This is just a random post day. So many thoughts flutter around in my brain and sometimes writing it down helps me to sort them out.
Keeping track of all my home cultures has me trying to remember what I'm supposed to be doing when, but also excites me because it makes me realize how far we've come on our health journey. Right now we have 6 different "brews" going. Greg is making some homemade ginger ale; and I make water kefir, milk kefir, kombucha, raw sauerkraut and sourdough. As I type, I'm listening to a podcast from Wellness Mama that is really good for learning more about kombucha. I make it because I know it's good for us, but didn't really know about all the health benefits and variations to making it. Exciting!
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Gardening is sure a love/hate relationship. If I had $1000(or more) to spend on mulch, wood chips, compost and plants; I'd love gardening. That's what I like to tell myself anyways. I really do enjoy the snippets of gardening I when I do get out there, but I get so used to my daily routines that I totally forget to weed, check on plants, water and all those sorts of important things. My house also goes to pot (in a worse way than the normal disarray we might find it in) whenever I am outside for an extended period of time. Like 1 hour or so. I did just write a big note on my white board to remind myself to get out every morning to check on all my plants. We'll see if that really happens. I'm also reading a book right now called The Sheer Ecstasy of Being a Lunatic Farmer by Joel Salatin and it's so inspiring. My brother Jordan got us into reading his stuff, and it makes SO much sense. Our "farm" may be small, but I know we can make some things happen. We just have to figure out how. His books are humorous and eye-opening at the same time. This TED talk of him excellent also. I love all the big words he uses, many of which I don't even know what they mean. Here's a few quotes of his:
Part of our farming included getting more chickens. The 3 oldest kids used their birthday money to buy them, and will hopefully have enough eggs to sell them and make some profits. Greg wants them to really start saving money, so they needed a way to actually make some cash. They'd love to spend any and all dollars on Legos; but we (G & I) don't feel that feeding that obsession would be healthy in any way. Obsessions should be curbed and contained rather than encouraged, right? So, we got 20 baby chicks (6 Leghorns, 6 Amerucanas, 6 Gold Sex Links, and 2 Cuckoo Marans). Isaac got a Standard Bronze turkey so that he wouldn't feel left out, and he named his turkey Mickey (of course). He has told us he will call him Mickey when he's small and Turkey when he gets big (he's still not too sure about eating him someday although he is trying to get used to the idea). After the kids came in one day and Elise announced that one of her chicks had pooped on her hand, Isaac said, "Mickey never would poop on anyone's hand!" Apparently his turkey is phenomenally trained and superiorly intelligent compared to those foolish chickens, that's for sure! So cute.
James has finally found some books he enjoys. He went to a Ramona Quimby play with some friends (thanks, Janine) and that inspired him to pick up some Beverly Cleary books. We then got some from the library and he's been reading up a storm. Normally this boy can only be found reading cartoons (Calvin & Hobbes, Garfield, TinTin, Smurfs, etc.) and I've tried to get him interested in many different books to no avail. He's read 3 books in the last week, which is way more than I can usually get him to read in a month, maybe even a year. I recall being the same way, so I understand it. There's no point in reading a mediocre book. I realize now as an adult that much of the reason I didn't read too much when I was young was that I enjoy non-fiction way more than fiction (but I didn't know that then). And all books geared for teenage girls are fiction. I have never been one to read to escape reality (I never felt I had anything to escape) so most books were just too uninteresting. Now that I'm an adult, I realize that my area of interest in the book department is real life. It's not that I didn't like reading, but more that I just hadn't found the kinds of books I liked. I'm not much into biographies these days either, but more learning-for-life style books. What a relief!
That's all for today. Lots more thoughts, but it's time to get back outside...and maybe grill some burgers. I'm sure loving this summery weather these days!
