Today It's All About Me

Having grown up as a farm girl, I have always been close to the earth. I have driven a tractor in preparing the soil for planting soy beans, corn and wheat; the principal crops that my father grew. We still have the family farm. Through all these years, I knew the need to preserve the land for future generations. Dad always said "They could make more money, but they cannot make more land". We had a vegetable garden, livestock and learned to preserve our food. We enjoyed the beauty of the landscape.

When I grew up and was married (61years) I always had gardens. It is a stress reliever for me. Once I retired I could devote more time to my gardens. When our Ohio State University Extension offered a Master Gardener's Program I decided to sign up with the expectations of becoming a better gardener.  We had a great educator, Andy Kleinshmidt, that lead and helped us reach those expectations.  Little did I imagine where this would lead us. Eight women decided to develop a Children's Garden for our city.  With zero dollars we started on this project and now have an award winning garden for our community. I will go into more detail about the Smiley Children's Garden at a later time. It has been challenging and rewarding. My real claim to fame is my daughter, Kylee Baumle the famous blogger of Our Little Acre .

With this blog we will take you on this journey about many facets of what it takes to be committed to our community.