Locals - go check out the newest coffee house in town! Green plow is here

One of my dearest friends -met her the first week we moved here- has gone for her long time dream with her husband and opened their coffee house. It's heart is ministry - the "living room of our town". It seeks to create a meeting place for good coffee, good conversation, good community connections, and maybe even for seeing who Jesus is through the folks that work there, the events that happen there, and the conversations that spring up there.

It's Christianity in action.

And, it truly is the yummiest coffee on the planet. Pat is perfecting his roasting skills and weekly roasts the coffee making for the freshest cup of coffee I have ever had - no bitter aftertast, just smooth and perfect.

While I work all day loving on the students I get to teach, please take a moment and meet a friend at GreenPlow coffee! Tell them I sent you!

http://www.greenplowcoffee.com/

Open hours:
Monday-Thursday 6am-8pm
Friday 6am-9pm
Saturday 7am-9pm

Feeling like a squirrel and loving it

It's harvest time!! Gathering and processing, cooking, steaming, freezing, canning, bagging. All so that we can eat fresh, homegrown, organic veggies and fruit all winter.

Our freezer is packed though and we have a 1/4 of a cow coming any day now from an organic farm near our home - it'll make it's home in our freezer next to 50 pounds of tomatoes (or more!), AND 360 pounds of organic peaches and nectarines...as well as bags of pesto, shredded zucchini, squash and spinach puree, and bell peppers. Not sure how it's all going to fit...

Still in the ground awaiting their lucky moment to meet the family are 2 yummy varieties of potatoes (German Butterlings and a buttery fingerling), carrots, beets, and the rest of our onions.

Above ground we have 4 different types of lettuces, swiss chard, collard greens, and kale as well as broccoli, rhubarb, and acorn squash.

But this weekend, we were seeing red. About 200 pounds of tomatoes - half red and ready - were harvested last weekend and on this rainy, slushy day after an invigorating 5 mile run, we spent the day blanching, peeling, and cooking down the yummiest looking puree. To our tomato blend we added oregano and basil and onions from our herb patch...the whole concoction grown in our back yard. I LOVE IT!! We'll can it later today.

For weeks we have often had lunches and dinners that were totally acquired locally - goat cheese I made from our sweet friend's goat milk we get each week and sun-dried tomatoes (from our garden), on a huge salad or an egg omelet with eggs from our friend's goat farm, zucchini, bell peppers, carrots, tomatoes, onions and herbs from our garden. Or our favorite - fresh tomatoes on top of an olive oil brushed pizza crust with our homemade goat cheese and tons of garden veggies to top it off. The best pizza I truly have ever had - and I grew up eating Chicago pizza, living in the burbs of the windy city.

So my little princess sprout said today, "It's so fun to store up food for winter! Mommy, are the stores closing this winter?"

Summer all Winter Long!

Putting up summer fruit is fun and the easiest way to keep healthy and local organic options available all winter long:

Pictured - organic apple chips (with my little sprout helper!), organic peach, nectarine, and pear leathers, organic peach, nectarine, and pear chips. Our sprouts love these treats.


Just a few of the frozen peaches and nectarines in our freezer.

140 pounds of fruit!
Fruit leather recipe:
Blend up the fruit of your choice...mix and match for fun. Use peaches, nectarines, strawberries, any berry, plums, grapes, bananas.....

Add honey if you want, but not necessary.

Spread on the Teflex sheets in your dehydrater. Dehydrate at 110 degrees or less to maintain the raw enzymes

Eat and be merry!

For my fellow Oregonians

A man decided to write a book about famous churches around the world so he bought a plane ticket and took a trip to
Orlando, thinking that he would start by working his way across the USA from South to North. On his first day he was inside a church taking photographs when he noticed a golden telephone mounted on the wall with a sign that read, "$10,000 per call."

The man, being intrigued, asked a priest who was strolling by, what the telephone was used for. The priest replied that it was a direct line to heaven and that for $10,000. you could talk to God. The man thanked the priest and went along his way.

Next stop was in Atlanta. There, at a very large cathedral, he saw the same golden telephone with the same sign under it. He wondered if this was the same kind of telephone he saw in Orlando and he asked a nearby nun what its purpose was. She told him that it was a direct line to heaven and that for $10,000 he could talk to God. "O.K, thank you," said the man.

He then traveled to Indianapolis, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, Boston, and New York. In every church he saw the same golden telephone with the same "$10,000 per call" sign under it.

The man upon leaving New York decided to travel out west to see if western states had the same telephone service. He arrived in Oregon, and again, in the first church he entered, there was the same golden telephone, but this time the sign under it read, "$.40 per call." The man was surprised so he asked the priest about the sign. "Father, I've traveled all over America and I've seen this same golden telephone in many churches. I'm told that it is a direct line to Heaven, but in the East and South the price was $10,000 per call. Why is it so cheap here?"

The priest smiled and answered, "You're in Oregon now, son. It's a local call."

Consider joining this Army of Women to help researchers find a cure for breast cancer

I have posted several things regarding breast cancer this month as it is breast cancer awareness month. In case there is confusion regarding my thoughts on getting screened for breast cancer, I personally plan to do exactly what the recommendation is - mammography or I might check out this thermography option. I have had some emails about this that seemed to question if they should even get screened. THis is a personal decision, of course, and I am going to chose what seems to be the most proactive approach - routine screens, mamograms or thermography.

Consider joining us in this movement that will take us beyond a cure by creating new opportunities to study what causes breast cancer—and how to prevent it.

The Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation and the Avon Foundation, a global leader in breast cancer research, joined forces to launch the Love/Avon Army of Women.

Their revolutionary initiative has two key goals:

1. To recruit one million healthy women of every age and ethnicity, including breast cancer survivors and women at high-risk for the disease, to partner with breast cancer researchers and directly participate in the research that will eradicate breast cancer once and for all.
   
   
2. To challenge the scientific community to expand its current focus to include breast cancer prevention research conducted on healthy women.

Click here to check it out and see if this is for you:

http://www.armyofwomen.org/getinvolved

How I stocked up for winter

Lately I have felt a bit like a squirrel gathering up what feels like a mountain of food for the winter. But at the end of the day, stocking up like this saves money, allows us to eat healthier conveniently, and keeps us organic for cheap.

- we have piles of red tomatoes from our summer garden in the garage, on the counters, boiling on the stove to be turned into pasta and pizza sauce to be canned

- I have washed and chopped about 100 pounds of organic pears, peaches and nectarines. Some are in the freezer ready to provide the fresh taste of a yummy soft fruit, mid-winter (for a fraction of the cost).

-I have a couple of 20 pound boxes of organic fuji apples waiting to be turned into applesauce, dehydrated for apple chips, or just eaten!

- our dehydrator is constantly whirring with herbs from the garden, pears, peaches, nectarines, fruit leathers, and tomatoes slowly dehydrating for easy winter storage

- 25 pound bags of organic brown rice and rolled oats are quietly waiting in 5 gallon buckets in the garage (http://www.azurestandard.com/)

- basil, turned into pesto, is conveniently frozen in quart size Ziplock bags and stacked neatly like books on a bookshelf in the freezer

-our 1/4 of an organic, free-range, grain fed cow should be ready any day to provide the bulk of our meat for the winter

-10 pounds each of organic lentils, green peas, white navy beans adorn the pantry along with 25 pounds of organic pinto beans (we love our refried beans!) await future winter stews

-5 pounds each of organic quinoa, bulger wheat, barley, long grain brown rice, and millet as well as 25 pounds of rice pasta sit next to the beans waiting to be matched up with their bean partner for a complete protein meal

- all winter I will still be able to get our raw goat milk to make our ricotta cheese and for drinking (I will post my recipe for making your own cheese in a future post coming soon!) as well as free range chicken eggs from a local farm

-5 pounds of sunflower seeds and 5 pounds of wheat germ

- I plan to start up my sprouting rotation for fresh and organic, enzyme rich green sprouts for the winter (I have broccoli seed, alfalfa seed, mung bean, chia seed, flax, and lentils stocked up to sprout).

Storing up saves money and allows us to remain organic. I didn't spend $2.99/pound on organic peaches and nectarines but stocked up when I could get them for $15 per 20 pound box. We grew about 150 pounds of tomatoes to stock the pantry with organic pasta and pizza sauces, stewed tomatoes, and ketchup. Basil is bursting with life from the sun of August in late summer, so we harvested it all up and turned it into pesto for future dinners.

You get the idea. Eating organic is not an option for us. It turned my husband's inherited disease of psoriasis from debilitating to non existent as eating organic has cleaned up his liver and allowed his body to take care of the psoriasis. It turned around the virus I caught that debilitated me for 2 years (Epstein Barr which can lead into Chronic Fatigue syndrom or mono). It has allowed us to rarely catch a cold - our systems our clean and getting cleaner as I learn more and do more - and able to combat the virus and bacteria mayhem outside our doors.

Eating whole foods that are organic are one of the key ways we have gone from sick and tired to vibrant and healthy. We now play outside instead of wait for our names to be called for our next doctor visit.

Please Vote no on Measure 60

I had no desire to be political on this blog, but I have to urgently interrupt this blog for this measure.

I highly dislike our state's measure voting system. It's not like this in other states - that people that know little about a certain subject (like environment or education) are asked to put their vote on that issue in. That we are given the responsibility to micro-manage these various issues that the experts in that area should be doing is causing much damage as ridiculous measures get passed.

Take for instance the measure that stopped hunters from using dogs to hunt cougars and bears that passed about 14 years ago. My dad, a wildlife and fisheries biologist, was so mad that Oregonians who were not trained in managing wildlife were asked to decide something that should have been left up to the state biologists/game wardens/forestry departments to decide on. Instead, strong lobbyist groups put together their sob stories about hurting these defenseless creatures and wala, it passed. 14 years later, Portlanders are now dealing with cougar sitings in backyards, parks, and playgrounds - and people all over the state are too. It was a bad idea.

Let's let the experts in each of these fields decide policy.

So, that takes me to measure 60 - another ridiculous measure by Bill Sizemore - a measure that has been voted against once in 2000 is now up for vote again. It's trying to tie teacher's performance with their pay and unlike the last time it was on the ballot, the poles show that it's passing this time by 60%. Bill Sizemore has a long and troubling history of abusing the initiative system for his own personal financial gain, and using fraud, forgery, and racketeering to attack working Oregonians, like teachers, firefighters, and nurses.

Could there be anything more crazy?

• Do Dentists get paid a salary based on how many cavities their patients do or do not get?
• Do athletes signed to a contract get renegotiated mid-season to get paid according to if they win or not?
• Do doctors get paid based on how healthy or not their patients are?

Of Course not! Tons of variables go into whether or not a patient is healthy (how do they eat, do they exercise, what are they genetically disposed to?) or if they don't get cavities (do they floss? do they eat a lot of sugar? do the brush their teeth correctly and often enough?!).

And tons of factors go into whether or not a student is successful:

• what's their home life like? Are they just trying to survive the turmoil at home or is it a nurturing environment?
• Is that subject a natural aptitude or a natural challenge for that student?
• Are they trying?
• Do they care?
• Are they too busy?
• And on and on....

Teachers are required to have a MASTER's Degree to teach. There is no tenure in Oregon. They can get fired at any point in their career if they truly are not doing their job well. But let's leave that to the administration to decide. Why don't we trust that dedicated professionals (principals) are doing their job right to evaluate teachers?

With the Masters degrees my husband and I have, we could do a ton of other jobs and get paid a ton more money. I left a successful career in marketing and my husband left a successful career as a civil engineer to pursue our Masters degrees in education and to teach kids. With the extreme challenges that teachers face by working with such a diverse population in their classrooms, any teacher that sticks out the LONG hours, hard work, and emotional roller coaster of teaching is doing it because they are dedicated and love kids.

As well, the burocratic nightmare it would take to enforce this measure is hard to fathom. This measure provides no procedure to determine how to even make this happen. Districts would have to hire staff with the sole job of going around and evaluating every teacher. And how do you compare (and determine a salary) for a teacher of math vs a fun elective course or gym class?

Please join me in voting no on measure 60. If this passes, my husband has sadly informed me that we would leave this state that does not support teachers to go to one that does. In November, I get to find out if I get to stay in the state that I love with the people that I love.

More info at http://www.noon58and60.com/

Here's what the Oregon Education Association says about this measure:

Why Should Oregonians Oppose Ballot Measure 60?

• Measure 60 would take away local control from the principals, school districts, and teachers who know our schools best, and places it in the hands of government bureaucrats.
• 
  Measure 60 is vague, poorly worded, and full of unintended consequences. It does not define how teachers’ performance will be measured, even though their jobs and pay depend on it. It does not define who is judging teachers or how they are being judged, which could leave critical decisions about our local schools in the hands of Salem bureaucrats.
• 
  Measure 60 is unfair to students and teachers.
• Measure 60 will unfairly punish teachers who take on the most challenging assignments. Teachers who work in low-income areas or have a lot of special education students will be paid less because their students may not do as well on standardized tests.
  
• Measure 60 will result in more testing. Just like Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act, this measure relies on more standardized testing. It will impose a heavy burden on teachers, principals and students with little impact on student success. Measure 60 will force teachers to spend time preparing students for more standardized tests rather than necessary classroom instruction.
  
• Measure 60 is being pushed by Bill Sizemore. A jury found that Bill Sizemore engaged in racketeering, forgery, and fraud in the signature gathering process (click here to read more). Sizemore continues to abuse the initiative process and mislead Oregon voters. Sizemore has no background in education, but continues to promote unsuccessful initiatives that try to take away money and control from our local schools.
  
• Measure 60 shortchanges our students. Instead of teaching kids to think, solve problems, and develop the skills they need to succeed, teachers will focus on preparing students to do better on standardized tests since their pay will be based on test scores. It does not define student performance, so we have no way of assessing teachers’ impact on their students.
  
• Measure 60 takes money away from where our schools need it most – in the classroom.
• Measure 60 may cost millions of dollars a year to implement. This is money better spent reinvesting in smaller class sizes, adding back lost programs, hiring more teachers, fixing leaky roofs or buying new textbooks.
  
• Measure 60 has been rejected by Oregon voters once before. In 2000, a similar ballot measure was rejected by Oregonians by an overwhelming majority of more than 60%. We’ve said no to this bad idea already.

Stuff!!! Is it all necessary?

Imbedded in my long post a few days ago was this link to the movie about stuff that I really love. I wanted to repost it in a shorter post so that it doesn't get lost in the many of words of my last post!

Today Wildman Sprout's best friend's mama and I were talking and she was wondering if we like to hike (hee hee!!)...it lead to a quick agreement that we aren't ever planning on supplying Wiis or X-boxes for our boys which means we are going to need to be intentional about what we do when friends come over. When the family is heading out for a weekend backpacking trip or a day hike or a XC ski, we agreed that we need to stop for a second and include each other. It's probably easier to have the electronic toys, but with a little more intentional practice, I think we can happily avoid this. We'll see.

I know that today as I cleaned our Sprout's rooms, I realized that they don't have a single battery powered toy. It's not a conscious decision - it's just that every time they load up boxes to send to GoodWill, they put those battery powered toys in there but keep all the markers, craft supplies, Legos, Kitchen supplies, Tinker Toys, and building blocks. Check out Magic Cabin for a pluthera of toys for kids that believe in "Kid powered toys" not Battery Powered Toys. (Their mission has been guided by the simple notion that children's lives are enriched by ample time for open-ended, creative, imaginative play. They believe in good-old-fashioned make believe and in children's innate need to interact with simple, natural toys and crafts.) The toys that sing to my sprouts and blink at them don't let them stay creative and ultimately, they quickly lose their interest. The toys that allow for open-ended, limitless possibilities like a pile of Legos or building blocks they never grow tired of.

I wanted to point it out again!! Head on over to http://www.storyofstuff.com/ to watch a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It'll teach you something, it'll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.

Let me know your thoughts as you battle the issue of stuff!! Let's brainstorm ideas of things to have around the house that could foster creativity, keep the kid's interested, and avoid the marketing traps (kids are the highest targeted niches in marketing. Boardrooms are full of people figuring out ways to get our kids to think they will not be happy without "It" and our kids are believing the billionaire tycoons.)

All ideas submitted by Thursday, Oct 2nd (I'd love a list of great website resources too in this vain) will be posted on Friday, Oct 3rd with your blog address. Great way to get more readers noticing your site!!

My ideas:

• Our garage has a treadmill in it for rainy days. The kids like to run on that for fun.
• Our garage has a pretty high end foosball table in it - our family routinely has foosball tournaments
• Craigslist - find cheap deals on foosball, pingpong, and pool tables
• Dart boards
• Croquet, volleyball, and badminton for the backyard
• B-Ball hoop for the front yard
• BIKES!!! Scooters!! Rollerblades and skateboards, oh my!!
• Board games
• Puppets
• Wooden Blocks, Legos, Tinker Toys, Marble maze construction sets
• Doll houses/farm animals
• Kitchen sets/tool sets
• Crafts - keep that craft bucket packed!!
• Puzzles
• Marbles, Jacks, Pick up sticks
• http://www.magiccabin.com/

America We are going to be fine! Relax (but live your Wage)

Dear friends gave us the best Christmas gift in 2006 - the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace CDs - which preach (in a very humorous and Godly way) - LIVE YOUR WAGE!!! Check out his website for inspiring testimonials of folks who did it - and how they did it - They got themselves completely out of debt (including the mortgage). Real folks like us taking on the challenge to live within their means. I love it!

For the Oregonians reading this, He will be doing a live event in Portland, OR at the Colliseum - He's extremely entertaining - teaching Godly principals to our money management and some of the many errors in our suppositions. So if you are reading this thinking, "There is no way! I can't even begin to make this a goal. This is crazy thinking!" you might benefit from peaking at his website and maybe going to a Financial Peace University Class or this Live Event in Portland so that you can see the benefits to it and the "how" behind it and the Godly reasons behind the "why" of it all.

With the insights he taught us, we aggresively dove in to pay off our truck, car, thousands of dollars of medical expenses, and trailer payments. In one school year, we pulled $10,000 from our budget and accomplished this goal by simply being intentional with each dollar we spent.

Now, we are aggressively hitting our mortgage. We are in our early 30s but our goal is to own (not OWE ON) our house in 5 to 7 years. We have a real plan for this (which mainly centers around Simplicity) to truly accomplish this. Our house is on the market - if it sells,we plan to go smaller and simpler as that is truly what we can afford (although lenders are willing to lend us over $300K, but they don't really care how stressed that would make us) - if it doesn't sell, we are going to up payments so that in about 5 to 7 years, we own it. Dave Ramsey's perspective was hard to swallow at first - he is strong about his beliefs, but backs them up with God's word. The current crisis is because broke people tried to buy too much. (says Ramsey: "Greedy banks financing homes to broke people. It all seemed to work okay in their minds when the economy was booming, but when the economy slowed a little bit broke people quit paying on their subprime mortgages. DUH. No wonder they went out of business. Stupid decisions." )

We, in America, have been duped into this 30 year mortgage propaganda - truly, our new realization is this: if we have to spread payments out over 30 years to own this house then we are buying OVER our Wage and this is not being good stewards of our cash.

What I seek to do on this blog is touch on all areas of life that help us be balanced - spirit, mind, andbody - and finances fit right smack in the middle of all of this.

We did not take out an equity loan or refinance our house to pay off debt (that is NOT paying off the debt - What that is is taking the 5 year loan on the car out to 30 years inside of a mortgage payment) - what we did and continue to do is seek Simplicity, buy less, buy local, and live our Wage. It is so freeing to be down to simply a mortgage payment and I can't even imagine how free it will feel to be able to live without a mortgage or rent payment.

• God can use us so much more when we aren't strapped to working non-stop just to pay that bill, but are freed up to do things like A. long-term missions, B. more time with our family (joy joy joy!!), or C. Give more.

• Another reason we did not take out an equity loan or refinance our house to pay off our debts is that this practice does not work on the fundamental issue - overspending. It doesn't help us redirect our budget so that we can make our expenses fit within our (small) teacher's salary! By working to pay off loans, we taught ourselves how to live our wage, live within our budget, and be empowered by spending habits that lead to financial freedom, not controlled by debt.
  
  It requires a divorce from our incessant craving of "stuff". (Head on over to http://www.storyofstuff.com/ to watch a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It'll teach you something, it'll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.)
  
  Check out http://www.daveramsey.com/ for tips on saving on groceries, buying a car (cash!!), and cell phone hidden expenses you can avoid.
  
  

Dave's Thoughts About the Economy

Over the past month, we’ve witnessed the largest bankruptcy in history, the stock market dropping like a rock, and the talking heads on TV freaking out that the world is coming to an end. I’m here to tell you the truth—we’re going to make it. We’re going to be fine. Take a chill pill.
This month I’ve compiled some of the most-asked questions I’ve gotten recently from you:

Are we okay, Dave?
Definitely. Remember Enron and WorldCom in the recent years? We survived that. But much worse than all this was the financial crisis of the ‘80s – S&L collapse and 1,000 bank failures in 2 years. We’re nowhere near this type of thing; that was probably 50 to 100 times worse than all of this.

What does all of this come back to?
Greedy banks financing homes to broke people. It all seemed to work okay in their minds when the economy was booming, but when the economy slowed a little bit broke people quit paying on their subprime mortgages. DUH. No wonder they went out of business. Stupid decisions.
Is there anything we can do to fix this bailout mess?
YES! Here's a quick summary: Companies that had billions in subprime loans were feeling the effects of their stupid decision to make those loans in the first place, and practically gave them away for pennies on the dollar. But since no one wants these loans, and they've had to mark them down to market value, it has frozen the market. If we temporarily change the rule that forces companies to do that, that will free the market up.
This is an absolutely huge deal, and it involves everyone getting in touch with their congressperson before we spend hundreds of billions of dollars that we don't need to! Learn more

Will the collapse of businesses and banks affect me?
No, not unless you work there. Thousands of stock brokers on Wall Street have lost their jobs in the past few weeks, but that happens in other industries across the country in good and bad times. This time it just happened in NYC where all the national news media is so they made a big deal of it.

Should I sell my US stocks to buy gold and foreign stocks?
Absolutely not! Why would you think foreign stocks are any better than US stocks? Again, diversify your money in good growth stock mutual funds instead.

What practical lessons should small business owners learn from these bank difficulties?
When you have no cash, you freakin’ go broke. You must keep some cash on hand, no matter what kind of business you have. Give yourself some wiggle room where you can take a hit and still be standing.

Remain calm, America. We’re in a slow time, but just pay your bills and you’re going to be fine.

Road trip for Peaches

Why would anyone drive for 2 1/2 hrs in one direction for peaches? In an effort to get as local and organic of peaches that I could find, I grabbed a friend and headed for the Columbia Gorge Organic Produce farm in Hood River, OR. I go every year and get hundreds of dollars of organic white and yellow peaches, apples, pears, and nectarines. I called every fruit stand in my area to find that the same box of peaches would cost about $55! By going to the source, I got the 20 pound boxes for $15/each. Sitting under the majestic gaze of Mt. Hood lies this amazing farm with sustainable practices for the earth that produce fruit that is packed with nutrition. Truly, eating a non-organic peach is worse for you than just not eating it at all for imbedded in the flesh, are about 4 different carcinogenic poisons.

Is organic worth it? Does it matter? My dad always teases me that if it grows, it's organic. Yes, biologist daddy, you are right. But Organic in this sense means so much more. It means it's full of sometimes as much as 75% more nutrients than it's conventionally grown counterpart. That's huge!

• But, these practices sustain our earth. I talked with Robby one of the owners/farmers at Columbia Gorge Organics who told me that after 19 years of organically farming, their farm now has it's own healthy population of predator insects. Their conventional farmer neighbors are still spending tons of dollars on petroleum based, poisonous pesticides. What this means is the intricate God-ordained balance of plants, insects, birds, mammals, and microbes that surprise farmers even after a lifetime of discoveries as they obeserve their outdoor world are at work on Robby's farm!! These farmers watch cliff swallows eat up leafhoppers and grasshopers and purple martin birds devour crane flies. The reason Columbia Gorge Organics never uses pesticides is because pesticides would KILL their God-given pesticides (these birds and other good predatory insects!). The prosepct of blanketing them all with toxic dust even once, let alone routinely, strikes these farmers as self-destructive, like purposely setting fire to their crops or barn.

Genetic resistance to man-made pesticides is a real evolutionary phenomenon. These resistances get stronger and stronger with each generation of plants. More than 500 species of insect and mites now resist our chemical controls, along with over 150 viruses and other plant pathogens. More than 270 of our recently developed herbicides have now become ineffective for controlling some weeds. Some 300 weed species resist all herbicides. (from Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, page 165). 20% of these approved for use pesticides are listed by the EPA as carcinogenic in humans.

• Robby told me how so many neighboring conventional farmers are coming to him with their woes of poor crop yield in complete envy of his gorgeous, abundant trees. See, Robby hasn't destroyed his soil with these pesticides and herbicides that promise to kill and produce good yield. Maybe for the first years farmers feel victorious over the pests, but eventuallly, they are left with complete destruction. Soil in Robby's fields are tested constantly and prove to be rich with nutrients - and the beautiful fruit proves the test results. His neighbors are struggling with more pests then ever, pathetic looking trees, and small yield. The fruit they bear contains poisonous components imbued throughout the flesh of the fruit.

And the death conventional farmers yields is a scarey silence. There are no birds or butterflies flying over their trees. No beneficial predator insects. They have been killed long ago. An estimated 67 million birds die each year from pesticide exposure on U.S. farms (Kingsolver, page 221).

• Organic produce actually delivers more nutritional bang for the buck. Fruits and veggies grown organically have had to fight off their predators themselves. If noone is spraying chemicals on these plants, these plants can't take off running for their lives. They are stuck in the field without a way to escape, so they have to toughen up by manufacturing their own disease/pest-fighting compounds. That's why organic produces shows significantly higher levels of antioxidants than conventional - these nutritious compounds evolved in the plant not for OUR health, but for the plant's. (Camille Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Page 170).

Research done by Allison Byrum of the American Chemical Society, have shown fruits and vegetables grown without pesticides and herbicides to contaion 50 to 60 percent more antioxidants thatn their sprayed counterparts. The same antioxidants that fight diseases and pests in the plant leaf work similar magic in the human body, protecting us not so much against hornworms as against various diseases, cell aging, and tumor growth.

• Buying organic brings you a considerable bigger nutrient bang for your buck and it also brings major environemental benefits.

Organic agriculture, which allows insect predator populations to retain a healthy presence in our fields, breaks the pesticide destructive cycle (Kingsolver, page 165).

Enjoy a yummy, juicy organic peach today!!

Why a localized economy matters

After being gone all summer, I sadly noticed the huge amount of businesses on our Industrial side of town that are out of business. I know some of these folks. I talked to one lady, mom of my son's best friend, who said because of Lowe's and Home Depot's arrival in our town, they will probably only make it for 1 or 2 more years.

How sad. How horribly sad to have to see another family move and struggle. All because consumers choose to do the easiest (and possibly save a few dollars) choice. These are our neighbors, our friends, our community members. And with every dollar we spend we are in effect looking these neighbors in the eyes and saying, "No thank you".

So, another business goes under and with it more local money gets diverted to national and international corporate tycoons. Less money in my town means the schools get less money, local businesses suffer, social services suffer, police monetary support wanes, infrastructure suffers and even more people get sucked down. But Wal-Mart still proudly proclaims "Always" as you enter , and sadly it does so simultaneously while my many local friends now have to shut their stores and say "never again". When they leave they take with them jobs that can earn a real living and leave in their wake jobs that keep people below poverty. They take with them the richness of who they are that could contribute to us as a community being who we are. They take with them the unique personality that small businesses still have.

For years we have shopped at Ace Hardware - full of local retired men who are friendly, helpful, and extremely knowledgable. I was worried for them when the super power stores moved in, but they said they would keep up the good fight. The other day as I got some paint, I was greeted by a man in a suit behind the counter and his wife. I knew this couple! They go to my church. All along, I supported a local family with each Ace Hardware purchase that was trying to make a living because i stopped worrying too much if I spent an extra buck on a gallon of paint (it might even be less then Home Depot paint, I wouldn't know and I don't care). I smiled had a great conversation with them and promised them I would always check their store first for all building supplies I might need.

Each family that leaves my town because too many "No Thank yous" added up to not enough money to keep the doors open, takes with them a piece of what makes my town what it is.

I want to see them succeed. I want to keep their cute little friendly hardware store alive. I want to see them get to stay in our town, contributing all that their family contributes. I don't want to see them struggle.


It starts with the simple choice I have each day as I tackle my To-Do list.

Why I took back the socks

Summer breeds long talks. Talks while driving. Talks while hiking. Talks while just sitting on a beach watching sprouts swim and splash.

This summer bred more dreams and visions then ever before. Dreams to be completely debt free in 5 to 7 years (all we have left to go is our mortgage).

As well, dreams to continue to make choices that are sustainable for our land, our bodies, our communities. For us, that drew us to discussions on localized economies.

How much fuel is it taking to get that banana or carrot to my store shelf? And how much ridiculous amount of petroleum was used up to get 6 measly socks to our local Wal-Mart? How does buying these socks support our local economy and keep my neighbors working? Can I keep supporting this?

I can't be and won't be a purist but we will try to do better.

I bought socks (not at Wal-Mart) but still ended up getting "Made in China" socks. However, I made a choice to eat last nights dinner from 100% local food, that was organic.

If every U.S. Citizen ate just one meal a week *any meal* that was composed of locally and organically raised meats and produce, we would reduce our country's oil consumption by over 1.1 million barrels EVERY week. (not gallons!! BARRELS!!) Small changes in buying habits, can make a difference.

Americans put almost as much fossil fuel into our refrigerators as our cars. 400 gallons of oil a year per citizen (17% of our nation's energy use) is for agriculture. It includes tractors, combines, harvesters, irrigation, sprayers, tillers, balers, and other petroleum guzzling equipment. But the biggest gas guzzlers from the farm are from the inputs: synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides all use oil and natural gas as their starting materials and in their manufacturing. Switching to organic means you are eating produce that does not utilize high petroleum and oil based poisons on your food. Seems like a win -win to me (earth and your body are happier for the change!).

The trip from the farm to your plate is what takes up four-fifths of the total oil used for our food. Each food item in a typical U.S. meal has traveled an average of 1,500 miles.

So we compromised. We bought the China socks (for now it's all we could find) but ate veggies grown in a farm owned by our friend with riccotta cheese I made from Raw Goat Milk I get in my own town.

The best quote I read this summer:

How we eat determines, to a considerable extent, how
the world is used."

Resources used for this post

David Pimentel, Marcia Pimentel, and Marianne Karpenstein-Machan, "Energy Use in Agriculture:An Overview"

Richard Manning, "The Oil We Eat, " Harper's Magazine, February 2004

U.S. Energy Information Administration: www.eia.doe.gov/

Barbara Kingsolver, "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle", 2007, p.5.

http://www.animalvegetablemiracle.com/