Since an ordinance was passed in my town allowing backyard chickens and permits were issued, we went ahead and took the plunge and got ourselves 4 baby chicks on March 21st! We now have an expanded garden, made new garden beds on the side of our house, built a small greenhouse (8′x8′) last fall with all reclaimed materials and are going to be building a movable chicken coop (with reclaimed materials, too) to fit in next to our greenhouse. It will be like a coop/chicken tractor so we can move it around the yard and  the girls can graze safely on grass. I will let them out inside the garden to eat bugs and let them run around the yard while I’m out there with them. I’ve noticed a red tailed hawk in my neighborhood recently which doesn’t make me happy!

My husband grew up raising chickens so I am getting lessons first hand from him even though caring for them on a day to day basis will be up to my son and I. My husband has lots of other projects lined up to do!

We also built our son a funky tree tower next to the greenhouse because there was an Aspen tree in bad shape that needed to come down. My husband decided to make the tree tower for our son’s birthday in February and built it on any weekend that was not frigid this winter - and we had lots of nice weekends, actually.

Here are some pix of the peeps from 4 days - 2.5 wks old:

The two golden colored ones are Buff Orpingtons and their names are Daisy and Lulu. The two brownish ones are Easter Eggers - Americana’s, specifically and their names are Iris and Acorn. All 3 of us named them. They really are so very cute at this age!

Here is a picture of our (still unfinished) greenhouse that will be painted this spring and the funky tree tower to the left of it:

It’s located right in front of our newly expanded garden space, that’s the garden fence behind it. The tree tower looks like it’s all open in the picture but there is lots of cable wire going through the Aspen branches and it’s a 4 ft tall fence so my son won’t fall out! It’s very secure and he loves it!

The greenhouse was built so we could walk in there through a door (on the left side), it’s about 8′ tall at the highest point and has 2 large beds on the ground as well as a big shelf on the back wall under another window that can hold 4 large pots (or 7 flats of seedlings). The roof windows open for ventilation, too. There is a sprinkler head inside it from our sprinkler system so we can run a drip line off of it to the beds. We are also hanging up heavy duty hooks to hold large hanging pots in there, too. I want to grow the upside down tomato plants to have a longer tomato growing season in the fall (I admit I’m a little obsessed with growing tomatoes!). We have also worked out our glitches from last winter’s trial garden and will use the back of the greenhouse to help anchor the hoop house for better winter gardening this year. We are pretty excited for all of this additional growing space we’ve got now!

Many seeds have been started indoors this past week and my husband just rototilled in a mix of compost and top soil into all the new beds we created so now we are ready to plant! We will be direct seeding the new greenhouse beds this weekend with several varieties of cool weather greens and peas. This growing year  should be a good one since we are done with the hardscaping now and can successfully do year round succession planting.

Now with the chickens, we will have free range, organic eggs from happy birds (and my son & husband eat lots of eggs), new fun pets to hang out with and we will be able to feed them many veggie scraps from the garden and compost their waste and bedding to eventually be put back into the garden. The cycle of life. Love it.

The thing I love most about gardening is all that you learn from nature. Everything is trial and error and you find what works best for your individual space and then when it clicks, you get to watch the magic of nature unfold in front of your eyes and reap the bounty! I find this to be so much fun!

Technorati Tags: backyard chickens, gardening, organic, urban homestead

For the past few years I’ve been feeling like I need to join a food co-op again (I was part of a home based one 14 years ago then part of a store front one in the mountains for many years and again when another store front one opened in my current town but closed down). I did find a co-op group last summer that was located about 20 min away from where I live. It was what I was looking for but it didn’t work out for us for different reasons. I was left with the fact that I would have to take on this job myself and start something here in my town. I was given the different distributors’ info and set up accounts with them right away. I already had a group of interested friends wanting to do this and since I was doing all the coordinating work for it, I chose to keep it small and manageable for me to deal with – we have 11 families in our group and have had others ask to join in but have turned them down until we think we need to grow. We’ve been ordering about 2x/month. The produce selection changes with the seasons so it’s been fun for us to see what’s on the list each week.

I like the distributor we are with who provides the fresh fruit and veggies. They also carry all of Organic Valley’s dairy and eggs, too as well as locally made gmo-free tofu and locally made organic tortillas. For me, a co-op (or buyer’s club) is better than being part of a CSA (which I was part of for a couple years) because I can pick and choose which veggies and fruit I want and if it’s a price I want to pay. Since it’s a group buying these items, we all split the large cases they come in and get just how much we want for amazing prices. And the quality has been excellent for mostly everything. It’s a win-win for me personally since I really look to always save money especially in an unstable economy and still get to have the best quality food for my family that’s mostly local, wholesale and organic.

There is another distributor located near our produce distributor that carries all the bulk organic dry goods such as: nuts, dried fruits, grains, flours, legumes, etc. If we don’t have enough items to meet their minimum order, we can pay a markup on the price of our dry goods items to the produce distributor and they will go and get it for us and deliver it with our produce order. It really has been great having this option for all of us! Last summer I replenished my dry goods depleted stock here at home and split a variety of grains, beans, flours and nuts and we have been eating from our stores all year making fun and delicious ethnic food and other recipes - even homemade pizza night! Since I eat all vegan (and about half raw) and my husband eats an omnivore diet, we agreed to make vegan family dinners from all this bulk and preserved food we invested in and we’ve been really enjoying the variety of recipes we’ve tried out. The fresh produce we get 2x/month is a really nice addition, too.

Since we live in CO, in winter there isn’t that much growing here on a large scale besides potatoes and indoor herbs, sprouts & mushrooms so more items are brought in from organic farms in CA and other states like TX or even Mexico that we will buy (like citrus, greens & now artichokes!) but during the warmer growing season, our distributor really tries to work with as many CO based organic farmers as possible – several are even from the town I live in which makes me happy to support those farms as well as other organic farms from the surrounding 100 miles of our town. And CO is known for its amazing western slope fruits like peaches, nectarines and cherries and they distribute these as well!

Even though there are 2 large farmer’s markets near me, the exact same produce from some of the same farms are carried through our distributor at much better pricing for us. We only have to meet this company’s minimum order of $200 and they deliver the order to my home for free (where a few of us divide it up for the group) since we are on their delivery route for stores. Since everything through the distributor is sold by the large case or pound sacks (50#), we are actually buying bigger volume from the farmers than if we just bought a pound or two at the farmer’s market or if I had a CSA share. I still like to support other farms and enjoy the farmer’s market atmosphere so we go to the really big market on Wednesday nights in summer and buy assorted items from the booths for a picnic dinner and watch live, outdoor music performed nearby.

We are also growing a much larger garden this season, too. I’ve been trying to figure out how much I might want to purchase outside of the bulk buying of certain fruits and veggies for preserving for winter. We increased the amount we preserved last summer (by canning, drying, freezing & lactofermenting) and have been really good about using our frozen veggies, canned sauce, salsa and pickles and other lactofermented foods like sauerkraut. Even the dried produce and herbs are being used up well. The seasonal food cycle really makes such logical sense to me to live like this and eat really high quality food all year. You can totally taste the difference – even my frozen veggies still have such good flavor and crispness when we cook with them. The frozen fruits (mostly used in smoothies) have been delicious, too.

Don’t believe that eating organic food has to be more expensive - for us, it’s cheaper than buying conventional produce & dry goods at the supermarket. We are also supporting organic farmers from our state as well as a few other locations by buying large quantities from them. Our distributor even gives back to the farmers they work with through their annual profit share program. The more we buy from the distributor, the more the farmer’s make.

And what about me and all my hard work in coordinating all of this? In lieu of payment for me I’ve asked that the co-op members chip in and buy an extra case of fruit each time we order to donate to the food bank in our town. It’s our way of giving back to those less fortunate and who pretty much rarely if ever get to eat fresh fruit or veggies. I am very lucky I don’t have to worry about that so I wanted to donate my “fee” and give fresh, organic food to those who desperately need it.

Technorati Tags: buyer's club, Co-op, farmers, organic produce

I know I’ve been a bad blogger and haven’t posted in a few weeks. There has been so much going on: I’ve been trying to learn some new technology, learning to use Twitter, as well as working on my website redesign and planning my son’s 5th birthday extravaganza with his buddy! That’s right, it was a joint birthday party for 2 little 5 year old boys.

His birthday was last week, Fat Tuesday, actually. He was born on Fat Tuesday, too. The kid likes to party!

Since his actual birthday was a weekday, the party was this past Sunday. He doesn’t go to preschool on Tuesdays so I had to plan a day of fun for him since he has no family here to make a big deal over him. It’s all up to us to do it. My husband took a half day at work so we drove down to his new office and picked him up, went to a nearby fun playground with really big slides (his favorite) and had a picnic. Did I mention it was almost 70 degrees out and sunny that day? Amazing. We played hard there for a couple of hours then went to a nearby (cheap!) movie theater that was showing 2 different animated kid’s movies and he picked the movie, The Tale of Despereaux. He LOVED it! It was a very cute movie. He ate a giant bag of popcorn mostly by himself, too.

After that, we drove into Denver to a restaurant, Casa Bonita, that is so kitschy it belongs in Vegas! South Park TV show actually did a whole very funny episode about it, too. That is the only thing I can think of when I think about this restaurant. I’ve lived in CO for almost 15 years now and have never been there and after reading about my friend Heather’s experience there recently with her kids, I knew my son Leif would love it and I was right! The food is pretty lame Mexican food (according to my husband) but we had a great time there. There is a wandering mariachi band that plays and sings while you eat and you can get free sopapillas throughout your meal. I was able to “veganize” a taco salad so my dinner wasn’t too bad!

They actually have a little show they put on approximately every 15 minutes on this tiny stage area that is right in the middle of the dining area and there is a 30 foot drop down into a pool of water. There is a waterfall and fake palm trees, too. Leif was mesmerized by the little skits and then the guy diving 30 feet off the platform into the water - he thought it was the coolest thing!

The place is enormous, rooms and hallways leading to all sorts of areas including 2 arcades (with ski ball no less - my favorite - but it’s called “ice ball” here), tons of both new and very old school video games - even Pac Man! - a mini arcade area with rides for little kids, a place to redeem the coupons you win at the arcade for little toys, a treasure chest room, vendors selling different trinkets, etc. It really was so fun!

He then had his birthday party at preschool on Friday and it’s a Waldorf school so it’s a special type of ceremony for the child. The teacher crochets a crown for him and he wears a birthday cape and holds a star wand and she reads a special birthday story and lights candles for how old he is. Each parent/teacher/child at the ceremony says birthday wishes/blessings for him as the teacher ties “wish knots” in play silks for each wish spoken and the silks surround his handmade doll she made for him. He takes the basket and unties all the silks and finds his present at the end. It’s very sweet and loving. We will miss this!

Last Sunday was the big extravaganza birthday party at a local gymnastics place that we shared with his buddy, Jackson who goes to preschool with him and lives down the street from us. His 5th birthday was yesterday.  We carpool to school with him, too and they both have been talking about their party for a few weeks now - it’s very cute listening to them.

We did a flying theme (airplanes, helicopters, etc) and the party was at a local gymnastics place that Leif loves going to. We tried to “green up” the party a little by buying a zero waste event kit from our county recycling office. All the plates, utensils, napkins, cups are compostable (made from corn) and go into a huge BioBag trash bag that we return to the recycling dept. for them to compost. All the food was vegan, too. Even the cupcakes, frosting and whipped cream - it was soy whip.

They both had lots of fun as did their friends and when we went home, his buddy Ava came over to play with both Leif and Jackson at the playground and the 3 of them just had a great time! We made some homemade pizzas (3 different cheeses - cow, goat and vegan cheeze) for dinner and Leif and Ava played with all his new presents only stopping to eat pizza and birthday cupcakes. My son was a very happy birthday boy!

He did get a new scooter (that he’s been asking for everyday!) for his birthday which he was so excited for but he now realizes he can go farther and faster on his bike - scooters are much more work! He still loves it and even let Ava try it out at the playground. Jackson got a new scooter, too. This should be fun watching them scootering around together soon!

Little boys are just the cutest, sweetest things! I love my little birthday boy so much!!!!

I saw this recipe posted on a blog this week and wanted to try it out.  I have a few butternut squashes left from an organic produce share from our co-op (that I bought in November) and this looked like a perfect recipe to use some of that squash. I love risotto and did I mention that this dish is vegan?

The author said he intentionally left out the white wine that is traditionally included in risotto dishes because he was on a budget and he didn’t even notice it was not in there when eating it. Bonus! A gourmet Italian dish that’s also low cost. And organic. Eating organic does not have to mean expensive.

Butternut Squash Risotto
Serves 6

1/2 (large) Butternut squash, peeled and cut into 1/2″ pieces
2T olive oil
3/4t salt (1/4t for squash and 1/2t for risotto)
1/2t pepper
1 shallot, finely diced
2T garlic, minced
2T rosemary, roughly chopped
16 oz Arborio rice
64 oz (8 cups) vegetable stock
Juice and zest of half a lemon (I used 2t of juice)

Heat oven to 400*F. Toss squash in 1T olive oil, salt and pepper. Roast in oven until fork tender, about 25-30 minutes.

Meanwhile, bring vegetable stock to simmer. Heat medium pot over med-high heat and add 1T olive oil, shallot and garlic and stir frequently until shallots are translucent and garlic is fragrant, about 2-3 minutes.  Add rice and rosemary, stir to coat with oil. Add enough stock to cover rice (about 2 ladles) and stir rice until the pot looks almost dry.  Repeat this process several times until rice is cooked. Risotto should be done in about 30 minutes.

Once squash is removed from oven, place half of cooked squash in a blender with 2 ladles of vegetable stock. Puree until smooth.

Combine risotto, squash pieces, puree, lemon juice and salt in pot and stir to mix evenly. Serve immediately and garnish with lemon zest.

We made it for dinner tonight and yeah, it’s really good. I used rosemary that I dried from my garden this summer and there is a lovely yellow/orange color to the rice from the squash puree and the bright orange cube accents made this dish look so pretty.

One thing about risotto is that you have to stir and add liquid for about 30 minutes so I made a double batch of this to freeze some for other dinners so I don’t have to stand and stir again for a while. It did take me more than 30 minutes but not much more and now we get to eat all this creamy risotto goodness for several more dinners.

Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: butternut squash risotto recipe, organic vegan recipe

I’ve written about the Kid Safe Chemicals Act before. It’s just wrong that there is not any real regulation of the chemical industry and how those unsafe chemicals make their way into our bodies. What do you think those chemicals do to our children - and how about our babies in utero? They come into the world pre-polluted! That’s enough to make you say - disgusting!

Well there is something we all can do about it - Sign the Declaration! At least we have a fighting chance now that the new administration is in place and making changes to help the people. This would be one huge step towards improving everyone’s health - especially our children.

The Kid Safe Chemicals Act (KSCA) would put the burden of proof on chemical makers to document the safety of their products before they go on the market.

It just seems illogical that this has not been happening all along.  Please take 2 seconds to click on the link and sign your name!

Technorati Tags: EWG, Kid Safe Chemicals Act, KSCA Declaration

Well this should be good news to women everywhere - both gardening and yard work helps to boost a man’s sexual performance according to a study by the Medical University of Vienna. Hear that men? Now not only can you be helping both the planet and your wallet by growing some tasty organic veggies in your backyard, you will be improving your sex life and making your partner very happy at the same time.  I say that’s a win-win for everyone!

As reported in the Telegraph:

As little as 30 minutes a week tending the garden or allotment can dramatically improve men’s performance in bed, according to the experts in the field.

Digging, weeding or mowing the lawn for half an hour reduced men’s risk of failing to live up to expectations in bed by more than a third, the survey found.

I find this news very promising for the women who may have to deal with issues in either category. Your man too lazy to want to garden? Tell him it will improve his sexual performance in bed. Ditto for men who have any kind of performance issues in the bedroom.

Not only does the act of gardening benefit a man’s health in so many ways, it also benefits their partner who would like free, local, organic produce out their back door and more intimacy in the boudoir.  Whoever said that women were less interested in sex than men clearly does not really know much about women!

And for the record, both my husband and I like to garden….a lot ; )  And the phallic tomato pictured above grew in our garden last summer!

Technorati Tags: gardening improves sexual performance

This is just amazing to me. There is no way a person can watch this clip and still think that animals and birds don’t have an innate wisdom and are aware of the world around them. So cool to see it captured on film:

Technorati Tags: animal wisdom, crow video

Last year, I wrote about the BPA in our water bottles and my quest for finding the perfect (according to me) water bottle. Since the summer I’ve been using the plethora of different sized, double-walled stainless steel thermoses we already owned and that was great for keeping things cold and avoiding the BPA in the polycarbonate bottles (and there are no plastic liners in our thermoses). But I dearly missed having a straw top on my water bottle like I did with all of my polycarbonate bottles.

Here is my list of what a perfect water bottle would consist of:

• BPA-free
• Double-walled stainless steel
• Straw top
• Cover for straw
• Non-leaking
• Attractive
• Fit in my car’s cup holder
• Hold more than 2 cups of water
• Reasonably Priced

I received a free Camelbak “Better Bottle” that is BPA-free and has the straw top but it is not insulated. It works fine as my household water bottle but is not so good for taking with me when it’s hot out plus it does leak a little when it’s on it’s side which is what happens in the car or in my tote bag. That is a deal breaker for me. At least the variety of thermoses I have been carting around in the car keeps the water cold for a long time and they don’t leak but having to unscrew the top each time I wanted a drink was annoying and time consuming.

I did check out the Klean Kanteen water bottles but never bought one because they are only single walled stainless steel and you have to unscrew the cap, too. What I already owned was better, IMO and I have a variety of sizes.

A few months later, I had finally found my perfect water bottle! The only problem was that every time I went to purchase it at the store, they were out of the nice, attractive bottles and all that was left were ones for kids with characters on them like Dora the Explorer or Spiderman. Even though I was looking for a bigger, better water bottle for my son as well as myself, I didn’t want the superhero on it. So I waited. I kept using what I had while I periodically checked for the bottles I wanted to be in stock at a few different stores. The stores told me they only receive a few of the non-character ones but many of the ones I didn’t want!

Finally, in late October, my local Target had a few non-character water bottles available and I got the blue striped one for my son as one of his Christmas gifts. He loves it and so do I! It does NOT leak, has the straw with a one button pop open top that both protects the straw and keeps it from leaking and it even fits in my car’s small cup holder and holds 18 oz of water (more than 2 cups!). That is good enough for running errands for me and for longer trips, I will fill my big double-walled stainless steel thermos to leave in the car to refill my perfect carrying sized new water bottle. And the price? it’s around 15 bucks. Oh happy day for me!

This water bottle is made by Thermos and it is the Intak Steel Hydration Bottle.  For some reason on the web page it does not say that it is BPA-free but the tag on the bottle itself lists it in a few places. I will be getting myself the purple flower design one since I must have this bottle now!

For little kids, Thermos makes the BPA-free Foogo line of stainless steel food and beverage containers (smaller size).

I have to say, we’ve owned several stainless steel products made by Thermos for many years and they have never failed us in what they are designed to do so I have faith that this new, “perfect” water bottle will provide us with years of drinking enjoyment!

Technorati Tags: BPA-free water bottle, double-walled stainless steel water bottle, straw top water bottle, Thermos

Happy holidays, everyone!! As you can tell, I have not been blogging much this month of December. Besides all of the craziness and hoopla of everything involved with the holidays, I had a major muscle spasm this month that had me on my back on a heating pad and taking muscle relaxers for almost a week then I was still very limited in what I could do.

I also have scar tissue in my knee for many years and it has steadily been getting worse as I age and all year I’ve been going to physical therapy to deal with it so I could exercise more without so much pain. After all of these sessions with not that much change they tell me at my last session that I may need surgery. Ugh.

I went back to the orthopedic surgeon who occasionally gives me cortisone shots in my IT band in my leg so I can exercise without so much pain (and he also told me to do PT) and as my last ditch effort before surgery he decided this time to stick a giant needle directly into my lump of scar tissue. I thought I was going to die from the pain that night. It was almost as bad as when I was in labor and my son got stuck and caused ligaments to tear inside my hip. The only thing that helped was icing it for 48 hours straight to keep it numb and immobile until the injected fluid was absorbed into my leg and away from expanding the scar tissue. It took several days of no moving and icing it but at least it was over a few days before Christmas and we were able to enjoy a really fun family day. Now my knee feels great and I am hoping it did something in breaking up the mass and I can avoid surgery!

We also had a really nice winter garden of hardy greens under a hoop house and big cabbages ready to be harvested when my back issues were going on and my husband was crazy at work. He was going to harvest lots of it that weekend and one morning early in the week he says, “I think the digital outdoor thermometer is broken, it says it’s minus 15 outside.” We both were like, uh-oh and turned on the weather and sure enough, the arctic cold front came down overnight and I was too distracted with pain to watch the news that week and the sub-zero temps basically ruined our lovely winter crop!! We were sad. The cabbages were huge, too. At least we started growing our indoor sprouts again but I was really looking forward to the spinach, kale and collards that were doing so well out there. Damn Arctic cold front!!! We did finish building a new, little greenhouse by late November but didn’t get anything planted in it before the cold came so we decided to just rely on the hoop house this winter instead. Ha! Now we know better for next year.

Another change that happened this month was for my husband. He received a surprise call in November from a consultant that had worked for him this past year. It was for an unadvertised position at a good company in his field that is poised to do even better in a recession. This consultant became a full time employee there because of the economy and because it’s such a good place to work he said. My husband was not looking for a new job, his was pretty safe even though his present company has done a few rounds of layoffs this year. He decided it was something to go for and he fit the bill perfectly for what they wanted. We think it was meant to be since they chose him and he starts next week. The only downside to this is that he now has to commute 20 minutes instead of working down the street. He gets a better salary, more paid time off, better job security and more exciting work to do so that was the trade-off. He’s really excited for his new adventure.

Since he used to eat lunch at home almost every day, I decided to get him a rockin’ lunch box of some sort that he would love and where I could make him some interesting, healthy lunches in. I did some research and ordered him a Mr. Bento Stainless Lunch Jar - aka a “bento box.” I gave it to him as one of his xmas gifts and he loves it. It has 2 insulated containers for hot or cold food (one even holds soup) and 2 for cold or room temp food. It stacks inside this steel, vacuum sealed cylinder and even has a carry case and comes with a spork but he added chop sticks, too. There are several bento box “food p*rn” sites and blogs to get ideas of what to make from simple to gourmet and we being the gourmet types are geeking out a bit over it, I have to say!

He gave me as one of my gifts Veganomicon, an amazing (cooked) vegan cookbook. There are so many great recipes in there and even meal ideas for the different recipes so I’m sure I’ll be making him lots of good food from that book (plus sneaking in some raw recipes, too!).

Right now while he’s on vacation til the new job starts, we are trying to finish up some house projects and major re-organizing. It feels good to move stuff around and get rid of things. He is building some new shelving in our multi-purpose rec room to make it more user friendly for each of us that uses that room for different activities. I am ready to start doing yoga again there now, I figure that won’t hurt my back if I start slow and build up again.

I’m sure I’ll be back to posting more after the new year and settling into my family’s new daily routine.

I hope you all have a very happy, healthy and prosperous new year!!

Please take a few seconds and sign this important petition today! The sustainable agriculture community has developed a list of six names that would be appropriate choices for the new U.S. Secretary of Agriculture. There is a nationwide effort underway to get as many signatures as possible on this petition that will be sent to our President-elect in the next 24 hours and time is of the essence.

An excerpt from their letter to President-elect Obama:

Today we have a nutritional and environmental deficit that is as real and as great as that of our national debt and must be addressed with forward thinking and bold, decisive action. To deal with this crisis, our next Secretary of Agriculture must work to advance a new era of sustainability in agriculture, humane husbandry, food and renewable energy production that revitalizes our nation’s soil, air and water while stimulating opportunities for new farmers to return to the land.

We believe that a new administration should address our nation’s growing health problems by promoting a children’s school lunch program that incorporates more healthy food choices, including the creation of opportunities for schools to purchase food from local sources that place a high emphasis on nutrition and sustainable farming practices. We recognize that our children’s health is our nation’s future and that currently schools are unable to meet these needs because they do not have the financial resources to invest in better food choices. We believe this reflects and is in line with your emphasis on childhood education as a child’s health and nutrition are fundamental to their academic success.

This could be a breakthrough for our organic farmers and sustainability in general if the right person is chosen to be the head of this department. We already know that Obama/Biden have a “Plan For Rural America” which I have blogged about before so now we just have to ensure there is a really great US Secretary of Agriculture chosen to make this vision a reality.  Please pass this on to gather as many signatures as possible today! Spread the word! Thank you.

Technorati Tags: Food Democracy Now Petition, sustainability, US Secretary of Agriculture