In the last few weeks I have been working on my vegetable garden. It is in my front yard.
It is the only place we get a reasonable amount of sun. None of my neighbors have a garden in their front yard so it is sort of an oddity here in suburbia.

In order to make it look somewhat respectable we had brick layed in what is called a potager style, four beds symetrically placed in the corners and a birdbath in the center. It looks very attractive against my brick house.

My neighbors beinging the curious types came over to survey the project. "I see you are trying to attract aliens to the neighborhood." Micheal (my neighbor) said. I just smiled, feeling a cringe in my gut. You see I have felt like an alien most of my adult life. I always seem to chose the unpopular thing and then go at it with full force.


I can think of a few things in my life that this has been true of. When I decided to be a stay-at-home-mom, when I decided I would home school my two kids, and when I chose to follow the BTD/GTD.

Home schooling here on Long Island is unheard of, we live in one of the best school districts in the nation, so you can understand when I say the words home school eyebrows get raised. Being a stay at home mom and giving up a second income has meant we live without the extras in life. Watching the homes around us get renovationed while mine stays the same has not been easy, but a choice we have lived with.

Following the BTD/GTD is just another one of those things on my list, that makes me feel like an alien. When talking to people they will often ask me "Well, are you a vegetarian?" "Sort of but not really, I don't eat beef or most poultry, but I do eat turkey and some types of fish". I see the dumb-founded look on their faces, as they try to put me into their "diet box". I don't follow any of the well known fad diets, Atkins, the Zone, or Ornish. I try again "I eat alot of vegetables, but I don't eat wheat, or corn, or any bread for that matter, except flax meal bread which I make myself." They still look puzzled. Suddenly I get this feeling that my face has turned green and the spaceship is hovering over me ready for pickup. It lands a few feet from me I get in and am transported back home to the land of the Warriors.