Exciting Things in the Works!

The blog has been on a summer hiatus for a while.  I've been enjoying fun with my little boys, helping my sister in her garden and reaping the benefits of my mother in law's garden as well (sitting across from me as I type this is a 2 foot long zucchini...I kid you not).

But another thing I've been working on while I put the blog on the back burner is sewing!  A while back, I rekindled my love of sewing, and I recently decided to parlay that into a little side business.  This is a joint venture between me and my sister.

We are starting small, selling reusable snack and sandwich bags, but we hope to add bigger lunch totes and other types of bags as well as other accessories.  Eventually we'll have drink bottle holders, and possibly some fashion accessories too!

We're very excited (and only slightly terrified) of this new venture!  Please support our business if you are in the market for these types of items!

Here is our shop.

And here is a sampling of our modest inventory.

The first two sets are lined with rip-stop nylon for a bit of water resistance.  The last one (the striped one) is lined with cotton.  All are closed with hook-and-loop closure (aka Velcro).

This is a perfect time of year to purchase these types of items with the start of school around the corner.  In the long run, reusable snack and sandwich bags will save money, not to mention the environment!

We will be running a grand opening sale...All items are 20% the listed price and your first order will qualify for free shipping!  Now is the time to order!!

Pickles!

Canning season is here!  I'm super excited (or at least, I'm gonna fake it til I make it).  This is my first summer as a canner.  Last year, my sister and I learned how to can at the of the summer, so we missed most of summer's bounty.

There are a lot of moving parts when it comes to canning.  First and foremost, you need a trusted recipe and you need to follow that recipe to the letter.  I am the kind of person who never met a recipe she didn't tweak, but when it comes to canning, NO TWEAKING ALLOWED.  Second, you need a canner.  Most people start with water bath canning before progressing to pressure canning.  I actually use an old stock pot that is literally big enough for me to climb into.  Other tools that will help are a funnel, a head-space measure, a jar grabber, and a magnet.  The only one of those things that I have is a jar grabber.

The complexity of the canning process is entirely dependent on what you are canning.  Pickles are a super easy "intro to canning."

Last weekend, my mother-in-law invited me over to pick veggies from her garden.  I walked away with 10 pounds of pickling cucumbers.  Over the course of the intervening week (between working on my bathroom and trying to fix a faulty sewing machine), I turned all those gorgeous cukes into pickles.

I used a recipe from SB Canning because her website is well-known and trusted.  I followed her recipe for dill pickles and canned 12 pints of pickles.

I had one guy who didn't want to seal, so I stuck it in the fridge.  I did some as spears and some as slices.  The only thing I changed was the spices.  Instead of adding each spice separately, I used a "pickling spice" from McCormick.

Trying to find the fuel

Here's a pickle.  I was sitting here thinking that I would write a post about how unfocused I've been lately, but I can't seem to focus on the words.  Ironic.

So here's my dilemma (a first world problem if there ever was one).  I have all this beautiful food coming in from my CSA and while I usually manage to eat or share everything before it spoils, I haven't been making full use of summer's bounty. 

I've been feeling unfocused, out of sorts, lazy.  We've been ordering out way too much...I find myself hitting the cafeteria and/or vending machine frequently here at work.  I don't know why I feel this way, but I think part of it is the lack of organization in my house.  Another part is a general lack of good sleep.  The first part I can do something about, but the second part is something only time can fix.  Eventually my children will grow and won't want to sleep with me (I hope). 

Of course, eating take out doesn't exactly fill my body with the right mix of nutrients to keep me going strong and when the food I eat makes me tired and lazy, then I don't want to cook good, healthy food and so we eat more convenience food, which perpetuates the cycle of feeling tired and lazy.

Last summer, I learned to can at the end of the season and I told myself that I would can everything as each season came this year.  But I've already missed strawberry season and if I keep allowing myself to be lazy, I'll miss everything.

I need to recommit myself to meal planning, canning and freezing the summer harvest and exercising to maximize what little energy I can muster.

Meanwhile, if anyone wants to come be my night nanny so mama can sleep a little, come on over.

Parents, Wake Up (an off topic post)

This post is off the topic of food and farms, but it's my blog so I can write about whatever I want. Every summer, I read stories that break my heart about children left in hot cars, where they roast--literally--and die.

For a long time, I--like many others--vilified these parents as evil at worst and bad parents at best. But then I read this article from the Washington Post and it changed my perspective. I saw how even the most devoted of parents could become distracted and forgetful. Especially when taking the kids to school or daycare wasn't a normal part of their routine. These parents had made a mistake, and don't we all make mistakes? Can't we all look at something we've done and say, there but by the grace of god do I still have my child? These parents made a terrible, awful mistake and paid the ultimate price for it. 

But this summer, my perspective is shifting again. There have been four recent incidents of kids left in cars in my state alone in the past two weeks. Thankfully they weren't all fatal, but they weren't all accidents either. Some of these parents intentionally left their kids in the car, and were called out on it. 

I can't say that I've never left my kids alone in the car. I have. But I've done it carefully and with close consideration of where we were at the time. I will only leave them alone in the car if I'm in a rural location where I know no one is likely to approach the car, and I can see the car at all times. I also let the baby take naps in the car. As every parent knows nothing puts the baby to sleep like riding the car. And not all babies make the transfer into the house successfully. So I park my car in the shade, roll down the windows, open the back doors and the trunk and let him sleep, checking on him every few minutes. Even with those safeguards, he usually wakes up fairly sweaty. 

My point is I'm not immune to leaving the kids in the car and walking away, but the difference is I've never forgotten that my children were in the car. The phenomenon of hot kids in cars is one that scares the pants off me and for that reason, I tend to be extra vigilant about these things. 

So back to the main point. This seems to be happening more than ever, or at least I seem to be hearing about it more and more. There is no longer any excuse. With headlines every week about babies in hot cars, kids dying in hot cars, parents being arrested for leaving kids in hot cars, there is no excuse for forgetting your child is in the car. 

People suggest doing things like leaving your purse or briefcase in the backseat, taking off a shoe and leaving it in the backseat, writing a note on on the window in dry erase marker or even using decals as a reminder. If that's what you need to do to remember your kid is in the car, then do it! Or make it a habit to look in the backseat every time you leave the car. 

The modern age is distracting, there is no doubt about that. But we cannot use technology as a distraction as an excuse for forgetting what's most important to us. If your phone is too much of a distraction, then turn it off leave it in that purse or briefcase in the backseat and don't get it until you get out of the car. 

What's more important? Answering that last text? Making an important phone call? Or getting your kid where he or she needs to be safely?

Parents, this job is hard. But stop making excuses and make your kids your priority. No more kids should die this way. 

Be the Change

So here's the thing.  When you are able to DIY things, the possibilities become endless.  It feels empowering to be able to say "I can sew." "I can grow my own food." "I can knit." "I can redo my bathroom."  Being able to do things yourself is about self-reliance and true American-ism at its best.

To me, the American spirit has always been about looking at something that seems impossible and saying, I can do it.  But unfortunately, that part of our spirit is being squashed under the weight of cheap food and cheap commercial goods.

I'm relearning how to sew and as I look up patterns and tutorials online, I feel more and more excited to make stuff!  Robeez for my baby? Yes! Fabric bins for the newly decorated bathroom? Yes! Fun skirts for me and my sister? Double yes!!

The irony is that for my grandmother's generation, the availability of store-bought merchandise was what was empowering.  Canned goods, department stores, microwave ovens...all of that meant that they didn't have to spend hours sewing, knitting, cooking, baking.

They didn't have to can their own strawberry jam when you could swing by any market and pick some up.

But for me and I think, a lot of women like me, we are starting to feel that we are losing out by not being able to do these things.  We are tied to a system that mistreats people and animals, degrades the environment and offers the cheapest possible solution when we are unable to be self-sufficient.

Guess what...I don't want to pay through the nose for organic chicken stock, jam, peanut butter, and other items I can make myself.  I don't want to wonder about the young Asian kids who sewed my dress.  I don't want to wonder if some sadistic asshole kicked my cow in the face before it became my hamburger.

So I've learned how to can and "put up" my own goods.  I'm relearning how to sew simple skirts and dresses.  I know my farmer and know that it pains her to bring her cows to slaughter.

There are ways to opt out of the system if you don't like it.  Is it easy?  No.  Is it quick? No.  Is it worthwhile? Yes.

Opting out is an option, but we do have to pay with either time or money to make it work.  But I truly feel that the more people make these choices, the more the system will have to bend to our desires.  Nothing will change if we don't make it happen. 

If we don't buy into the system, the system will collapse under its own weight and some better option must present itself.

Let them eat grass!

A lot of people who know me think that I either don't eat meat or that I only eat white meat.  The truth is more complicated than that.  But when you  are invited to a friend's house for dinner, it's considered impolite to ask "Is this beef grass-fed?" "Do you know your farmer?" "Can you tell me if this chicken walked in the sunshine?"

It's a weird thing to know your meat and some people truly cannot adjust their mindset to accept that the chicken they saw pecking in the grass one day will be dinner the next.  I guess it's a little too much like eating a pet when you've seen the animal frolicking in the sun.  Personally, I fall into another category.  I like to know without a doubt that the animal on my dinner plate lived the kind of life it was meant to live. 

So what does that mean?

It means fresh air, sunshine, a natural diet and habitat.  It means someone cared for that animal if it was raised by humans.  It means a cow living a cow kind of life and a chicken living a chicken kind of life. 

Ideally, we'd all have access to this kind meat in any grocery store we walked into.  The reality is far from that, however.  Part of the difficulty in knowing where our meat comes from stems from confusing labels.  The claims of packaging are often false and misleading.  For example, if a meat package says an animal has "access to outside" all that means is that a tiny door in a chicken house that houses tens of thousands of chickens is open.  Now chickens aren't the brightest creatures, so it's highly unlikely that a chicken across the house is going to say, "Hey, let me climb over 20,000 other birds to get me some fresh air."  They are going to maintain the status quo...pecking at a concrete slab covered in poop.  Likewise, think about the claim "vegetarian fed." Chickens aren't vegetarians.  They eat bugs...vegetarian fed typically means that they were fed a diet of grain absent of other dead animals.  So the fact that they aren't being fed dead cows is good because beef is not a typical part of a chicken's diet, but it's incorrect to assume that chickens are strict herbivores.  They are not.  They forage in the grass and eat bugs as a source of protein.  But they can't do that when they are isolated from their natural environment and fed a diet devoid of their natural fare.

It's easy to fool yourself into thinking that the package of chicken with a farm on the label and words like "natural, free-range, vegetarian fed" means that that meat was humanely raised and slaughtered.  But if you believe that, you are fooling yourself.

So what kind of life should an animal live?  A kind and humane one...the kind they would live if left to their own devices.  One devoid of antibiotics, growth hormones, unnecessary confinement and foods that aren't a part of their natural diet. 

In conventional practices, after a calf is weaned, it is sent to a concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO).  This is pretty much cow hell.  They are packed nose to tail into one place, given no access to fresh air or grass and fed a diet that is outside the scope of their naturally occurring habits (at best, only grain--most likely GMO-grain; at worst, dead cows and pigs too diseased to be processed for human consumption).  They are also fed antibiotics to survive the close living conditions of feedlots and growth hormones to fatten them up faster.

Why does it matter if a cow is fed grain (i.e. corn) instead of it's natural diet of grass?  The nutritional profile of grass-fed beef is very different from the nutritional profile of grain-fed beef.  Grass-fed beef is much higher in omega-3 fatty acids, it is also has a different ratio of saturated fats (it is higher in stearic acid which is NOT associated with an increase in cholesterol levels), it's higher in conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), a fat that has antioxidant qualities. Grass-fed beef is also higher in other minerals, antioxidants and vitamins.  In addition, grain-fed cows are more susceptible to E. Coli.  All cows have E. Coli in their guts the same way that humans have a variety of bacteria in their bellies.  But cows fed a grain based diet don't have the right ratio of bacteria and, therefore, are less able to combat this naturally occurring bacteria.  Add sloppy processing practices and grain-fed cows can be a ticking time bomb of killer E. Coli. The stomachs of grass-fed cows are much more able to combat the E. Coli bacteria and therefore, are far less likely to pass on that bacteria to humans.  In addition, they don't need blanket antibiotics because they aren't crammed into close quarters with thousands of other cows and because farmers who raise grass-fed beef use different practices, they don't give growth hormones to fatten them up quicker.

But I don't eat grass-fed beef for the nutritional content.  I eat grass fed because anything else feels wrong to me.  I can't support a system that packs cows into a hellacious den of bacteria.  I can't support a system that rips calves away from their mothers and feeds them gruel and man-made hormones to fatten them up faster.  I can't support a cruel and unusual system of food management.

I buy grass fed because, in my mind, it's the only beef that's acceptable.  And that philosophy extends to pigs and chickens, too. 

For a long time, I felt that they only way to avoid eating CAFO meat was to avoid eating meat all together, but that wasn't something I wanted to do.  The truth is, I like meat.  It tastes good.  Last night, I blended ground beef and ground pork with some fresh rosemary and dried herbs, my husband fired up the grill and we had burgers so delicious I ate two of them and was stuffed to the gills.  I want to be able to do that and not worry about anything other than my waistline.

So what's the answer?  For me, the answer is knowing where my meat comes from.  I know my farmer.  Her name is Kelly; she graduated high school with my sister and brother-in-law.  She's super nice and adorable and most importantly, is kind to the animals she raises. 

But here's the thing...not everyone lives in an area where knowing your farmer is a viable option.  And not everyone can afford to take part in a CSA...hell, I can barely afford it, but I'm willing to make sacrifices in other places so that we can afford it.

"Clean" meat should be accessible to every person in this country.  No one should ever have to worry about the pathogens that might be in their food supply.  No one should ever have to wonder if the meat on their plate was mistreated when it was still walking around. 

Everyone should have an opportunity to eat well and without worry.

For more on this topic, visit Eat Wild.

What is a CSA?

When I tell people I joined a CSA, the question I hear the most is, "What's a CSA?"

Before I answer that question, I'll tell you why a CSA matters to me. In the English classes I used to teach, I would often organize the readings around a particular theme. In doing so, my students were able to gain a level of expertise and write with more authority (at least, that was the hope). 

One of my frequently used themes was the food industry, and how it's, you know, killing us.  But I always felt like something of a poser because I still shopped at the grocery store (and not just the outside perimeter) and bought packaged food. So I always felt like I needed to put my money where my mouth was--quite literally in this case.   

So when I read about the whole food CSA run by HighlandArt Farm, I knew it was the one for me!

Back the original question...CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. Basically, members of a community buy into a farm and receive shares each week all summer long. 

In my case, my money goes to support several different local farms since my farmer works with a bunch of other farmers to put together a "whole food" CSA. She offers meat, milk, yogurt, cheese, grain (bread and/or granola) coffee, and of course, veggies.

Because my family is small, I do a half share of veggies, which amounts to a small box of veggies each week, 6 lbs of meat, a gallon of milk, a quart of yogurt and a bag of coffee. I paid $400 for my veggie share and I pay $70 a week for the rest of it. Is it expensive? Yes. Is it worth it? Totally!

It's worth it for us as a family to have fresh veggies and pastured meat (more on why pastured meat matters in another post). But it's also extraordinarily important to the farmers who rely on their community for financial support. Many farmers are forced to supplement their income with other jobs during the off season. CSA farmers are less likely to rely on supplementary income and regularly report higher income levels, and therefore, they are able to focus on making their farms sustainable and profitable. CSAs also keep your dollars in your community, which helps to strengthen local economies. In addition, opting out of the industrialized food system is the best way I can think of to tell companies and government that we are capable of providing for ourselves and don't need the garbage they call food.

There are several ways to find local CSAs in your community.  Simply Google "CSA" with your county or town.  Visit eatwild.com.  You can also shop farmer's markets to support local farms and opt out of "Big Food."  Ask your grocers to supply local foods; if they know the demand is there, they will supply the goods.

For further reading on why eating local matters, check out the movie Food, Inc, based on Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma.  Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is also a terrific book with recipes and meal plans focused on seasonal foods.  

Today's Homemade: Laundry Soap

So I tried EcoNuts and I didn't love them.  Some of my clothes still had gudge on them after coming out of the dryer and I found myself constantly questioning if stuff was actually clean or not.  When you wash cloth diapers in the washing machine, you need to feel 100% certain that your clothes are clean as a whistle.

So I bought borax, washing soda and bars of castile soap to make my own.  I made it tonight, but I haven't had a trial run just yet.  I was going to throw some laundry in tonight, but it's late and I just didn't want to bother.

It's super easy to make laundry soap.  The only thing that was a pain in the neck was grating the bar of soap.  Next time, I'm going to chop it up and throw it in the food processor.

So here's the recipe (adapted from this):

1 C. grated castile soap
1 C. washing soda
1 C. borax
10 drops tea tree essential oil
10 drops eucalyptus essential oil
5 drops peppermint essential oil

Mix all ingredients and voila, laundry soap.  The essential oils you use are completely up to you.  I went with tea tree and eucalyptus for their anti-bacterial qualities and the peppermint I added simply to up the minty fresh smell.  The castile soap smelled so good, though, I almost didn't add any extra scent.

Use 1 tablespoon per laundry load, double or even triple for large or heavily soiled loads.  I'll probably use 2 tbsps. for my cloth diapers.

Today's Homemade: Trail Mix

Get ready for the easiest recipe ever.  Think of the simplest thing you've ever made.  This is easier than that.

Ingredients: 

Dried Fruit

Nuts and Seeds

Add all ingredients to one large jar.

Shake the jar.  That's really it.

I used dried cranberries, roasted pumpkin seeds and mixed nuts.  But you can use any combination of nuts and seeds that strikes your fancy.

PS: Sorry the pictures are kind of crappy.  I used my phone instead of my camera because I'm lazy.

Ch-Ch-Changes

So here I sit, anxiously awaiting the end of the semester...tick tock goes the clock.

The end of the semester most likely means the end of regular posts.  I will try to keep posting a few times a week over the summer, but honestly my kids keep me much busier than my job, so most likely, I will slow down quite a bit.

What else is changing?

I've been toying with my beauty care and working out the kinks of these natural methods of cleansing myself.

I'm about four weeks into the no 'poo method, and last week, I started looking for an alternative.  The first week, I loved it and I felt like my hair looked and felt great! The second week, I started feeling oily on my off days and kind of itchy.  By the third week, I definitely felt itchy and was starting to search for alternatives.

Here's the thing, my hair was pretty nice beforehand, so maybe no 'poo works better if you feel that your hair doesn't react well to commercial shampoo.  But I still want to keep toxic chemicals off my hair and body as much as possible, so I found a recipe for a castile soap based shampoo that I've used twice now with moderate success (I'll write a different post with that recipe).

I'm also still tweaking the oil cleansing method.  Mostly, I'm trying to get the timing right in terms of when to do it.  I was doing it during the shower, but between that and the BS/ACV hair routine, my shower time had doubled (at least).  With two little kids, I'm looking to shorten my shower routine, not lengthen it.

The other thing was that I felt like the OCM was contributing to oiliness in my hair.  So I cut down to doing it only every other day--on the days I wash my hair.  But since that still made my shower time too long, I decided to go back to doing it at night.  I'm still going to do it every other day (especially since we're entering hot and humid season), but now I will do it the night before I wash my hair. 

Then on off days from the OCM and in the shower, I will just rinse my face with water and maybe exfoliate with a wash cloth.  I also made myself an ACV/water/rosemary EO facial toner that I like to use to combat any extra oiliness.

So that's where I am now...

BS/ACV hair care: doesn't look like it's for me.
OCM: I like it, just trying to work out the kinks.