10 Things You Should Avoid

"What you choose to buy or not buy has a tremendous impact on the world we share. Every year, the average American household will spend $17,000 on basics including food, clothing, body care, housewares etc. Now imagine that every dollar spent went toward promoting healthy, organic food; ending sweatshops and promoting Fair Trade; and creating a national marketplace for green products. That’s what buying green is all about." Read More.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

I'm happy to report that I'm finally on the last pages of "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" by: Barbara Kingsolver! It's not that the reading was arduous by any means, I just hadn't found the time to read it in a reasonable about of time....instead, it took me about 3 months - haha! Too busy. Anyhow, the book is awesome! I would highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in local food, sustainability, organics, homesteading, etc. In the book, Kingsolvers details a year of her and her family eating locally. This means producing the majority of their own food, swapping resources with neighbors, hitting up the local farmers markets, and ultimately attempting to eat only that which is grown organically and locally. The book is structured by months, which if you garden is a great way to follow! It gives tips on how to plan meals around what is abundant during certain months (i.e. Tomatoes in September). Also through the book are exceprts from Steven L. Hopp (Kingsolvers hubby) regarding some of the ramifications of our current food habits. He discusses the conditions animals are in prior to making it to the grocery, how far our food travels, the result of pestisides, and lots of cool, geeky science stuff. Kingsolver's daughter, Camille, also writes excerpts from her perspective of eating local with her family. She's in school for biology and has a interest in dietary needs - so she includes many great recipes. I can't wait to try them! That's that for my amatuer book review. I'd rate this 5 out of 5 - great book! You can get more information about the book: http://www.animalvegetablemiracle.com/

Hot Hot Hot

Wow, it's been a long hot week - I'm convinced it hasn't been below 90 on any given day. Apparently we are going to get a break for the weekend, when it will be REAL summer weather here - in the 70's. Perfect! My favorite!

Things are going great at our house! My pregnancy is still rolling along smoothly. It's been hot, albeit only June! It's probably best I get used to this....the last three months of my pregnancy will be mid-summer. We finally have the rest of our garden planted. We didn't do much for variety this year. We have strawberries, which have provided me much joy of eating! We have around 12 or more tomato plants since Tim's Aunt and Uncle had some extra's to give away. We have two eggplants (one that came up from last year and one gifted). Our garlics are coming along real nice. That's it though. We wanted to keep it realistic since baby is due during harvest season! I'm sure we'll still have our hands full when it comes to those tomatoes. We'll probably do a combination of canning and freezing. A gal I work with roasts her tomatoes in the oven and freezes them. She said it's quick and easy to use when thawed. Might give that a whirl. Sounds good with pasta! I'd also like to try canning salsa this year. Salsa is so great on so many things, potatoes, chicken, chips, burittos, etc. For our strawberries, we ate some fresh, and froze the rest whole so we can thaw and use for pancake topping, etc in winter. I'll have to post some pictures of our strawberry abundance!

Another project Tim did this summer was to let a portion of the backyard grow out. Well, it wasn't exactly a high labor project. He just don't cut the grass there, which has been a huge time and gas saver for mowing! The grow out is getting interesting. Some flowering plants are popping up, including white and purple clover, thistle, and we planted some coneflower and transplanted daisy. It's looking good - but we aren't sure exactly how our neighbors feel about it! We've noticed a significant increase in birds this summer. The long grass is probably a great place for them to hide out and eat bugs of all sorts! We have some really orange orioles, many robins, starlings, grackles, sparrow, chickadee's, and we also have some squirrels and a bunnies. The front yard, which is much more groomed is looking great! The groundcover I have in the beds is blooming, so there is a carpet of white and pink all over, looks great!

Oh, did you hear Michael Jackson died? I'm being facetious of course. It's all over the media. A very talented man with a mixed-up life. I won't be surprised when the autospy comes back stating he had an overdoes of prescription drugs in his system.

On that note, happy Friday and here's to a safe and happy weekend!!

Oracle in the Desert | Craig Childs | Orion Magazine

Thought this was an interesting narrative about a cop who now seeks solidarity in the desert.

Oracle in the Desert | Craig Childs | Orion Magazine

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Purple Flower

The Beach

We spent some time at the beach down the road from the property.  There was no one else there - it was about 80 degrees.  I take it the beach is rarely frequented since it's completely unmarked and we've only once seen someone there.  Tim decided to go in the water.  Let's remember, this is Lake Superior.   As suspected, it was COLD water.  The dogs enjoyed running in the water and of course came back to the blanket I was sitting on to come and shake off - after they rolled around in the sand.  Here are some pictures of the beach:

Paulie the Porcupine

We were up at the property this weekend.  It was a wonderful trip!  The weather was sunny and 68-75 degrees - beautiful!  When we got there, we were surprised to see all the apple (and other fruit trees?) in bloom. Lots of new ground cover and flowers were coming up too.  Drawf dogwood, ferns, starflowers, violets, and stagham moss in the wooded areas.  Hawkeye, raspberries, possibly a daisy of sorts (hadn't blossomed yet) in the sunny areas.   Marsh marigolds, iris (not in bloom yet), unique mushrooms, and more violets in the bog area.  Just amazing!   We find beauty everywhere on the property.  While we were sitting under one of the blossoming fruit trees, Tim spotted something in one of the aspen trees near by.  He came running back for the camera, and we took pictures throughout the evening.    It's a porcupine!  We watched him up in the tree top, sleeping, observing us, and eating.   I am amazed by porcupines!  I guess I never really seen one in the wild, and up in the tree it was a slow, docile creature.    Of course, I would never want a close encounter with one, but I'm happy to have at least one who lives on our property!  We named him Paulie the Porcupine :)

We have a doula!

Since we are going about the pregnancy and our life in general in a natural way, we figured that it would be helpful for us to look into hiring a doula.  Most people are familiar with midwives, but since we are seeing a medical doctor through a women's care practice, midwife wasn't much of an option.   Insurance doesn't cover midwives, and it would be very difficult to birth anywhere but home with a midwife.  We felt safest with a medical setting, but still want to be holistic.  We found out that a doula would be a great fit to what we were looking for.  For those that don't know, a doula is a labor-support professional who offers emotional, physical, and educational support during pregnancy and labor.  The support is for both mother and father.    A doula does NOT take the place of the father.  The doula will arm Tim with techniques that will be suitable for him to best comfort me, and have a greater understanding of what's taking place.   We just felt it would be wonderful to have someone in there that's aligned with our philosophies to help us, explain to us what's happening, and make us comfortable.  Years and years of studies show that women who have doula support are less likely to have c-section, have analgesia/pain meds, give birth with vacuum or forceps, and report negative feelings about the childbirth experience.  The doula we chose will give 3-4 prenatal visits for education purposes as well as be there for the entire labor/delivery, a few hours afterwards, and provide follow-up support.  We are looking forward to developing a relationship with our doula! I feel positive that this support will be one more way to make the labor and delivery an experience as pleasant as it can be. 

Update

Hello all!

It is I, Tim

Just a quick update on the potatoes and the worms.  I just added the next tire to my stack yesterday and it looks like everything is going really well.  The plants must be 16" or 18" tall now.  The taters are growing great and yet the tomatoes are growing poorly.  Hopefully we'll get some warmer weather here eventually and they will catch up a little bit.  We also have some strawberries that are just starting to ripen up.  It will be nice to get some fresh food to eat from our own backyard.

The worms also turned out pretty well.  A week or two ago I finally got around to separating the worms from the castings.  I ended up with a little less than half a 18 gallon bin full of castings.  If my estimation is correct, it is about 25 Lbs or so.  According to a website, that's about $30 worth of castings.  I didn't think I would end up with nearly that much after only 6 or 8 months.

Well, that's all for now.  I will write again shortly.