Now with more...er...stuff?

So I've decided to revamp this blog with a new look and a new name.

A little background is that I am not a natural-born Mainer. Having been born in Massachusetts, however, I come with all the sarcasm and coldness of a born and bred New Englander. Our ground is cold and tough and full of rocks and our people can often be very similar. We talk too fast and speak too snidely for most people from warmer climates (and that is of course assuming you get us to do something other than glare at you menacingly like you're trying to sell us a used Pinto). That being said, however, I wouldn't live anywhere but in New England. I take for granted a lot of the advantages I enjoy here, not the least being the accessibility of all the necessities for a simple, natural life.

My husband and I have been married for nigh on eight years (ok, well, more like seven and counting) and have two children to show for it so far. My husband slaves away for his taskmasters doing disability claims (so if you have a broken leg and you talk to some guy named Jon be nice to him, ok?). My children generally run amok and get dirty, which seems to be what they excel at. My eldest will be school age this year and I look forward to sending him off on his own and not listening to the perpetual "HE STOLE MY BINOCULARS!" "WAHHHHHHHH!!" "STOP HITTING YOUR BROTHER!" that seems to occur every. single. day.

Yeah.

I grew up eating a diet that roughly consisted of a bag of sour cream and onion potato chips washed down with Coke and chased with a bowl of ice cream. I consider it a small miracle of genetics or fate or something that I managed to escape both a) obesity and b) type II diabetes (dia-BEE-tus). I may also credit the fact that my mother insisted that we have no access to anything processed, sugary, fatty, or generally appetizing to a child so long as we were staying in her house. My father's house was another story, where my brother and I had free range of a variety of unhealthy, non-Michelle-approved snacks.

That being said, when I married my husband as a budding college freshmen in the land where Macy's is a really crummy grocery store, we mostly focused on the cost and not the quality of our food. If it was cheap, it was worth buying. Fresh fruits and vegetables were good, and appreciated, but certainly not at the top of our list of foods to buy. We never at terribly, but we certainly did not eat particularly well.

Four years, three cats, two degrees and one child later, we left lovely Deseret for our home turf in New England. Yet again, we were more concerned with the price of the food we were buying, especially as we shortly added a home and baby number two to our family.

So fast forward a little more and we have now! Over three years of home ownership later and I've started to get some of this natural living stuff down. I've always loved gardening, I grew up with a mother who had a large and productive garden (a little overproductive in cabbage and parsnips if you ask me...) and I always dreamed of having my own garden. Before we were asked ever so politely to vacate a duplex we were living in with three cats and a newborn so the new owners could live in our spot, I had a nice little garden in Utah that was producing fairly well (let's ignore the carrots that were mostly weeds and the failed corn venture). So, when I finally got my hands on my own piece of land, I decided to try my hand at gardening again.

After year one, I was pretty sure I was ready to throw in the towel and live off of chips and soda again for the rest of my life. Bugs, weeds, weather and fatigue (ok I was pregnant, so sue me) pretty well did me in. Despite all that, I had a decent year and I for some unknown reason decided to try it again the next year.

Year two was much better! I improved my technique and increased my yield. I had the world's largest bumper crop of cucumbers (anyone want pickles? seriously, I think I have a canning addiction...) and summer squash. I was very happy with my garden.

Year three was decent. Some odd weather again caused a few crops to fail, but over all I had a good run of it.

So now here we are at year four.

Somewhere in all that I also managed to acquire: six hens, one rooster, two ducks, and numerous duck eggs that will be hatching in a couple more weeks.

So mix that all together, hit puree, wait a bit and you have: a family of four with seven chickens two ducks and lots of soon-to-be ducklings planning garden number four. Ta da!

Hello!

I promise this hasn't been forgotten! I have quite a bit of updating to do so I'll do that when I get the chance over the next few days. I hope to add pictures and make this a bit more interesting (if anyone out there sees it anyway!).

Toodles!

Oh wait, this is still here?!?

I looked at this and said, I should write in here or I should delete this blog. So write in here I did! The growing season is underway and my garden is ready and already growing some cool weather plants. I've got peas (shell and snap) popping up as well as lettuce planted (which will hopefully make an appearance soon). My rhubarb is growing like mad and will need to be cut soon. My fruit trees are all leafing out so I need to keep an eye on them to make sure no beetles/caterpillars eat the leaves.

I just wrote down on paper my plan to completely revamp my front lawn and turn it into a low maintenance perennial garden. It freaked out my husband a little who had visions of me spending the car money on plants and completely decimating his lawn, but after I explained it a bit he understood better my plan. I want to replace the grass entirely on one side of our driveway and some of the grass on the other side. I'm putting in a lot of ground cover to eliminate the need for weeding or mulch. I want to put in drought tolerant perennials, trees and shrubs. I'd like to have a good deal of edible plants. My biggest complaint with lawns is that they're a huge waste of space, time, and money. I spend $9 (thank you Libya...) to fill up the tank of my riding mower, and I have to use almost a whole tank each time I mow thanks to my 3 acres of hayfield, most of which I actually don't mow. Perhaps because I've been mowing it too short (I mow at about 2 inches but apparently that's too short), or perhaps because of our incredibly sandy soil (when they put in our new leach field they didn't have to bring in sand), our grass has large expanses of Sahara like dirt that blows up in my face in great clouds when I "mow" it. So I'm spending $9 to mow a half dead lawn and I really don't want to spend more money to reseed the whole darn thing. My plan was to take everything from the back of my garage forward and turn it into usable garden. I've been researching drought tolerant, edible plants, to prevent the creation of a largely useless perennial garden. A lot of native plants (surprise surprise) are drought tolerant, including a lot of medicinal herbs such as St. John's wort and yarrow. I plan to add a few trees, some edible, some flowering. I want a lot of flowers too for cuttings and to attract bees and butterflies. I plan to do this gradually, adding in some of the features that take longer to establish (trees, ground cover, shrubs) first, then adding in flowers and mulching over time. I would love to leave space for some annuals too, particularly vegetables if I have spots where I need to water anyways.

I'm excited to do a garden, I really want something that isn't just useless lawn. Lawn just takes up my time and it doesn't produce anything useful like flowers or fruit, or attract bees or butterflies. And with my lawn, it isn't even that nice to look at!

Voluntary Simplicity

I haven't posted on here in a while, but I've been thinking of ways to change it around a bit to make it more accessible to people and make it a little easier for me to think of things to write about. I'm going to eliminate the Tip of the Day aspect and just give tips when I have them.

I've had a lot of time to reflect recently on how the lives of my family and many of our friends differ from the mainstream concept of a fulfilling life. I think it really dawned on me one day when my eldest son and I were out in the field raking up hay to store in our barn to use as bedding for our chickens come winter time. We live on 3 acres of former hay field, so it isn't difficult to get enough hay to store, but it does require a lot of work. Most of what goes on at our house requires a lot of work, and I was explaining to my 3 year old son that summertime was when we worked so that come harvest and winter we could relax and spend our time on more relaxed projects inside. At that point it really struck me that our family lives a very old fashioned life in many respects. My days are generally spent outdoors, planting, weeding, harvesting, tending to the animals, and working the land. Although I do spend time in the evenings with what technology I find useful (Facebook to keep up with family and friends, my two blogs and the occasional movie), I don't spend much time bothering with the latest technology. I have lived in cities and seen the fast paced world of technology, and I've decided that it isn't for me. I don't want to have the newest this or the latest that all the time. I don't need every time saving gadget that comes out. I find peace and relaxation in spending my days working my land and caring for my family and animals. I would rather curl up with a good book on a cold day than attach myself to the internet. I find myself more fulfilled by playing with my children than by watching a movie with them. This isn't to say that the internet is not useful, or that it isn't nice to watch a movie once in a while as a family, but that these aren't the most important aspects of my life. I value a life of simplicity, filled with the use of technology limited to what is truly useful to me.

I don't live a life of voluntary simplicity to the extent that some people do, but I try to practice a simple life in many ways. I find that when my life is free of technological clutter and simplified as much as is practical, I live a life of less stress and I enjoy the quality of my relationships with people more. There is a wealth of information to be gained on the internet, and yet there is so much more to be gained by spending an hour instead talking with my husband or fighting dragons with my son. I value a sunset and a calm evening more than a TV show.

As a society we live very fast paced lives, and often the result of these lives is increased stress, which leads to increased health risks. I encourage anyone interesting in simple living or homesteading to check out the links provided. I think that anyone can find some reward in scaling back, even by a small degree, our typical lives of fast paced technology driven consumerism.

Germs are a good thing!

I will be the first to admit I am definitely not part of the "Lysol generation". I can't remember the last time (if ever...) that I bleached my children's toys. I may sweep my house but I don't mop the floors more than once every few weeks. And I have absolutely no problem with letting my boys play in the mud and the dirt outside.

Now, let me add the disclaimer that I am not nonchalant about health. I make sure that our family has regular doctor's visits, I make sure my children stay out of things like the compost heap, the toilet, and the trash. And everyone ALWAYS washes their hands after they go to the bathroom. I make sure that we are a sanitary family.

This culture's obsession to with being "overclean" has gone beyond impractical - it's become a health issue. Our overuse of antibacterial products has created "superbugs", germs with resistance to antibiotics. Diseases like tuberculosis, once controlled with antibiotics, are becoming deadly again. As one of my cousins, a forensic lab worker, pointed out, we use products which kill 99.99% of germs, but the .01% that survive breed.

One way to stop this alarming trend is cut back or cut out the use of antibacterial products. If you need to clean something like, say, a cutting board used for raw meat, use bleach diluted in water. If you use hand sanitizer (I use it for occasional roadside diaper changes), use it sparingly and wash your hands with soap at the next opportunity. Use regular soap, not antibacterial soap. And avoid the myriad of "anti-virus" products that have come about due to H1N1 (swine flu).

Another way to prevent the development of superbugs is to limit the use of antibiotics. Doctors are partially to blame for this, but so are paranoid patients who think every cough can be cured with antibiotics. Antibiotic use should
be limited to bacterial diseases that will become severe without treatment (strep, sinus infections).

The best defense against germs, then, is resistance. And the only way to build resistance is exposure. I let my six month old play on the (gasp!) unmopped floor. So long as there is nothing he can eat (wood chips) or anything that would make him sick (kitty litter) on it, I don't care. Are there germs? You bet! Am I going to bleach my floor because he might come into contact with them? No, in fact I hope he gets germs on him, so his body will stay healthy. When I had my first son, I was still in college. I attended a university with 30,000+ undergrads and regularly let my son crawl on the floor of the "mother's lounge" in the bathroom. My son never got sick while we were there. Save for the occasional cold, he hardly ever gets sick now. his immune system is hearty because of exposure.

Now here is the exception: of course, there are some children and adults who are immunocompromised in some way. These individuals need to be much more cautious in what they expose themselves to because of the risks to their health. So I say, for the sake of those who cannot expose themselves, all of us who are otherwise healthy, let's brave the occasional bout of flu or cold and stop creating superbugs which threaten all of us.

Tip of the day: A wonderful plant that is purported to help boost your immune system and can clear up colds faster is echinacea. It's a hardy flower that can be grown in a wide variety of climates and can be grown in a home garden for use as a tea (usually the roots and stem are used). Brew a tea of echinacea, peppermint and some honey to help your throat, sinuses and cough feel better.

The Raw Deal

Tomorrow is raw cat food day, meaning it's one of the two days a month we make raw cat food for our three cats.

Growing up, our cat ate the cheap dry cat food because that's what we could afford. He was an indoor/outdoor cat, and I was very sad when he passed away. At the time of his passing, my mother was making special food for him out of cooked eggs, ground cooked meat and ground eggshells because he suffered a severe UTI that almost killed him due to crystals formed by eating dry cat food.

When my husband and I made the decision to get cats, I assumed we would be going the same route of feeding our cats whatever was cheap. In my line of thinking, a cat was "just a cat", not akin to a human being and certainly not high on the list of things to care about. It was a pet to provide companionship and it was there to serve me, not the other way around.

Then I began reading about the concept of a raw diet for cats. At the time (2006), the idea of a raw diet was still relatively new. It was just beginning to gain popularity and was mostly still confined to the fringes, the "crazy cat ladies" of the world. But it interested me. I began to learn more about how a cat's digestive system worked, and I began to wonder why I had never thought it odd that the number one ingredient in cheap pet foods is corn, yet all wild and feral cats eat nothing but meat.

After thinking about it for some time, I came to the conclusion that if we were going to get cats, we were going to feed them right. But the time commitment of raw food, not to mention the mess, was too much for me. I opted instead to get grain-free dry food and see how that worked.

We adopted two rambunctious kittens, Sam and Io, in the summer of 2006, and began feeding them a grainless dry food. After about a month they developed issues with diarrhea. Our vet advised a "holistic" pet food that included grains, vegetables and meat, but was still a dry food. Instead, we decided to give raw food a wholehearted try. Almost immediately, their diarrhea stopped and they were happy and healthy little kittens again. Not long after that, we were adopted by a pregnant mother cat who we named Hope. We have never gone back to dry food since.

Today, we feed our cats the same raw diet they have eaten for almost four years, one developed by veterinarian Lisa Pierson, found on her website catinfo.org. The recipe is made using only human grade ingredients, something many pet foods lack, and is completely devoid of ash fillers, grains, or difficult to digest vegetables. We use a Tasin meat grinder that we have used since we started without any issues, and buy our supplements at iherb.com.

Since we started this raw diet, our cats have had absolutely no health problems. They are full of energy with soft, healthy coats. Some of the benefits for us, beyond low vet bills, are the advantages of very little waste, and very low smell from the waste they produce. If we didn't clean them, we'd forget their litter boxes were there.

Since we started feeding our cats an all-raw diet, the popularity of raw diets has skyrocketed. You can buy premade raw food from any number of companies, and many pet food stores are beginning to carry raw food as well. Price wise, making your own is infinitely cheaper. Chicken thighs, our meat of choice, are very cheap, especially since you buy thighs with the skin and bones still on them. In terms of a time commitment, set up, grinding and clean up take a grand total of 3 hours with one person doing them all, 2 hours or less with two people, and we make enough cat food to freeze and last for 2 weeks or more.

I cannot say enough about the benefits of raw food. I am so happy that we made the decision, together, to commit to making this food for our cats. Cats are carnivores. Have you ever seen a lion mowing grass like a cow? Do feral cats hunt down carrots? Cats were meant to eat meat. One of the biggest problems we see in cats in obesity. One of the biggest causes of obesity is feeding cats food that is full of fillers and low in nutrients. Think of it this way: you might be able to survive on a diet of nothing but McDonald's fries and burgers, but you would gain a lot of weight eating enough to get the nutrients you need. The solution to an obese cat isn't to feed it less food and therefore even fewer nutrients, it's to feed it a different kind of food that's higher in nutrient content.

If you aren't able or willing to make the time commitment to making raw food (it isn't for everyone, I know), consider buying premade raw food. If that isn't an option, as it can get expensive, then feed your cat a good canned food like Wellness. Dry food is not a good choice for a cat. A cat's teeth are not meant to crunch dry kibble and dry food has a different nutrient profile because of the necessity of a lower protein content to make it into kibble in the first place.

If we all strive to feed our pets the best, the closest to what they would eat in nature, we will see lower vet bills and healthier, happier pets.

Tip of the day: If you make your own raw food, a five gallon bucket is a great way to mix it. You can pick one up from any hardware store, and it allows you to mix the liver, meat and bone and supplements with the water without sloshing anything on yourself or your floor. From there you simply scoop it into whatever you want to put it in, freeze it and you're set to go!

Product Review: Moisturizer

Let me start off by saying I am not being endorsed by any company to advertise their products. Maybe I should be, then I could make some money doing this! No, this is free advertising for products I've found that work especially well and that I would like you to know about.

I have a perpetual problem with dry hands. I always have, since I was a child. I grew up using Johnson and Johnson Baby Lotion but in recent years I've tried to go more organic and natural. One problem I always had with Johnson and Johnson was that when I used it on my chapped knees, they would sting horribly for a while afterwards because of the chemicals in the lotion. But finally, I have found a lotion that not only doesn't make my hands sting if they're chapped, but it works wonderfully in all the ways that make a lotion great.

I use the Aubrey Organics unscented moisturizing lotion to keep my hands from getting chapped and dry, and most importantly, to prevent my most recent problem, onycholysis (the spontaneous detachment of the nail from the nail bed, usually caused by stress to the nail but in my case caused by constant hand washing from having a toddler and a baby with reflux). We originally bought the lotion for my husband as it was unscented and doesn't leave that excessively greasy feeling you get with so many other lotions. But when my fingertips started to split because of the dry winter air and washing my hands all the time, I started using it because it was the only lotion in the house that didn't make my fingertips sting. Since then I've grown to love how soft it leaves my hands without leaving them greasy and unusable. It leaves behind a silky feeling and no scent, so it won't become overwhelming if you use it regularly.

If you're interested in checking out the unique ingredients that Aubrey Organics using you can find them here in the product description. I buy my lotion at our local natural goods store, but you can buy Aubrey Organics at most stores that carry natural healthy products or online at sites like Amazon.

Tip of the day: If you suffer from dry hands like I do, one trick that works well is to cover your hands in almond or apricot oil before bed. Then put on light cotton gloves to keep the oil from getting on your sheets and to help hold in the moisture. In the morning your hands should be in much better shape!