Our Family
Life is rarely boring around our house. When I’m not working in the garden, you can usually find me out for a run, or wrangling kiddos. My husband Tyler is in charge of all things requiring tractors and power tools, irrigation, tech support, and anything that needs a little extra muscle. (Just don’t ask him anything about dahlia forms!) We have 5 kiddos, yes, 5 kiddos ranging from 9-18. Our evenings and weekends are filled with volleyball, basketball, baseball and softball, swimming, track, and even occasionally lacrosse. There are church activities to attend, band concerts to experience, and about a million other things. BUT that all happens after 3 pm. While the kids are at school, I fill my time with a couple thousand miles of running each year, hiking, working as a substitute teacher, baking more bread and cookies than we should probably eat, and plenty of garden chores. I never could have imagined this life, but oh what a GOOD LIFE it is!
How it All Started
Have you ever looked back and wondered, “How did I get here?” It all started on October 23, 2018. I went to a pumpkin patch with my mama and my kiddos, and saw these amazing flowers! To really understand my excitement, you need to know that I grew up in the depths of the Mojave Desert. Flowering shrubs don't adorn every yard in spring, and few people have lawns because it's too expensive to water, so you might see the occasional rosebush, but that's about it.
At this pumpkin patch I was amazed by the flowers, but had no idea what they were. Google lens to the rescue. The ID came back as a dahlia. Who knew! I saw a few other flowers I loved (nasturtium now has a permanent home in my garden and pots), and I was surprised to see so many different flowers identified as dahlias. Oh the DIVERSITY!
It was a couple more years before the story continued. We moved to the country, with one little acre to carve out of the woods and call our own. We were on a family walk when I discovered a couple of dahlia clumps set on the side of the road by a neighbor. We carried them home, stashed them in a cardboard box in the garage since they were muddy, and walked away. With no idea what to
do with them, I did nothing until spring. I pulled out the box, watched a YouTube video, totally stressed myself out, cut those tubers up and plopped them in the vegetable garden. And you know what? I think every one of those little nuggets grew. I added a few more that first season from my local buy nothing group, and a friend who was moving, and from there it just kept growing! There are about 800 dahlias in the ground this year. Some I've had since the very beginning like Hulin's Carnival and Edinburgh, but hundreds more have joined the crowd. Each year I’ve claimed a smidge more of the yard. Each year I’ve learned a bit more. Each year I’ve had a husband who has dutifully helped turn my big ideas into reality.
Why Dahlias?
During the 3 weeks we spent digging and dividing this fall, there were early mornings, late nights, and wet windy days. But there we were, out there digging, washing, dividing, and labeling. I had the chance to ponder my why. Why am I putting in so much work, so much time, so much frustration planning for flowers next summer when it's November? Because I believe in tomorrow! I plant a garden because I believe in tomorrow. The winter will be cold and wet, and the sun will be an infrequent visitor around here, but spring will come, dahlias will go back in the ground, and the bounty will return. I grow dahlias because of the beauty they bring, the challenge they present, and the community it has brought me.
How grateful I am to live where I live. To do work that I find fulfilling. To see beautiful things every day. To have the ability to choose how I spend my days. To have a husband who supports all those choices, and even does crazy things like spending his day off tackling projects with me. I am living the GOOD LIFE, and it's pretty spectacular.