Sour Grapes

Do you know what grapes taste like? I mean what they're supposed to taste like? Have you ever wondered why grape flavored popsicles taste nothing like the grapes you buy in the store? Well today, I found the answer to the question. Imagine your favorite grape flavored confection. Then imagine extracting all of the artificialness and combine what's left with the freshest thing you've ever tasted. If you can manage to accomplish such a feat of imagination, you'll come close to imagining what I tasted today. It was a real grape, fresh from the vine. I've never tasted anything like it! It was sweet, refreshing, and a bit sour--which is perfect, in my opinion. We were told that if they stay on the vine a bit longer, they'll lose that tartness, but I wouldn't want them to.

We were visiting a local permaculture/organic/CSA farm. We met with the very kind, knowledgeable and honest owner, and he gave us the grand tour. We saw the the chickens, the working draft horses, the peacocks with their brood of chicklets, and the pigs (who are slated to be roasted October 1st, and we're invited! Ack!). We saw acres of restored prairie, ingenious swales, composting, ponds, water collections, methane reclamation system deisgns. The owner has set it up to be a true community farm. To hear him talk, most anyone can come do what they need on the farm's 20 acres as long as they pitch in in one way or another. There are Mung families who have garden space, an experimental orchard and nursery, and a forest of an asparagus patch which produces over 2000 pounds! The farmer said that you get pretty sick of it after the first 500 pounds. I find that hard to believe. Oh, and there were magnificent grapes. We picked some of the grapes and filled a canvas bag with apples straight from the trees. I got the chance to prove to the children that it really IS true that after 4-5 barely ripe apples you really will feel sick. They just couldn't get over the tree-picked apples. Maybe it was the ownership of it all, or simple fascination. I think I may attempt a grape-apple jelly. I'm a bit nervous at anything that depends on setting after my vegan marshmallow attempt.

Seeing this farm gave me a lot of hope. We read about all of these wonderful things and Beo experiments on a small scale in our own backyard, but here was someone making it happen on 20 acres. Admittedly, he said that it's an unbelievable amount of work, and sometimes he just can't keep up. This is why I'd never want more than a few acres. Part of me feels like our role might be to bring those backyardable ideas into the suburbs though. The magic and beauty of nature and growing food just outside your door is brilliant on a grand scale out in the country, but how much more magical is it to have it in suburbia? There has to be some give and take, to be sure. As we were leaving, the owner brought up the fact that they may be doing a dairy cow share next year. 8-10 families would buy into the cow, and take a turn milking her each week. We'd have 3-4 gallons from each milking. Can you imagine? Milking our own cow while living in suburbia--I think we may have found the magical formula after all...

What I Did on Summer Vacation

Okay, it's really just what I did today. I've dubbed Saturday "chore day" so today I got down to domestic business--cleaned house, baked bread for the coming week, made marinara from the overflowing basket(s) on the counter. I decided to make double batches of everything since we're going to the in-laws tomorrow, and I thought I'd share the bounty. Now I'm not nearly as good at bread as Beo, but if Beo makes bread it takes twice as long (because he does it right, I guess), and we have to stay home all day. That's not an option this week, and either is store bought bread. (Budget? What budget?) It took most of the day, but once everything was done and the kitchen was cleaned and the house smelled delicious, it felt so good! I just had to take a picture and share. My bread didn't rise well, but it's surprisingly light for that fact, and tastes just fine. There was twice the marinara, but I only have one pretty jar, so there you have it!

Summer Fresh Pesto

The garden has been beautifully bountiful this year. We've had produce trickling in all summer, but the past 6 weeks have been simply overflowing. I've enjoyed testing and inventing new recipes to try to use up all of the Goodness.

If there's one thing you can't have too much of in a backyard garden, it just might be Basil. This is especially true if you have a preponderance of tomatoes. The basil has been thick in the garden this year, glossy and brilliant. It's incredibly versatile and adds a splash of freshness wherever it finds a place. Slice some tomatoes, top with fresh dipped mozerella and basil leaves, drizzle with balsamic, and throw under the broiler for a few minutes. A beautiful caprese dish, inspired by "Luzer's Tomato Plate of Doom". Then there's pesto. It couldn't be simpler. Take a few handfuls of basil leaves, a handful of shredded parmesan, maybe a handful of pine nuts, definitely a good drizzle of olive oil, and throw it in the food processer. Voila! Now the kids weren't thrilled about it until we called it "Green Spaghetti", making it out of Mollie Katzen's "Pretend Soup". (More on Mollie's kids cookbooks later!) Then they each ate 2 helpings. It's amazing how getting kids involved and adding a bit of imagination can make a big difference.

One of our favorite dishes so far has been a pesto primavera, ala the Pesto Cavatappi at Noodles & Co. Our currant tomatoes are unbelievable little bursts of Tomato Goodness. Their jeweled strands on the vines are almost magical, and they are perfect for this dish. Just make a pesto, however you like it, and your pasta of choice. Reserve a bit of the pasta water to thin the pesto. Toss the pesto and pasta together, then add a bit of extra parmesan, and your choice of fresh veggies. We used baby yellow pear tomatoes, isis candy tomatoes, and currant tomatoes. Toss and serve. So simple, so good.

If you're serving it to little ones, let them strip the leaves of the basil, choose the tomatoes or other fresh veggies to add, let them add in the cheese, let them stir. The more they help, the more they own the dish, and the more likely they are to enjoy it themselves. Bon Apetit!

Into the Wilds...and Back

This was a post intended for August, but Summer slipped swiftly away...

This is our second summer here in our little house on the subdivision. Our subdivision is an odd enough entity in itself. Our village is just off the interstate, halfway between the two major metropolitan areas in Wisconsin. It's claim to fame is an outlet mall. (Seriously, I tell people where I live and they say: "Oh, where the outlet mall is!") Exiting the interstate you'll drive past the typical small, rural, tightly packed houses, huddled together for protection from the wilds of the surrounding farms. Turn down a little street and you'll pass the small library--right in the same building with town hall, the playground at Veteran's Park (newly remodeled thanks to added tax dollars), a tiny laundromat, the baseball field, then one more turn and suddenly you're transported to the middle of suburbia. Brand new houses seem to spring from the newly grass-seeded ground--a striking contrast to all you've seen up to that point. Yes, we've cut down the trees (well, mostly just bulldozed farm fields) and named our streets after them.

It's a strange place to find our family. We don't quite belong in either of our village worlds. Our house stands out from the rest, because instead of a Chem*Green lawn or even a sadly struggling grass menagerie, you'll find 3-5 foot wide garden borders all the way around the house, and big island beds on both sides of the driveway. (This picture was actually taken in tame, tame June, the others in wild August.) Our landscaping preferences don't exactly make these manicured suburban dream gardens. They're all more than a little wild (as evidenced by our huge spiders, birds, and frogs, which honestly I wouldn't change for anything). I think most of our neighbors would be shocked if they could see behind the fence, to where things really get wild. We've even more gardens back there, and frankly they're all left a bit more to nature than normal folk might be comfortable with. There's the sunflower house reaching for the sky and carpeted with pumpkin vines, the "meditation garden" which has become more of a nursery and experimental bed, the strawberry patches that sprawl onto the paths, the giant compost bins, more flower beds, and now even a prairie. Last year it got even a bit wild for me. This year it seemed it might remain a bit more tamed, but I'd not counted August for all it was worth. With the heat and rains of August, the wild side of the gardens showed their faces, and one had to be brave to venture in. It was amazing to see the sunflowers shoot up feet at a time, the bergamot burst like a milkweed pod, the prarie grass burst fireworks from their stems, and the green to spread thicker and deeper. The new rain garden sunk it's roots deeper and the new prairie burst into bloom. It was a riot of life in our backyard. It wasn't suitable for the garden party I'd envisioned, but the thrill of it was more than worth it.

Now September has come, and the time has come for taming back the gardens in preparation for a new season. I love this time of splitting and moving and cutting back--dreaming of what wilds await us next year.

Spiders

I have a strange relationship with spiders. I don't care for spiders. I just don't. Beo likes to roll his eyes at his "Bug-hating-druid-wife", but that's just the way it is. I don't hate them, I just FEAR them. I can look at the whole situation logically and understand that the odds of them hurting me are incredibly small, but then the creeps take over and I just plain freak out. When I was in high school I decided that watching Arachnaphobia would help me confront and overcome my fear, and realize how silly it really was. Wicked bad idea. Didn't work. Our house is relatively spider free. When we first moved in we used to see a few of these strange flattish spiders that had their legs neatly divided into longer front legs and smaller back legs. I swear that I sometimes saw these spiders drop just as movement passed under them. Other than that, we mainly just have the spindly legged, tan, basement variety, and the light green little guys, which don't bother me overly much.

The thing is, I don't tolerate spiders in the house. I am an animal lover, yes, and a nature lover, definitely, but I don't do spiders in the house. I know some great people just cover them with a glass and take them outside. I am not one of them. I use the vaccuum whenever possible so that I can keep a good distance. Part of my fear just involves having them ON me and not knowing exactly where, so I have trouble approaching them with a shoe. They just freak the heck out of me. I've tried really hard not to pass this fear on to my kiddoes, and try to stay calm about it when they're around. So far, I think Sprout is good. Bird may have picked up some of my wariness.

Now spiders outside are another issue. It's defintely a love-hate thing, and I have to weigh my emotions. This is the second year we've had a family of--good gosh, I don't know--jumping spiders? On our front porch, usually on or around our front door. They're big beefy black buggers with yellow markings and FANGS. I've used the front door as little as possible this summer. Last weekend I saw a hatching of them. Fabulous. Sometimes the tiny ones get inside, and when you approach them they try to fight you. I kid you not.

Then we have the garden spiders. They're not really garden spiders technically, but that's what we call them. Last year they were mostly in the tomatoes, and they started to spread a bit through the back yard as summer wore on. This year I had five in my front gardens. They don't bother me too much because they're relatively large and stationary, so I just avoid them and keep my distance, and am grateful for them keeping the grasshopper population down. Problems arise when I check their web and they're not there. There's the possibility of them having gotten eaten by a bird, but often they've just taken up residence in a different section of the garden. I was happy with them being up front at first, but as they started moving around, I realized that I'd been neglecting my gardens terribly. I would work the perimeter of the bed, but as time wore on and the spiders got bigger, I kept my distance more and more. Now I admit it's to the point where I'm scared to go into my gardens, and that simply won't do. The time for cutting back is almost upon us, and I'll need to wade into those beds. Last year Beo removed them by stick to the back prairie area, but this year they're a lot further away from there. So how I'll handle it remains to be seen. This is definitely one area I haven't figured out how to overcome.

Things Work Out

I've been faced lately with some bad news about my family's health. So while I digest that and struggle internally, I'm just going to talk about garden stuff, and keep my mind outside.

The gardens and their accoutrements have been amazing me lately. The coneflowers and brown eyed susans have been riotous. I have been worrying over some of the beds which don't have much in bloom, and finally realized that I need to put the aforementioned color bursts into those beds. I did a number of splits and transplants. The great thing about these natives is that they tend to reproduce pretty well. Splitting is a little rougher, but it's something I need to work on anyway. It was a bit of a bad time to be doing transplants. The heat was awful and we were in quite a dry spell. I had to water the little guys every morning and evening to keep them from wilting terribly. The amazing thing is that I never had to turn on our water faucet. I deep watered the transplants for a week with only water from the rain barrels. Just when I'd run out, we had a brief but steady cloudburst. Beo hooked up the rain barrels so perfectly that even a small
rain collects a good amount of water. It felt amazing to be able to do all that watering guilt free.

I made a decision earlier on this summer to stop pulling out every errant sunflower that popped up around the birdfeeder. That turned out to be a good decision. We have deleriously happy little goldfinches eating free sunflower seeds on free birdflowers. One little sprout that I left grew into a 4 foot sunflower and nods it's big yellow head right outside our living room window. We had a number of sunny finches visit this flower, and amazingly they would let the kids get right up next to the window, and watch as the finch fed upside-down on the flower.

The prairie we installed has filled out with ox-eye sunflowers gone wild. (Pun intended.) Today I found two monarch caterpillars feasting on our butterfly weed. I know they should be on the milkweed, which we've left in plenty in the yard, but after trying to identify a look-alike, I am still pretty sure they're monarchs. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. I'm still contemplating taking one of the little buggers in and seeing if it won't perform it's miracle in front of the kiddo's eyes. Regardless of what kind of 'pillar they are, it's neat to see things that belong in the wild in our gardens. It's been a bit of a rough road getting everything up and running, but it's all working out, and definitely paying off.

I Believe in Organic Valley

Sunday I had the great pleasure of taking my family to the Organic Valley Kickapoo Country Fair. This is our second year attending the fair, and it was again a wonderful experience. I am a big-time Organic Valley advocate, because they are the future of Organic. They enable small family farms to be distributed on a national scale. Their system is so real that you can see the inner workings every year at the fair. In fact, I wouldn't doubt that if you called OV up, they'd arrange a tour for you at your convenience. The headquarters actually look a lot like the corporate logo, a large modern office structure but it looks like a barn. They have 20' swaths of native prairie planted on both sides of the long drive up to headquarters. Their aluminum roof channels rainfall into a system of giant holding tanks, which are tapped to water the vegetable gardens. They are as real as real can be. They are also located in one of the most beautiful parts of the country-the "driftless region" of the kickapoo valley, with rolling green hills, forests, streams, and rock outcroppings.

Each year the fair brings together many of the OV farmers, as well as other local organic farmers, artisans, coffee roasters, food co-ops, musicians, eco-organizations, and more. We passed booths with t-shirts with 'liberal' slogans on them, a fundraising booth for Habitat for Humanity that was selling organic ice cream, a hand woven rug stand, a booth for Chelsea Green publishing, a corn pellet stove manufacturer, an alternative energy cooperative, and the like. Good food and drink were in abundance. OV had a large crew of people separating recyclables from trash from compostables. (Even the paper plates, 'plastic' cups and spoons, and water bottles were compostable, thanks to OV.) The kids and I enjoyed making crafts and checking out the animals. (OK, the kids were a little wilted from the heat, a bit pouty, but it was still really neat. Meanwhile Beo took a course on Resources for Organic Gardeners and Farmers. He had to pass up a course on 70 mpg, 0 Emissions vehicles and Sustainable Building to attend that one.

After a lunch of a veggie burrito, pesto pasta salad, organic milk, and fruit, we headed on to a bus to tour one or OV's dairy farms. It is nestled in the hills about 20 miles from OV HQ, run by a really swell guy and his wife. The farmer told us a bit about how he and his wife got into organic dairy farming. They were drawn in by the appeal of seasonal milking. This means that they follow the cow's natural milk cycle, instead of forcing them to milk year round. The cows are allowed to "dry up" in November, and milking resumes in March. I love that system--it seems so much more--well, natural! The farmer took us out to the high pasture, and talked about the challenges of managing the balance between the natural grasses and clovers that grow there, along with what the cows like and need. He does semi-intensive rotational grazing (12 hours in one spot of field) but makes sure the cows are happy no matter what. He gets more milk out of them that way--but I'll take happy cows no matter what the motivation. So yesterday, with the heat, the cows not only had about 3 times the pasture space that they normally did, but he had opened up the lower "emergency" pasture to them. The lower pasture is in a valley and has lots of shade, so the cows can go down there to cool off if they feel like it.

This particular farmer has about 39 cows. We heard the OV represenative talking about how they breed for cows that like being out on pasture. He explained that if they stuck holsteins out on natural pasture, they'd hardly know what to do with themselves. So we heard about highly mixed cows--milking shorthorn, jersey, and more. The farm that we were at uses a bull as well as AI. The family built their own home on their land, as well as building the milking parlor. I was really impressed with how clean the milking parlor was. I realize they were prepped for a tour, but it was a working farm and I think it probably is kept that clean. The only ethical problem left that I can see is what happens when a bull calf is born. He had two there at the farm yesterday. I think I heard him say they were the only two born that year. Conversations overlapped and answers got hard to hear, but I thought he was saying that they keep them for a year and then they go into the OV meat production area. I have to say that I feel like that particular impact is a small one, ethically. Environmentally there is very little impact (one of the calves we saw was in a smaller penned area with pasture), and it fills a market demand in a very positive way. ( Even if I'm not going to eat it, I would much rather the cow be grazing pasture in the Kickapoo Valley than being raised in a stall fed on corn at an Aurora facility.)

It's hard for me to explain how powerful the experience really is. I feel incredibly un-eloquent and choppy--I could write for pages on why I feel so strongly about OV. It's too easy to get caught up in the details, and I want to be able to share everything about how amazing the farms are, and how much the farmer cared about his cows. He had names for each of the cows and would laugh as he shared about their personality. The cows were so docile, even friendly and sweet. They seemed to have the perfect life, having all of their natural needs met and with quite a view to boot. I know a lot of people have doubts about the humanity of milk, and the veracity of organic. I can honestly say that I feel even better about Organic Valley after having seen the workings of the farm than I did even before I went out there. If you are a milk drinker, and you believe in Organic, Organic Valley is the company to support. If you'd like to see more about the fair, you can visit OV's webpage.

Getting By

There are definitely days where it feels like we're just getting by. The kids have been sick. Last Thursday, Sprout woke up the sickest I've ever seen him. The doctor had us come in, diagnosed a 24 hour tummy bug, and sent us home. The next morning Sprout was on his feet again, but by that night he'd somehow picked up the upper respiratory crud that Bird and I have had for a month. He's been coughing so much that he has trouble breathing and wakes up through the night. Bird got immunizations yesterday and woke up during the night (5 times) feverish and generally miserable. Today she was a wreck. She could barely stand to be touched. The doctor's instructions to wait it out w/ Tylenol can be so frustrating.

I haven't been putting in nearly enough hours at work, and I feel once again like I'm putting out fires and clinging to the edge, trying to build up a stronger base for my program. I have so many ideas for the program, they're just so hard to implement without being able to get in the office and have hours at a time to just work.

Beo and I have been discussing our eco-landscaping, and it seems to make so much sense for us. Lately though, I've been worried and nervous. What about my Sweet William that the grasshoppers decimated this year? What about my splits that died back to almost nothing? I can't have that happening if folks are paying me to design their gardens. Suddenly I stopped noticing all of the successes and started noticing the browned yarrow, the leggy columbine, the rusty lilacs.

All of this has snuck up and I've seen my shopping addiction peeking out--not rearing it's ugly head, just whispering over my shoulder. So I've decided to kick my own rear. I have to be tough on myself, in a good way. When I decided to do some therapeutic knitting, I decided that after 2 years I would stop giving myself guilt trips for unfinished projects, rip them apart, and start something I really wanted to do. I stopped trying to get through the novel that I detested, and asked Beo to ask the librarian to reccomend something. These may seem like smal things, but to me, they're huge. I put major expectations on myself, and allowing myself to forgive and move on is the best way to be more kind to myself. You know what? I deserve it. I really do.

You know what else? We had a frog in our garden. A sweet little lepoard frog that had the kids doing the scuffle-pause-scuffle-pause dance across the yard as they bent to check out the hoppy little guy. Small pleasures, small measures of success. Maybe our clients would forgive the browning bee balm in exchange for a frog here and there.

Garam Masala

This one's for my beloved Virtual Veggies. I stopped into a BCBG/MaxAzria outlet and was looking at these cute tops. I picked one out before I saw this one, then saw this one and I decided the VV gods were with me. Thank you to a very tolerant Beo for not only humoring me by taking such a ridiculous picture, but suggesting the secret Virtual Veggie sign. I love you, VVers!

Simple Pleasures

Oh, how I love laundry dried in the sun. The sun is a great
natural disenfectant and stain remover. The wind pulls out the wrinkles and gives a fresh snap to the clothes. And the smell, the smell... There's something so pure and wholesome about the act of hanging laundry out to dry. It's meditative to me, shaking out the clothes, pinning them up, then later feeling them, warm and dry, taking them out and folding each one into the basket. I sometimes feel a little "Donna Reed" when I hang out the laundry, but always with a bit of a smile.

Garden Updates

I'm still sometimes amazed when I'm weeding or watering and I stand up and see the yard as others must see it. I can't really bring myself to be humble about our landscaping. I think we've done an amazing job. I wish I had more time to putz around, move things, etc. Sometimes I second guess our choices, but really the only thing I would probably do differently is to have put down some dang landscaping cloth when we did all of the plantings! I plan to start to do that next year before we re-mulch, but it will be a long process. If we're still here. I've got too much going on in my head to write much without going on forever, so I'll share some pictures instead.

The kids planted a hummingbird mix this year, and we got the most beautiful little patch of flowers! I've never seen one of those mixes turn out so well. These pink poppies are stunning.














The rain garden is coming along nicely. It's draining properly, but we got a double dose of rain this week so we'll see how well it handles the saturation.














This is the "prairie" we installed at the side of the house is also doing well.














The front bed along the house. We've had so many monarchs this year, and if I'm not mistaken we've finally lured a chipmunk! I wish the yarrow would stand up, then this bed would be nearly perfect.














We have two great clumps of black-eyed susans. They're one of my favorites.

Happiness Is...

McDonalds? I wanted to title this post something else, but it would have violated the terms and conditions from the McDonalds media website that provided the photos for the post. I've been slammed today with evidence of what a fantastic job McDonalds has done in making McDonalds equate to a family event.

This morning, Beo took Sprout on his first ever fishing trip. I got up to see them off. As Sprout loaded up, Beo confessed that his first thought was to take Sprout to McDonalds (where we have not set foot for at least 6 months) to get a breakfast sandwich--just to make the day more special. He was shocked to see himself trying to make their special father-son day even more special with a trip to McDonalds. Sprout had organic yogurt for breakfast instead. I think he probably would have told Beo that we don't eat at McDonald's because of the "icky chemicals" anyway.

When I was little, fast food was definitely a special treat. Even on long drives my Mom would pack PB&J sandwiches and apples. I remember the first time that we actually stopped for fast food on the 14 hour drive to my grandparents. I was in middle school. I also remember the first time my Dad stopped at a gas station and actually got snacks and drinks, not just gas. At that time I was in high school. Those kinds of convenience foods had never been a part of everyday life. Today, one third of America's children eat fast food every day.

Later that morning as I waited for Bird to finish her snack, I flipped through a parenting magazine. Towards the back was a full page ad for McDonalds. The majority of the page shows a black and white image of a young girl in a tutu and tiara, clutching a happy meal. She is pictured from the back, running towards her mother who is blurry in the background, carrying a large McDonalds bag. Beneath the photo, in a scrapbook looking setting, is the following. I kid you not.

she took the stage and did exactly what all great ballerinas do. she waved to her mom. and later, as we were eating our McDonalds food, celebrating a girl's first ballet recital, her munching on Chicken McNuggets made with white meat, fresh Apple Dippers and a low-fat milk jug, and me enjoying an Asian Salad with warm all-white-meat chicken breast, it occurred to me that if i had to choose only one day to replay the rest of my life, this would be hard to beat.

I'm not really sure what to say from here. I literally stared at the page in open-mouthed shock. I won't even get into the errors in English Language. This company, this magazine, wants me to believe that memories are to be made from over processed, fat filled, chemical laden industrial food intake events. Disgusting--not just nutritionally, but to me, ethically. Yes, McDonalds has started carrying much healthier options, calorie and fat wise. The Happy Meal they describe is 380 calories and 13 grams of fat. That's not hideous. What's hideous is the quality of the food, and the equation of happy memories with taking your kid to a fast food joint. (Once again, the McDonalds corporation media website forbids me from using such words as "Chemical" with "Mc" in front of it. Otherwise I would.) I also wonder how many kids actually make those particular choices at McDonald's. After all, there's a meal just for big kids--to make sure they get enough to fill those big tummies.

I suppose this is really what McDonalds has long been about--providing an oh-so-convenient family meal, so that the family can just sit back and enjoy eachother's company without worrying about things like meal preparation, cleanup, or nutrition. Yet in today's world, this relationship is even more offensive to me. According to the American Obesity Association, "approximately 30.3 percent of children (ages 6 to 11) are overweight and 15.3 percent are obese. For adolescents (ages 12 to 19), 30.4 percent are overweight and 15.5 percent are obese". How can we continue to swallow what we're been served--on our plates, and in our advertising? This mentality has to end. Attending a potluck lunch at my in-laws chuch yesterday, I watched two visibly overweight pre-teen girls repeatedly filling their plates. After eating approximately 3 times what I had eaten, the younger girl came back to the table with another full plate of cheesy baked pasta. Her caretaker scolded her and said: "Well you better eat every last bite of it!" She then turned to us and said: "That's what my Daddy always told me. 'If you take it, you eat it.'" I couldn't keep the look of sheer disbelief off of my face. The girl's sister soon returned to the table with 4 pieces of cake on her plate.

I realize that our dietary patterns are not the norm. That said, I don't see why they shouldn't be. Shouldn't the fuel we put in our children's bodies be of the utmost importance to us? Shouldn't the longterm consequences of feeding cheap, fast food outweight the "cost" of healthy foods? At first my thought was that I was "lucky". The last time we ate out, Bird asked if she could have fresh melon instead of french fries. I realize now that it's not "luck" at all, but the fact that she's been provided with fresh, organic fruit, and realizes how much more satisfying it really is than fried, tasteless starch. I have yet to make that realization on my own, but I have hope for Bird (and Sprout) that having formed these preferences now, she may carry them on in life. For now, I choose not to worry about my kids getting ostracized for telling their classmates that they don't eat McDonald's because their food has "icky chemicals". My kids are good-looking, intelligent, and funny. They'll have plenty of friends. Maybe, just maybe, one of those kids will tell their own Mom that they don't want to eat at McDonald's next time. Maybe there will be one more child released from a childhood of McDonald's Memories. I've never liked clowns anyway.

Television Free Week

It's done, we made it! One week with no TV. It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it might be. Granted, it was a holiday week and we had my Mom and Dad here to visit with for two of the days. Even then, it wasn't all sunshine and roses. I definitely had to spend more one-on-two time with the kids. In fact, when adding up my time sheet for this week I was shocked to see I only had 7.5 of my 15 hours in--and 4 of those were Holiday hours which I didn't actually work. So I would definitely have to work on finding a way to work more with no TV. The biggest difference, and most significant, was that the kids really played together. ,They played with their toys instead of just dumping them out and forgetting about them. They pretended to take their whole little Dora the Explorer family camping. They dressed up dolls. They did puzzles. I don't remember ever seeing them play so much with their toys, and certainly not without begging them to play for a while, and definitely not together. Bird did develop some nasty habits like pushing or hitting Sprout when he got in her face. Sprout definitely got in her face a bit more. They both have such strong personalities, but for the most part, this week they were able to just hang out. We did lots of outside activities. Beo brought home a kiddie pool and a novelty sprinkler that shoots balls out the top. The kids couldn't have had more fun at a waterpark.

The TV will not stay off, but it will definitely have a lesser role in our house. Having it in the basement makes sure of that. I don't feel guilty letting them watch some TV though. They watch good age appropriate educational stuff, mostly PBS. When they watch Nick Jr. on Saturday mornings (when it's on regular non-cable stations), they have to turn off the TV during commercials. My goal is that the kids won't default to TV anymore when they're bored. They'll keep learning how to play again, and get more Mom time in the process.

Active Parenting

Summer has cast it's lazy haze over the Ecohousehold. More and more days I found myself doing a task and then basking in the glow of the computer monitor. The kids would play for a few minutes, then ask for a snack, then ask to watch TV. I'd turn on the TV for them and head out to leisurely hang our laundry up to dry in the sun. Yesterday the kids watched sooo much TV. Between me still feeling sick and recovering themselves, 5 loads of laundry and other household tasks, they were captive to the magic box all day long. Finally I pulled the plug. Literally. I realized I'd been outside more than them. So I pulled up my boot straps, took apart the whole mess of wires and cords, and hauled it all back down to the basement.

In retrospect, perhaps my decision was a bit hasty. I ran errands with the kids all day to help us along, but we did manage to get through the whole day with no TV. Still, when my netflix DVD came in the mail today, I decided to watch in my laptop. When that didn't work, well.... BRING BACK THE TV! PLEASE! JUST A FEW MORE DAYS, THEN I'LL STOP WATCHING. PLEEEAAASSSSE! And this is why it had to go NOW. I actually watched TV only once or twice a week, but the kids watch it every day. That had to stop.

While we waited for Beo to come home--in that akward time between naps and dinner that TV always fills--I sat down with the kids and we played a simple memory game. OK, I saw it on Supernanny, but here I was putting it to good use. We just set up a few small toys on a stool, the kids closed their eyes, and I took an object away. They opened their eyes and tried to figure out what was missing. They absolutely loved it! I'm going to get a kiddy pool this week (gauranteed to make me watch them like a psychotically paranoid hawk), we'll paint sheets (hang an old white sheet on the clothesline, let the kids paint like crazy, then spray the sheet and kids down with a hose), read books, and just play. I'll be interested to see what kind of effect this has on the behavior of Sprout and Bird. I'm hoping it will be a positive one. If I can just keep my wits about me for a week... A week???

Note to Self

Sometimes we get so caught up in our day to day routines that it's easy to forget to stop and appreciate what we have. This is especially true when "someday" is always on the horizon. It's easy to get wrapped up in the future, but I find it essential to my well being to stop and remember to bloom where I'm planted. Today I'm remembering to be grateful for my sweet, beautiful, brilliant children, and most of all for my amazing husband. On the surface, today was just another BUSY day, but let me stop and list what DH actually did today:

*Drove 15 miles to the grocery store with Sprout b/c Sprout wanted pancakes but we were out of essential ingredients.
*Made healthy pancakes and fed the kids while I ran into work to tie up loose ends so I could take the day off sick.
*Harvested lettuce greens and strawberries
*Made Bread from scratch
*Weeded the Lawn
*Hand applied herbicide to the quack grass so that the dogs and kids were put at minimal health risk
*Cleaned out a clogged drain--chemically free
*Got my lawn chair out of the garage and set it up so I could soak in some sun
*Walked the kids down to the pond to just hang out
*Made me gargle salt water
*Helped Sprout play some educational games on the computer
*Made me hot tea from scratch with lemon verbena (without being asked, no less)
*Made chocolate chip cookies from scratch

All that, and I'm sure I'm missing a few things here and there. Yesterday he managed to drain the overfilled rain garden and also clean out the garage-quite a feat in and of itself. He is really an amazing guy. I feel so blessed to have this man as my partner and as the father of my children!

Alaska Part 2

Day 3 brought us into Anchorage. Beautiful views in every direction, but the city itself is kind of a shocking metropolitan meets rural sprawl. Beo and I talked about how in some places where the land is so plentiful and so beautiful, there's almost too much room for civilization. People don't know what to do with it, so parking lots sprawl wider, buildings are built, abandoned, and forgotten, then new ones built again. Beo's aunt and uncle live in Anchorage, so after lunch and another search for gear, we headed to their place. We had dinner at a local restraunt, then saw some of Anchorage's sights. The salmon run was just trickling, but we did see people lining the rivers where they run, and pulling one out occasionally. I really had trouble with the salmon issue. It just doesn't seem right to pull them out of their life and death struggle to reproduce, when they're so plentiful for the taking and weak from their run. It doesn't seem sportsmanlike.

Day 4 was kayking day. Finally! This is the big event that we had planned out. We had a beautiful drive along the coast and into the Portage glacier valley. This area was my favorite along with being in the Alaska Range with Denali. Mountains all around, ice blue glaciers majestic in the valleys, just feeling enveloped in the astounding beauty of nature. We took the tunnel to Whittier and geared up for our trip. The 'fjord' we were in was called passage canal. It was a misty day but the ocean was perfectly calm and it wasn't too warm out on the water. I loved learning the rythym of kayaking. There were bald eagles everywhere. We briefly saw a small harbor seal on the shore. Waterfalls emboldened with Spring melt ran down the sides of the cliffs. We stopped for lunch at a quiet beach and skipped stones with our guide. Then we crossed the fjord, about a mile crossing, and started back along the other side. The waterfalls on this side were breathtaking. In the kayaks, we could get right up into the spray. In the first picture my sister and her friend are approaching a waterfall. The second shot is taken right from the bottom of that fall. In On this side of the fjord there is a Black legged kittiwake rookery. Thousands of birds nest on the cliff face, regurgitating a substance that allows them to stick their nests right to the rock. It keeps them safe from most all predators except the ever present eagles. By the end of the trip I was definitely tired, but I still would have liked to have had more time on the water. If you ever want to go sea kayaking in Prince William Sound, I highly reccomend Alaska Sea Kayakers.

Beo and I took a hike up to one of the glaciers on the other side of the pass after our kayaking trip. On the way back to Anchorage we saw dall sheep. We stayed again Inwith Beo's aunt and uncle (amazingly gracious hosts), and the next morning made a straight shot back to Fairbanks, and flew home. It was hard to leave that beautiful place. In Alaska, you can feel that the land just goes forever--that that pristine beauty goes off in each direction for further than you can possibly imagine. I look at how much beauty we saw, and how much distance we covered in our short trip, and it's just a fraction of Alaska. It is positively tragic that this is the "wasteland" that ANWR drilling backers describe. Fairbanks is the northernmost 'real' city in Alaska, and my sister's girlfriend lives even further north on the highway. They say that there are already trucks heading up with heavy equipment. The Alaska I saw was the most heavily populated and traveled part of Alaska, and still one of the most wild and beautiful places I've ever seen. I pray that we can protect the magnificence of the wilds of the state as well.

As our plane took off, I felt a real sorrow at leaving my sister, and the beauty of Alaska behind. Beo got my attention and pointed out the window, there above the clouds, was the Alaska range, perfectly clear in it's beauty, revealed now that we were above the clouds which had kept so much of the magnificence hidden. It was a regal parting. Before we went to Alaska, I presumed we would never go back. Now, I know we will go back, hopefully many times.

Pictures for Part 1

The aftermath of the forest fire. You can see on the right edge of the picture where a wetland kept the fire at bay. Just a hint of green.






This is the creek bed where we began our hike in the National Park.
The gnoll we climbed to the top of is in the background on the right.







This is our view of Denali from the far side of Byer like in the State Park. See that glimpse of whiter white in the clouds, where you think it couldn't possibly a mountain that much taller than the others? Almost parallel to the peak of the mountain in the foreground. That's the South Peak. Wow.





This is the bridge that we had to cross to get back across the lake. My sister had hiked this trail (with my Mom!) the year before and they had had to backtrack because they were told that this bridge was broken. About halfway across the bridge we discovered that the planks were broken completely through, all the way across. When we got to the other side, there were no steps to get down from the bridge (about a 5-6 foot drop). I don't think the bridge ever got fixed.

More musings to follow in the coming days...

Alaska Part 1

I'm having issues getting more pictures loaded, so I'll try to add more later...

The simple truth is that I can not give a true impression of Alaska unless you've been there. If you have been, then you will definitely appreciate my experience and images in a different way than someone who has not. We got a lot less time "in the field" than we'd have liked, due to a number of snafus, but just being there was worth it. We started our trip in Fairbanks, where my sister lives, and started driving down the Parks Highway. We actually drove through a forest fire. A trooper stopped us to warn us of a fire ahead, but simply asked us to keep our lights and hazards on until we reached the squad on the other side of the fire. At first, we saw only singed trees and grass, with a few small flames here and there. There were fire jumpers here and there setting cross fires. Suddenly, the smoke became extremely thick and we could feel heat through the doors and windows of the car. We saw flames on one side, about 6-8 feet high, then suddenly on the other side there was a WALL of flame, about 20 feet tall. I didn't get any pictures because I was clutching my fellow backseat passenger. My sister kept her wits about her and got us through just fine. Our first stop was at Denali National Park. Years ago I was obsessed with the idea of climbing Denali (Mt. McKinley). I read book after book and dreamed big. That aspiration has since passed, but being in the place I had read so much about (even though the mountain itself was always far out of reach) was a surreal experience. We missed the last camper bus into the park (you can't drive far into the park at all on your own), so blew our chances for a couple of days of backpacking there, but camped at a more civilized site for the night. Before it got too late, we drove as far into the park as we could (about 12 miles) and hiked up a creek bed and into the foot hills, bushwhacking our way to the top of a gnoll. It was an amazing view, and quite a hike. The next morning we moved on to Denali State Park. We spent the day hiking around Byer Lake, where we saw a loon and trumpeter swans, and were able to watch Denali peek (peak?) in and out of the clouds. At one point we did see the south peak for a brief moment. It got really mosquitoey and rainy, so we decided to move on instead of camping there. We to Talkeetna and Beo and I had dinner at the Talkeetna Road House. Our sister's guest wasn't impressed with their fare of a choice of 2 soups, served with homemade bread, but it was simply amazing. The owners are climbers themselves, and there were amazing pictures from Denali and surrounding peaks, and autographs of famous climbers and rescue parties. It was one of the most authentic moments of the trip, and a memory I will cherish without a doubt.

More to come...

Off to the Wilds

Beo and I are off to the wilds of Alaska to test our wiles. Will we be able to survive camping in Alaska's great outdoors? Will we make it through the rigors of our first sea kayaking adventure? Will we stay sane our first trip away from Sprout and Bird? Find out when you tune in 10 days from now...

Hounds

We got our "foster", Ruben, back last night. This is the foster dog that we fell in love with. He had an appointment with a potential adopter, and Beo and I resolved that if the adopter didn't select him, we would go ahead and adopt him ourselves. Well the adopter chose him, but couldn't take him for a month. Ru went to a different foster home. We didn't want to keep him that long and continue to get attached to him. We figured it would be hard on him, and on the kids too. Lo and behold, the adopter changed his mind. Bird told me one morning that she had a dream that Ruben and Kamey were together again. That afternoon I got an e-mail that Ruben was available for adoption again, and would we mind houndsitting him this weekend? We readily agreed, and if all goes well we will more than likely adopt him. So far, so good! Kamey is so happy with another hound around. Kamey is the darker brindle. Ru is the opposite, lighter brindle with solid blue color. Aren't they lovely together? :) The one of Kamey in the car she is with our 13.5 year old Australian Cattle Dog, Cody. Our adoption group is Greyhound Pets of America if you want more information about Greyhounds.