Left the Mile-High City

Just a year ago about this time we contemplated moving away from the developer-driven environment where we were holding our own in the 'new climate' of extremes. I had already planted my garlic and Al had ordered a million onion sets for the spring. (or maybe 200). In our new environment we live in the land of grass. We fairly quickly removed an area of lawn to grow some food. We dug in many bags of compost from the town's composted waste site (people warn us of weeds, but don't weeds happen anyway?) We got our soil tested and found it to be trather acidic, so dug in 50 pounds of lime. Manure in the great state of Iowa is elusive--farmers seem to use their manure and hobby gardeners (like they did in the mile-high city) often buy it in bags. I am holding out to maintain my old mantra: "don't pay for poop". Somebody gave us extra tomatillos and hubby brought a bushel of green chiles back from Colorado to freeze. We've become acquainted with the farmer's market (people grow a lot of good things), and have enjoyed many sightings of the white-tailed squirrel. It rains and the soil is loamy. We're learning new plants that pop up. Life is good. But the tap water tastes bad especially in the summer due to the farm run-off. Don't mourn, organize!