A Common Life
Welcome to A Common Life where Morgan and Taylor offer month-by-month gardening advice to help your garden thrive. We also share our personal journey in seasonal living, aiming to foster a deeper connection with others, nature, and our Creator. Our hope is to encourage and equip others who are on a similar journey and to provide a space for community around these ideals.
A Common Life
Surviving Dengue in Guatemala & Gardening Mishaps (rats) + Adventures!
"On this episode, we recount Morgan’s frightening encounter with dengue fever in Guatemala and the unexpected blessings it brought to our marriage. From the severe symptoms and a surprising lack of mosquito bites to a heartfelt moment of repentance and reconnection, we share our journey through illness and recovery. We even throw in a fun discussion about a hypothetical futuristic chip that could revolutionize medical diagnoses and improve marital empathy.
Beyond personal trials, our Guatemalan adventure led us to tackle the serious issue of malnutrition among children through a regenerative agriculture project. Visiting the historic city of Antigua and remote rural areas, we teamed up with organizations like Missioteca and Grace Ministries to introduce sustainable farming practices. Learn about our mission to transform local agriculture, improve children's health, and the uphill battle smallholder farmers face against large corporations.
Lastly, we dive into the inspiring world of Amado, a passionate agricultural expert, whose knowledge on cover crops and seed collection left a lasting impression on us. We also share a practical tip for chicken owners stemming from a personal mouse infestation mishap, and reflect on our gardening journeys—the trials with pests and the triumphs with our hydrangeas and lemon balm. Join us as we brainstorm ways to celebrate upcoming celestial events, offering a mix of heartfelt stories, practical advice, and inspirational encounters."
Mentioned in the Show:
Missioteca
Grace Ministries
Find us Elsewhere:
Instagram - @_ACommonLife - Morgan
Instagram - @RiverFlyFarms - Taylor
Community Newsletter - The Common
Twitter - @Taylor__Myers
LinkedIn - Taylor Myers
Need some help with help with your garden or homestead? Book a 15 minute free consult with Taylor to see if he can help.
DM us on the Socials or email us at Taylor@acommonlife.co
Music on the podcast was composed by Kevin Dailey. The artist is Garden Friend. The track is the instrumental version of “On a Cloud”
Hello everybody, welcome to a common life podcast. Why are you laughing? You're rolling your eyes. Alright you can start.
Speaker 2:No, you got it, go I'm gonna go. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:You changed faces.
Speaker 2:I know how to get my podcast voice on, but you gotta speak, speak into it and and remember, you gotta have some energy. Don't sound super tired, hold on and action hello everybody, welcome to a common Podcast.
Speaker 1:I'm your host, morgan, and I'm here with my husband, taylor.
Speaker 2:Hey everybody.
Speaker 1:We haven't recorded in a minute.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's been a little while.
Speaker 1:So I would love for us to catch up on our trip together to Guatemala.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we need to talk about that. We are back. You are a dengue survivor.
Speaker 1:Is that how you say it?
Speaker 2:It's the dengue, it's dengue.
Speaker 1:It's dengue, not dengue.
Speaker 2:Dengue. You had dengue fever and you're a survivor. We need a ribbon for our car.
Speaker 1:It was not fun. Okay, like at all. Yeah, I wouldn't wish it on my worst, worstest enemy.
Speaker 2:Really it was that bad.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm, it was really bad.
Speaker 2:Man, you're such a trooper.
Speaker 1:Okay, here's the thing, You're such a trooper. Okay, here's the thing, Husband and wife, when the other one is sick, I just don't like, we don't handle it well. It's like this, like even just now, you know, you know how bad I was and you're looking at me with this pity. That's like, oh, it was awful.
Speaker 2:That is not exactly true. It is we aren't the best when the other person goes down.
Speaker 1:You did have a come to Jesus moment, though, yeah, in the middle of this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I did. I felt bad. I wasn't. You know, day five. I was kind of ready for it to be over. We were starting to not get answers and for you know, 24 hours or so, I had been not kind Because, towards you know, you were kind of waffling. You would feel better, you'd have some energy, and then your fever would come back and spike in the afternoon and it was starting to drive me a little crazy and I was wore out too. We, we were both, and you were sick and I was just, yeah, but I did, I had a. I had to ask for forgiveness for the way. I had been just kind of cold. Yeah, and honestly, I felt like, coming back from gu Guatemala, I felt like it was an attack, honestly, and I just felt like you and I we need to be connected, especially when we're doing something like working together in Guatemala and doing what we feel like we're called to do. And we were just not connected and I was just like no, this is not going to, this is stupid. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that night your fever broke after I had a little confession and repentance. It's true. And the next morning you've been good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was a trip. It started with fever, like chills and fever and headache, and then ended up being really nauseous. It was not fun. Some dizzy spells but my doctor did lots of tubes of blood work and we figured out what it was yeah, we didn't know if it was typhoid, ecoli poisoning and it's spread from a mosquito, but I didn't have a single mosquito. There was no mosquito bite on me that I could see. That was like oh yeah. I got bit.
Speaker 2:And the crazy thing is it's the dry season. Well, it's just now coming up on the rainy season in Guatemala, but we didn't even see a mosquito, did we?
Speaker 1:I don't remember seeing one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, crazy.
Speaker 1:So, through this well, I've always said this, but, like us talking about, you know husband and wife and one of the ones being sick I am going to approach elon musk with an invention that he needs to invent, and it's a chip, okay. So how often do you go to the doctor and you're like Doc, I got a headache.
Speaker 2:But this isn't a regular headache. This is a different headache.
Speaker 1:This is a different headache, like it comes and then it goes and it's in this certain part of my head, or you know, you have to answer all the questions like is it sharp pain or is it dull pain and the same, with, like back pain? Is it shooting pain? You know there's all these questions you got to figure out. Well, what if there was just this chip that you could just like and I'm not for chipping people, okay, but if we're going to use this kind of technology, this is what it needs to be used for.
Speaker 1:You put this thing in you and it goes, whatever. Download your whole body and all the pain that you have in your body. You take the chip out, you give it to the doc and then he can put it in him and then he knows exactly what your body is feeling. So there's no guessing. And he's like, oh, yep, I know that type of headache that is definitely a brain tumor. And then he saves your life. Yeah, okay, but also you could use it on your husband. So, like you're, like, you know, you know, you know what I am talking about wives, because you can't go down, because your mama and your wife and you're taking care of everything.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:So, like you, you fight until you literally can't fight anymore. So when you go down and it's bad and your husband's acting like it's nothing or like he didn't have time for you to be sick, you take that chip and you took that chip in it, and so he knows exactly how much pain you're in. And also, when he's sick sick you know, has got a headache and doesn't feel very well, then you can put the chip in you on how he's feeling and you can be like that ain't nothing, you better get up, you know. And also it could probably be used for like periods and stuff, so that you could feel what it feels like periods and stuff, so that we could you could feel what it feels like taylor, to know what it's all right, let's get back on track.
Speaker 2:Let's get back on track, you I think it's brilliant yeah, I mean listen, I know you were down bad and out an out and I apologized. And yeah, if Elon Musk wants to chip people and hook their brains up to the interwebs and the computers, then surely he can do something like that surely yeah, okay, so anyways, guatemala.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Guatemala is unfolding more and more each day, and we've talked about it previously. I think I did a podcast on it just myself, I'm pretty sure you did Last time I went. You didn't go with me. This time you did, and the purpose of you going down there with me was to meet all the people involved and so you could put faces to names and you definitely have a role in this and so I wanted to get you, hopefully, inspired and to see and smell and taste and feel Guatemala. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So, and it was also 12 years, may 19th, which it feels like it was yesterday, but we're in June now. May 19th was when we were there. May 19th was 12 years, and so we spent a couple days in Antigua, which is a really beautiful city in Guatemala, and ate good food. We walked around this historic city and had an awesome hotel.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It was really beautiful, relaxing. We probably should have done it where we spent the end of our trip and relaxing. Yeah. Because we went from like posh Guatemala to not posh Guatemala. But yeah, how can we explain? But yeah, how can we explain? So if you listened last time, you know that there's a malnutrition issue in Guatemala and it's been like that for a while, you know decades especially in the rural countryside, guatemalan highlands even. But kids are just malnourished and it's really sad, like 50% of the kids are.
Speaker 2:That's the statistic 50% of the kids are malnourished and so much so that it's affecting their brains and their brain development. And so, gosh like, back in august I had a call with my buddy brett, who has a mission organization called missioteca, he and his wife, in guatemala city. I've known this guy since we were five and we got connected with this other guy who, the Lord, had just put Guatemala on his heart and he had been doing some research and some discovery about soybeans in Guatemala and just trying to come up with a framework and a system of tackling some of the issues that's going on in Guatemala, primarily, yeah, the malnourishment of these kids, but also it's more than just that. You know, health is, it's interconnected and when you approach the health of kids and the health of communities, you have to look at it from an interconnected perspective and point of view. You know, the health of the soil, the health of the air, the health of the water, the health of the people, it's all connected. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:And so, yeah, we've kind of just been taking it day by day. The guy that we joined up with, joaquin, he's got a lot of connections and different irons in the fire. The one area that I feel like I've plugged in and can bring something to the table is with some farmland that we are leasing from a local school and ministry called Grace Ministries. Yeah, so we're going to be growing for the next two years organic, regenerative produce and trying to restore and regenerate this soil and grow some clean, nutrient-dense produce on this plot of land that will be fed to the kids there. And big vision here is to prove a concept and hopefully train trainers in regenerative organic agricultural practices, because I wrote in the last newsletter that I wrote about Guatemala we visited a farm and they're just covered in pesticides and chemicals.
Speaker 1:Well, even from the field that we are, that field you're talking about, that we're leasing you look over and you can see you know four fields over just this green and it's they've got this big cover over it and Taylor's like that's Walmart, and there you can see that they have fruit like they're growing something. But I mean, like you said, you could just smell the pesticides.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I don't know if you go down to Walmart's fields. I mean, I'm sure they've got it buttoned up into a T, like their systems, and they're growing produce. But you know, I saw a tractor.
Speaker 1:There was a tractor down there.
Speaker 2:And that's part of the problem is because the feeding programs there in Guatemala, the money that the charitable dollars that are flowing in, are leaving the countryside and they're going to big corporations like walmart and these big international grocers.
Speaker 2:But if you drive through guatemala, you see field after field after field after field of smallholder farms, farmers and their fields, and those smallholder farmers are not getting the best dollar for their produce.
Speaker 2:And there is a market in Guatemala for these smallholder farms and that market is these charitable feeding programs that are everywhere to feed their kids in their community, but their food is going to the city and a merchant is coming around buying it, and there's the merchant that's taking it to the markets in the cities that's making all the money. So the smallholder farmers, it's just they're not making any money and so we're trying to change that and so hopefully we can be successful in this one little plot that we've been given grow some food regeneratively, organically, in a way that's not, you know, heavy laden with chemicals, and prove a concept, because now it's been a few decades. You know, it was back in the 70s, 80s, I think, similar to the US, similar to the US, and then, of course, in the 90s and 2000s, more and more chemicals and pesticides and this whole industry has really boomed. But now, I mean everybody in the countryside is growing with heavy pesticides and insecticides and growing.
Speaker 2:I don't know if it's GMO crops probably not, because these are just like vegetables but they're definitely growing with synthetic chemicals and the problem with all of that is, when you're doing that, you're not growing nutrient-dense crops and you, as a smallholder farmer, you are dependent on these inputs, the chemicals yeah and when you're dependent on these inputs like that, you're losing a lot of the profit that you could be making and having and you're not growing nutrient dense food and the sustainability of your soil is just not there and so we're trying to offer a different way and and so it's fun, it's exciting all of the folks growing and leading the charge there on the ground are locals, guatemalans, and so morgan got to meet them yeah, they're so great great people like Amado and Julio and Jose.
Speaker 1:Yeah, very knowledgeable.
Speaker 2:Very knowledgeable.
Speaker 1:And passionate about what they're doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's cool to know. Like Amado, who's, I think, in his 70s and has been around, he's been a part of some really cool, cool things there in Guatemala and it's funny how our stories intertwine. But you know he's passionate about the same things I am you know and I get excited talking about cover crops.
Speaker 1:And he pulls seeds out of his little bag. Oh, he's always got seeds yeah. Taylor.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Look at this. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2:Pretty awesome. Yeah, taylor, look at this. Pretty awesome. So we got to do that. We got to spend some time with the fine folks at Grace and in the show notes we'll link to their Facebook to Missioteca, yeah, and so then we came back and well before we left, all right. So here's the thing If you have chickens, guys, this is an important tip.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I made a rookie mistake and I just let it get completely.
Speaker 2:Guys, this is an important tip. Yeah, I made a rookie mistake and I just let it get completely out of hand. I had our chicken feed in our like. It's an old garage that's like built in the 50s, so you can hardly even fit a car in there, but so I use it as like a storage shed?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a shed, and so I had our a car in there.
Speaker 2:So I use it as like a storage shed. Yeah, it's a shed, and so I had our chicken feed in there and I had it in like a big Tupperware thing. But the bag was just sitting in it and you know, you have a mouse, a couple mice, it's not a big deal. Well, it got out of hand, it got infested, our little shed.
Speaker 1:Y'all. This is like Whenever we have to go on a trip, you know, something ends up happening where it's like we get distracted with something. Well, this time it was.
Speaker 2:We were trying to get ready to go to Guatemala and Taylor set some traps out for these mice slash rats, and the day before we left he caught 13 listen, you know how, like you have something in your fridge and or like surely we aren't the only ones, but you have something sitting in like the corner, some random corner of your house, and you need to move it, but you don't and you're like I'll do it one day, I'll do it. You know, you just keep putting it off and then eventually it just kind of makes its home there and it becomes a part. It's just like there, right. But then somebody steps into your world and they're like hey, what is that over there? You know you're like, oh yeah, I should probably do something about that.
Speaker 2:Well, my dad is that person for me. You know, he comes and it's like I just have all these things that they just fall through. You know, they never rise to the top of my to-do list and some things probably should, but I just let them slide for so long. And then you know my dad comes in and it's like, oh, yeah, yeah, I should probably do that, I should probably do that. And you know, like this last time it was great, he did a. He did a bunch of awesome little projects, little things around the house for me, because he was here with the kids while we were gone but I knew my dad was coming and it was kind of just a wake up moment where I was like yeah, these mice are out of control. It's bad in our shed, like it's really embarrassing. I thought about this Like do I even want to tell the people this Because it is so? It was bad, it was really bad. So I called some pest control folks and they were going to charge an outrageous price.
Speaker 1:To do exactly what you did, to do exactly what I did Set up traps a couple different things.
Speaker 2:They set the sticky traps. They're going to set up some you know traps, so they go in there and you never have to see them. They were going to put out some poison or something, but it was going to be it was outrageous 250 bucks for one time and they wouldn't guarantee it.
Speaker 2:And then if you wanted them to come back, you had to sign up for the full service and they were going to kill all of our lightning bugs. So I said no. So I said no. So what I did the day before was like well, I was like, yeah, I was like 48 hours before we were about to leave, I went to lowe's and I racked up man, I got like 10 sticky traps, like four of those big rat mouse traps. That's the way to go. And then I got like 10 small mousetraps and then I got some corn gluten.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's sad.
Speaker 2:Some corn gluten stuff that expands in their stomach. Yeah, yeah, I know if you're like super, you know I don't know it was an infestation. I had to do something, yeah, so I did. I put all this stuff out. I took away their main source of food, which I should have done a long time ago. But see, I was afraid if I just took away our chicken feed and I took it away, they were going to leave and go find other stuff.
Speaker 2:I mean there was a lot. I mean because, look guys, you go in there at night night. If you go in there at night, don't go in there. You see rats, big ones, and mouth mice everywhere. They're just like scurrying around. You see them, then they stop. They look at you like our kids won't even go in the shed anymore.
Speaker 2:Still to this day, they're like now, after they're all gone, like my kids are like terrified of the shit. So I got all these traps, all this stuff. I set it up, baited them, y'all before we left. I think it was 19, I think I got a 20, you know, before we even left and since then, since coming back, I've killed four.
Speaker 1:So when we got back, Wheeler was kind of our watcher over the garden while we were gone.
Speaker 2:He's taken to the garden. Yeah, he loves the garden. That's our one kid. He's imprinted. He's definitely going to be into it for sure. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:The other three? Well, well, one's to be determined Virginia and Wendell, we'll see. But he's kind of watching over the garden. So we were going in Guatemala and we got this video. I was like dad, the garden, something is eating all the plants in the garden. So we come back and, it's true, something is eating our broccoli. They ate all the heads off the broccoli, not the leaves, just the heads. Just the best part cabbage eating the heads of the cabbage yeah, we, we had like, uh, you know, six.
Speaker 2:We planted six cabbage plants. They were forming nice heads. Beautiful broccoli was beautiful. It's coming in, perfect. Gone, cabbage gone. Then they started turning to kale and eating like the heart and head of the kale out. So put a couple traps in the garden. I think we got them. Yeah, mice rats, it's so sad.
Speaker 1:Not something we thought we were going to have an issue with in the garden.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's gross.
Speaker 1:Really I know.
Speaker 2:But I think so far, I think we've like you go in there at night now. You don't hear them, you don't see them. We've done it. But elsewhere in the yard it's really, things are coming out. It's beautiful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Our hydrangeas. We came back to our hydrangeas just going crazy.
Speaker 2:I love hydrangeas.
Speaker 1:Well, we have the French blue hydrangeas. Is that what they're called?
Speaker 2:Something like that.
Speaker 1:It's like cotton candy.
Speaker 2:They're pink, purple blue. They're beautiful.
Speaker 1:So beautiful.
Speaker 2:Our echinacea is going, just looking lovely. The lilies are about to bloom.
Speaker 1:Yeah, those are my Morgan lilies, and then comfrey.
Speaker 2:That comfrey is going bonkers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, lemon balm, everything's looking really good. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:Sure is All right. Good, sure is Alright. Well, probably need to call this we're both starting to doze. Next episode we need to talk about June. Okay, we need to talk about June. If you're still listening, I don't know when I'm going to be able to edit this and get this out. Right now it is June 2nd. Tomorrow's June 3rd Definitely not going to have it by tomorrow, so this will be in the past, but we're having six planets line up tomorrow, june 3rd.
Speaker 2:You need to put that on Instagram so people can see that. And then we got the solstice this summer, I mean this June, which is every June. Can't forget that. What are we going to do on the solstice?
Speaker 1:I don't know we should do something we should eat under the light or something we should eat under the light.
Speaker 2:It is the longest day of the year. That's what I mean, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, eat outside. Yeah, spend the whole evening outside. Yeah.
Speaker 2:That'd be good. And then what else was it? Oh yeah, it's the honeymoon.
Speaker 1:The honeymoon.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm. So it's actually the strawberry moon in North America, but in Europe they call it the honeymoon, because June was when people would get married and people would make mead and they would harvest the honey, something like that. I like the strawberry moon. Yeah, strawberries.
Speaker 1:We haven't had enough.
Speaker 2:We haven't had enough. We haven't.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what are?
Speaker 2:we going to do about that?
Speaker 1:We're going to step up our game.
Speaker 2:All right, let's go, step it up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I got to call Denison's. Did you go today? I did, but it's Sunday and so I called her little cell phone number and you know the answering machine's. Like well, all this rain, I don't you know, I don't know what we're going to do. I'll let you guys know Something like that, Cause, saturday it rained all day.
Speaker 2:Oh gosh.
Speaker 1:And then online it says you know, closed on Sunday, but then when you're, when you're driving home from the lake, the sign's still out and it doesn't say anything about being closed on Sunday. It just says Denison Farms, and it has an arrow.
Speaker 2:Did you go?
Speaker 1:So we went, but no one was out. Everything was closed up.
Speaker 2:You should have just went and picked.
Speaker 1:Well, that's what Wendell said.
Speaker 2:I said that's stealing. You can just go to someone's field and pick, well duh, but you could leave a check. Leave a check, knock on the door. I don't know.
Speaker 1:It's not a you pick. So.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you probably shouldn't do that. Support your local farmers, people, it's hard out there.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:And eat a lot of strawberries.
Speaker 2:Definitely do that. Enjoy Blackberries, blueberries coming in Blueberries.
Speaker 1:Blueberries? Not yet, you told me, not yet. They weren't even ready in South Alabama.
Speaker 2:That's true, but, june, they should be All right, everybody, until next time, happy gardening do. Thank you.