First post!

Ok, so I'm nervous. I've never had a blog before, much less ever regularly read one, and now here I am, in HTML land, like an ant in an auto shop. This all started because I've exhausted my friends with endless stories about 9 pm slug attacks and my cunning beer traps, about our resident skunk and the songs I swear keep him at bay, the daily updates of how *huge* the green tomatoes have become, etc. So I turn to cyberspace, which is quite possibly as vacuous as the real thing, but somehow...well, it's like praying but with a computer. You just hope and trust that someone out there is listening and that they give a damn. 

My name is Dina. I'm a photojournalist by trade, but I'm oh, so distractible. Every month I have a new plan for what I want to be when I grow up (I'm 28), but then get so flustered that the future is now and the clock is ticking and why wait, so I just give into the obsession for a stretch. Through all these vacillations, there is a clear theme: back to the land or into the lab. 

Now and again, I am seized by this old flame of mine and drawn close:  Do I want to be a doctor? Do I want to work inside all the time? To hold hands again with science and those questions? Do I want to sacrifice all my other loves for that One Great Thing?

Nope, I've decided time and again.

My other siren is the farm. To learn deeply about the land, promote fruits and defend it from its enemies. But do I want to get a Ph.D. and go into policy?

Nah. Too much inside-ness.

I decided that I just want to garden. 

And how. Since I've started my first garden (early spring, 2008), I've ripped my life apart at the seams to find ever-more spare time to spend out there. Six am can't come early enough and as soon as the coffee hits my cup, I'm outside to investigate what happened during the intervening hours of sleep. I feel like I've slipped into a missing skin and am suddenly, profoundly, at home. And that by tending the earth, I'm setting in order so many other things. Coaxing order out of chaos, life out of dirt, making small and visible what has happened to bring me here. 

So I really want to talk about it. I want to learn more about how to grow the food my husband and I (and someday, our children) eat. I want chickens (and look out, City of Medford - I shall!). I want to figure out just how many things I can turn into jam (rose hips and green tomatoes -- two yummy checks). And I want to show, and tell, and listen. Thus, this blog. Thank you for being here with me.