I heard a joke the other day that pointed a finger at alot of peoples attitude,and mine in weaker moments. A proud and boastfull man was having a conversation with God. The man challenged God, to see who could make the cutest fussy bunny rabbit. God said" OK I will go first."With that, two hands reached down from heaven, picked up some dust and trickeled it back down to the ground producing a beautiful bunny rabbit. The man says "not bad, now its my turn." As he knelt down to pickup a handfull of dust a thunderous voice came down from heaven and said; "HAY !!! MAKE YOUR OWN DUST". When we make a garden or a small farm:who of you would agree that all we are doing is using our God given talents, taking many of his pysical blessings and managing them for a little while.

thats so cute and very true!!!!! sometimes i think we forget that!!

Thanks Jess . I would be interested in knowing how many of you believe in this basic principal; yes or no . Don't be silent

i truly believe it! when we have a good year with our garden we always know that god gave us the tools to make it and he is responsible for it.

and a quick cute story as we teach our children the saqme thing my 5 yr old daughter has 2 pygmy goats a boy and a girl and we recently had the enjoyment of seeing her have triplets my husband and i were commenting on what we were gonna do with all the babies and my daughter casually said well god wanted ot see more goats around here so he helped daisy have a bunch!! he let us grow a good hay field for them to eat so we should keep them.
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i just thought that was cute!! i still dont know what we are going to do with the babies but she is right!!

The point I wanted to make was; in my limited experience in ponding,{7years},it is far better to keep your pond enviorment as natural as possible, the way nature was designed by the disigner. Without the use of chemicals, dyes ,medications and other man made water treatments. Once you get natures nitrogen cycle working, your pond will be clear and your fish healthy for years to come. Of course we have created an artifical enviorment which needs our help with pumps, water changes, bacteria, and fertilzers all mimicing nature. Just sharing some thoughts and thought that little joke drove the point home. Please excuse me ; I am new to this site and computers; I didn't mean to blog. Great site Robyn. :huh:

ok this is an old thread but thought I would add something I remember reading once after Wayne mentioned the natural cycle thing. An experiment was done on two fields, both growing the same variety of veg and fruit. One was left to basically grow wild and the other one was treated with weedkillers. The point was to see what effect weeds would have etc. Well imagine the scientists surprise to find that in the wild field the various insects that would normally bother the crop tended to stick mainly to the weeds with very little of it damaged by insects at harvest while the other field had a higher percentage of insect damage.
I agree Wayne, natures way may seem strange but it does seem to have a plan.