Blame it on Barbara. :-)

A few months ago I read the book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. I was mainly drawn to the book because it was one of those "the challenge I took for a year" books. I'm a sucker for those. I like the idea of a challenge with a definite time limit. You know when you can quit and how long to pace yourself.

Barbara's challenge to herself and her family was to eat only locally grown and raised food for a year. There were a few exceptions and I forget the specifics but I think they included coffee, a few spices and some other staples necessary to cooking from scratch. She cut out all processed food, and things like citrus fruits (she lived in Appalachia---far from any orange groves). She had the advantage of living on a farm which produced a good majority of the food she consumed.

While she talked about her year she explained why she felt it was important to eat locally. I was so unprepared for what I was about to read. I'm not sure what I thought went into getting food on my table. Maybe I didn't think about it at all. I just assumed that the people in charge of "feeding" me had my best interest in mind. For the sake of brevity I won't repeat her book (but I highly recommend reading it!) but within a few chapters I knew I had stumbled upon the type of information that now that it was bouncing around in my head I could no longer claim ignorance or indifference.

By the end of the book I wasn't entirely sure what I believed in, but I knew what I no longer believed in. I could safely say it didn't make sense to ship a strawberry to me from California--when they are grown locally. I knew that I didn't want to support the purchase of meat or eggs if the animals weren't raised and slaughtered humanely. I was intrigued by her explaining how when a certain food was in season she ate and enjoyed large quantities, canned for the winter, and then eagerly looked forward to the next food in season.

So. Where to go from there. It would be a huge change. One without a clear map. I was given wise advice by some friends at work to just make one change at a time. (Thanks Amy and James!) When that change feels normal, it is time to make the next change. I started by giving my old friends Betty Crocker and Chef Boy-Ar-Dee a much needed vacation. I haven't fired them completely but when I looked at my eating habits very little of what I ate was prepared by my own two hands. It was reheated, warmed, nuked, poured out of a can. Fast, cheap, and easy but...time for something different. Even if it was processed I made an effort to have some hand in the preparing of my food. This translates into more time (and more dishes!) but I'm easing into it. And it tastes so much better.

I started buying organic milk. I have never been a milk drinker, but that changed once I tasted organic milk. If for no other reason than the taste, I'll never go back to non-organic.

I've visited Whole Foods a couple times while in Indy to see my sister. It is amazing as far as product selection goes. Not very "local", but lots of organic to choose from.

I tried my hand at picking my own strawberries. I had no idea what to expect. I got up bright and early on a Saturday. Hauled my sleepy self out of bed and arrived at 7:30 AM to beat the heat and crowds. The girl behind the counter asked if I wanted to pick my own or purchase already picked berries. Pick my own of course. I took my flat out to my row and pick a few. I dropped them in. It still looked really empty. Picked a few more. Dropped them in. Wow. This was going to take a while. I wore the wrong shoes and my feet were irritated with me. Then my legs lost interest. Shortly after that my back was done. So was I. I admitted defeat and went back to the check out stand and paid for my measly 4 pounds and purchased a pre-picked flat that was about 11 pounds. Who knew that picking them was only the beginning of the fun. I later got to stand in front of my sink for the rest of the morning cleaning them. When it was all done and the mess cleaned up and I had a bowl of strawberry shortcake topped with organic milk. Well....it wouldn't be the truth to say it was all worth it, but it certainly was good shortcake. Three or four months down the road when I thaw some frozen strawberries--I might think it was worth it. :-)

I've also explored my local farmer's market. I got grass-fed, grass-finished beef. Again, all other reasons aside the taste alone is enough to never go back to hamburger in the store. Knowing the cow was pasture grazed and raised in humane conditions is icing on the cake.

The fruit I've picked up has been equally amazing. I never plan to purchase a strawberry or cherry from a local grocery store again. I've also been able to get eggs, rhubarb and honey.

It certainly has been different and I don't feel very good at it yet, but for me it has been the right choice. I'm not 100% switched over. A lot of my food is still processed and I'll still stop at fast food from time to time. If there are treats brought in at work I'll eat them, but my momentum has shifted. Each time I find a new way to purchase food that is local or less processed I get a little thrill. I'm still learning!

I was so excited the first time I came home from farmer's market shopping I took pics to memorialize the event.


Local honey and grass fed, grass finished beef!


Yum! Look how red!



No matter how many strawberries I pulled out and cut this sink never seemed to get empty. Many times while standing at the sink I wondered if I was crazy to give Betty Crocker and Chef Boy-Ar-Dee their pink slips. :-)

Read Barbara's book and see if she challenges your thinking or even introduces you to things you had never thought about before. I'm glad I did!

Camping with the nastiest dog ever.

This weekend I met my sister and her family at Tippecanoe River State Park in Winamac. We do what I call faux-camping. They have a camper, complete with A/C and beds. There is still nature,sun, dirt and campfires, but at the end of the day you crawl into a somewhat comfy bed and A/C which is what separates camping from faux-camping. :-)

The campground was not the most exciting one I've been to. Admittedly, it is Northern Indiana which isn't as picturesque as areas to our south. It didn't have a pool, which changed the tone of the weekend. Both Colby and Katlyn are water bugs and would have stayed in pool as long as we let them.

I was struck this weekend at how very little "kid" is left in the kids. Colby is just past 8 1/2 and Kate is just past 6 1/2. We were close enough to the park that they could go on their own. They dress themselves. They can open and close the camper doors (which wasn't true for Katlyn last time I camped with her!) Colby is well on his way to developing that special skill set guys have for not listening and paying attention to detail.

Most of what we did this weekend was things I've done on past trips with them. Things I had seen, or knew what to expect except for.....the dog. One of my very first blog entries was about Diesel. Diesel was quite ill and not sure if he would be much longer for this world. He has since recovered, except for a bacterial infection on his skin that keeps coming back. It makes him break out, and then scratch where it itches, which opens up spots on his back, and...you get the picture. He loves to be petted and cuddled and loved on. He spent most of the weekend trying to get us to pet him and we spent most of the weekend trying to avoid petting him. Poor Diesel. Not the sharpest crayon in the box, but aside from skin issues, really a funny, enjoyable little dog. Diesel did a lot of charming things this weekend. He earnestly rooted around in the grass, eating--we aren't sure what--and then make a horrible coughing noise and spit it all back up. He'd usually wait until your leg or foot was close enough to anoint. He usually laid in this position:



which let him soak up the maximum amount of dirt. He'd lay with his slobbery mouth on the ground and his tongue hanging out, usually resting on the earth. The result was a black tongue, and dirt beard hanging off the edges of his mouth. Here's a video of wonder-dog playing with his football:



His best story was the hike we tried to take. We head out of our camp site and literally get 4 campsites down and he needs to poop. Right away there is something to carry with us for the hike. He is a fairly lazy dog and there was doubt as to whether or not he would hold up. We get on the trail, which has roughly 7 million hungry mosquitoes hiding in the bushes ready to ambush the latest humans who venture into the forest without the benefit of bug spray. If you kept a certain pace the bugs were bothersome, but not terrible. Unfortunately that pace was 8.7 miles per hour. Katelyn couldn't keep the pace and Jami was the only one sacrificial enough to stay back with her. Slowly though the dog slowed down. Slower. Slower. Slower. Eventually Katelyn was poised to pass him. We were all miserable and decided to ditch the hike and go back. The dog made it back to camp and then passed out under the trailer in complete exhaustion, and tried to cool himself down. We were gone for about 30-40 minutes.

There were other memories that didn't register on the grossness scale.

Katlyn celebrated her graduation from Kindergarten:



Morning at the Murray campsite. Colby is up, still in him pajamas, and reading. He gets that from me, I think :-)




This is kind of like where's Waldo. Can you spot the sleeping kid?





Nothing is better than waking up to the grinning face of a wiggling 6 year old who is just soooooooo happy that you finally opened your eyes, so that she can begin interacting with you. For Kate, interacting is touching, rolling on, poking, cuddling, crawling on, tickling, wrestling, giggling--even at 7:00 in the morning.

And here's one more for the road. This is the please, please, please feed me look. Literally. I was holding a treat up to get him to pose for the shot.