a huge success.  There was a little mix-up, however.  The kind of thing that happens when the person who does the design is not the person doing the implementation.

The chairman of the board went to a raised bed gardening seminar and touted all the advantages of this technique.  My thoughts went to a recent trip to WI.  We passed through Illinois on the way home and I saw right away that the farmers of Illinois did not take advantage of all the benefits of raised beds to grow their corn crop.

In my mind I was thinking “no” to the raised bed proposal, but I have learned over the years that the right answer is always “yes”.  I tried to bluster my way through the issue by explaining how standing with your toes against the firewood terrace wall and working uphill was just like working in a raised bed.  This year the garden did not get laid out that way, but next year in between travel for our 3 projects in the US and South Asia we will try to get it right.