My Call to Arms (or) The Day I Realized There Was a Nature

This year my wife and I decided to start a vegetable garden. With the help of my in-laws we built raised beds and planted the seeds then added a few pots later and smaller containers for herbs.

I had had a vegetable garden for a brief time growing up. While I remembered the hard work I put in vaguely, I didn't remember it changing my life in any way. Maybe that's why I didn't foresee the effects this garden would have in my current life.

At first it was just watching the plants grow, which is fun and all that but not earth-shattering. Quickly following that was watching the weeds grow, then stopping those weeds from growing more. I quickly became ever vigilante on my weed patrol, like some pudgy garden-centric Dark Knight living in my own backyard.

The weeding started becoming a routine, after work (staring at computers all day) I would come home, change, then quite literally get my hands dirty. It became my zen garden. Weeding was my way to decompress after work. All those problems I couldn't fix during the day became weeds I just plucked out of the garden. Garden god was I, father Gaia, my divine hand judged who was worthy to stay in the Garden of Hudson and who wasn't. With a single motion your planty butt could be kicked out of a raised bed paradise.

After the plants took hold and edged out their competition another piece of maintenance become significant: watering. My morning routine hadn't changed in a while, so as someone who tries to fight off the effects of being too comfortable I changed it. One change was watering the garden in the morning instead of at sundown.

As the world is starting to wake up and I'm barely conscious I drag myself outside to this mass of green I helped grow up from little seeds. As cheesy as it may sound to some it really connected me to earth. There was this tangible thing in front of me that represented the hard work I'd put into this garden. Vegetables have been growing on the earth for a long time, I got them all the time grocery store. But, these were my vegetables, they needed my care to grow and they rewarded me when I put that care in.

As someone who doesn't plan on having children it felt...paternal.

And now to the crux of my post today: My call to arms or maybe it's the day I re-discovered nature.

Last night we had heavy rains, which in the past had killed or at least severely crippled several plants when they were younger. This morning I came out and was pleasantly surprised that there were no casualties. In fact, there was a lot of sprouting going, a lot growth all up in this garden. As you gardeners out there already know, plants can be insanely resilient. I would come home and some plants would look like they were on their last roots, then I'd give them some extra water, trim away dead leaves, pull off nefarious looking insects, etc. and have them bounce back and look like nothing was wrong in a day or two. While reflecting upon this resiliency my mind went to (as it always does) technology.

I work, live and think in a networking world most of my day. Resiliency to me usually means the ability information has to gets to where it's going no matter what. One of the masterpieces of network resiliency is something you interact with everyday, the internet. The fact that your data (inappropriate email, pictures of cats, videos of Miley Cyrus, etc) gets broken up into a thousand pieces and each of those thousand pieces might take a million different routes to get to it's location (in order, I might add, so it can be put back together correctly) is mind boggling to me.

The information age we live in, the world of taking Instagram shots of every meal (guilty), live tweeting a younger cousin's piano recital, reading up to the minute news of the next royal baby being born, is a global one. We're connected to everyone, everywhere, right now.

The realization I came to standing in the garden picking fresh, rain-washed yellow heirloom tomatos?

Unplug for a minute and realize as amazing as it is to be connected global and as double amazing the technology is supporting all of that infrastructure is what's equally or even more amazing is the living, growing, world right around you.

Who Am I?
Adam Hudson, 29 year old IT Guy (official job title), amateur writer, amateur funny guy, 1/2 of Haus of Hudson, fermentation enthusiast and comma enthusiast.

Haus of Hudson?
During World War II Haus of Hudson was the code name for a secret underground facility actively working against the Nazi's. Located twelve kilometers north of Nuremberg...I kid I kid. Haus of Hudson is the name  my lovely wife Holly and I decided upon for our house. It's on our beer labels and anything else that we make and give to our friends and family.

Fermentation enthusiast?
You read that right, congratulations, you aren't having a stroke right now. I am a fermentation enthusiast, I'm interested in making things like sourdough bread and pretzels, kombucha (Come-boo-cha aka fermented tea) and most importantly...beer. All things that are fermented.

Comma enthusiast?
It was a joke because I felt like I included too many commas in my list of interests (see amateur funny guy, emphasis on amateur).

What am I (the reader) going to see on this site?
Mainly posts on how I do my magic, how to make the aforementioned fermented items, how to improve upon them and whatever else floats in my head that seems appropriate for this blog.

Who's asking these questions right now?
I'm asking them to myself and answering myself, that's totally normal right?