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We used to be city people, through and through. We loved city life and the hustle and bustle of living in the fast lane. Gardening did not feature greatly in our day to day lives apart from a few struggling potted plants that sat on our back deck. One by one, our children grew up and left home and my husband and I were struck down with empty nest syndrome. So we packed our bags and headed for the country. We thought a tree change would be just the thing to give our life meaning again.

We found our perfect place in the country - five acres of paradise. The old homestead was just right. It had wide verandas all around where we could sit and admire the peaceful scenery.

The only thing missing was a garden, so we made plans. It was really exciting for us, a couple of garden novices, about to become "up close and personal" with Mother Earth. We would be self sufficient - grow our own vegetables and keep chickens. We would become famous organic gurus. Our friends would flock to us for advice: "Please tell us you secret on growing those huge pumpkins" or "Just how did you keep the bugs off your runner beans?"

Sitting on the veranda looking out at our grounds, we marked out where we would put the gardens. We had read lots of gardening magazines to get ideas, and it was great fun planning just where the different gardens would go. The orchard needed a long flat area for the various fruit trees we had selected. The rose garden would need lots of mulch. The vegetable patch would need to have a fence around it to keep out the rabbits. We were both becoming very excited with these earthy thoughts.

Our first job was to build a thick mound of organic matter to prepare for spreading on our gardens. Our neighbors had cattle, so we had plenty manure on hand for the taking. Over the next few months, my man and I both grew muscles that we didn't know existed as we carted barrow after barrow of manure onto the heap. Every time we mowed, the grass was raked up and mixed with the manure. We had started a compost bin, and nothing was wasted. Soon we had made some wonderful organic soil from the vegetable scraps to add to the garden mound. After twelve months of hard work, we had made garden beds that were thick with the best mulch. We felt that we could grow anything.

About six months earlier, we had been given two orphan lambs. Tenderly, we bottle fed them and they followed us around everywhere in the garden. We called them Mary and Alice They thought we were their parents and we thought

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