Destruction

I used to think squirrels were cute.  However, these ears of corn that are pictured, are the only ears of corn that I got this summer.  Why?  I had planted several rows of corn back in cold March and some more in April - which the malicious little rats with bushy tails quickly attacked and dug up.  The plants got nice and tall but one by one they disappeared at the hands of those nasty creatures in my yard. For a while, the corn bed had a fence around it, but part of the fence was a cast off metal one and my husband noted that the squirrels could sit on the top and munch as the ears were at that level.  So we took the fence down.  Bad mistake. The next day - after I picked these four - the rest of the bed was destroyed.

Most of my gardening life is centered around trying to fend of various animals who are intent on devouring my food.  I throw out scraps plenty of times but I suppose they are not enamored of those even though the food quickly disappears.  No, if they can get into my garden, they love to nibble most anything that I have planted.  I did resort to shrouding my fruiting bushes with netting to protect the berries from the birds, and my vegetable garden is surrounded by construction fencing that is stapled to wooden stakes around the beds so that the groundhogs won't get in under the fence. But this year's corn was kind of open until we put the makeshift fencing up. Next year we plan to cover it completely in either netting or a thin row cover.

The squirrels are the bane of my gardening life.  They also dig in the flower gardens, as well as flower pots.  I have a large planter of day lilies and after I had added some bulbs in it, huge chunks of dirt, along with the new bulbs were missing shortly thereafter.  Of course they get at my bird feeders and almost completely destroyed one that was made of wood.  They dug up my tulip bulbs despite my little piles of small logs on top of the newly planted items.  Short of getting a gun I am kind of at my wit's end. I may just end up posting recipes for squirrel at some point.

Mindful Eating

Yesterday I had an engaging conversation on Facebook about a product that contained mostly chemicals. My husband had brought the container home because a coworker drinks it and he wanted me to check out the label.  The third ingredient in this powder is propylene glycol.  I looked that up online and found that  which is used as an antifreeze and to absorb water, which I posted online asking the question "Why would anyone in their right mind want to ingest this?"  My Facebook friends and I went back and forth about what people should be eating.

As you know for the last year or so I have been advocating, and trying, to maintain a whole foods diet.  Occasionally I do "fall off the wagon" and eat something that is off the track for that, but generally I am pretty good about processed stuff.  When you think about it, most of what we eat is processed, i.e. cooking, or prepared, even meat is processed to a point as we don't just sink our teeth into the side of a cow or something.  But I am pretty good about staying away from foods that have chemicals in them because I try to read the labels for the foods I buy.

Some of these chemicals that are in the foods on the shelves at the grocery store are really scary when you read about them. Sure they don't generally put a whole lot of the stuff in, but even a small amount can change your internal balance.  The human body is an incredible system with a delicate balance that should be maintained by giving it the fuel it needs.  While I sometimes I would love to just take a pill that supplies all my nutritional needs, purely as a matter of saving time used in food preparation, the body needs to have its fuel delivered the way it was designed.  And while I am not where near the image of ideal health I think I am moving toward that direction rather than away.  The standard American diet is killing us IMHO and it is time to get back to basics.  This means voting with our pocketbook and not buying crap to eat.

A Historic Day

I wept with joy as I read the many tweets and Facebook posts about what D. Bruce Hanes did yesterday in Montgomery County, PA.  But the one that really got me going was the interview on the Rachel Maddow Show that a friend posted there.  Mr. Hanes granted marriage licenses for five same-sex marriage in despite of Pennsylvania's ban on Gay Marriage. My tears were not only for the historic event this was, but for the freedom that the county I live in is allowing everyone who lives here.

Same-sex marriage is a civil rights issue plain and simple.  It is right for a couple in a committed relationship to be able to have that relationship recognized by the law like anyone else's.  The right to allow survivor benefits, the right to provide medical decisions for each other, the right to raise a family, among others. It is just unthinkable to me that those couples would not be allowed those rights simply because they are the same sex.

I know this incidence is not going to be a one day story.  As I write this one of my good friends is planning his own wedding.  He and his partner have been together for 28 years and they did have a religious commitment ceremony several years ago.  He told me that when they stand before their minister and recite their vows on the steps of the county courthouse that it is an act of civil disobedience more than anything else. But I think it is so much more and I will weep tears of joy again as I witness their legal union.

No Mow Lawn

Today a friend of mine came into the office and I suddenly noticed that he was looking all tan and summer-like.  I had not seen him in a while so I asked him if he got the tan on a vacation or in his backyard mowing.  He sighed and said the later, to which he added that he hated doing the mowing.  He made some jokes about being an elected official and therefore should be easy to find someone to do the lawn for him to which we all laughed.  I then brought him over to my computer and proceeded to show him site after site about the lawn reform movement.

There are many people who have decided that turf is not all that desirable any longer.  There is too much work for very little benefit, and I totally agree.  I personally don't mow the lawn because a) I don't have the time, and b) am allergic to grass.  But my husband does this job and even though he complains bitterly about it I think we secretly enjoys doing it.  He not only mows our lawn, but helps out our elderly neighbors and others who just don't do it right in his opinion.  I have been trying to convince him to make the big change, but he is reluctant to do so.  So I have been slowly adding things to the backyard which reduces the amount of grass we have.

I think the whole concept of a golf-green lawn is so totally overrated.  For one thing in order to get all that green grass, one has to put chemicals on it which greatly affects the ecosystem and could possibly be making the environment poisonous. But there are far more pleasurable ways to spend the afternoon IMHO, and one way would be to plant plants which will create a more beautiful yard than all that grass.

Frankencorn

From the what have they done to our food section, the article I read this morning puts a lot of questions in my mind about the safety of our food.  Christina Pirello presents things about the wonderful summer corn that we all enjoy this time of year, and what GMOs have done is truly disconcerting.  I am not sure I want to engage in this game of Russian Roulette on my health.  I am taking the time to buy organic corn, when I can find it, and growing my own.

I have never grown corn before and this is really more of an experiment than anything else, but I can see little ears starting on my stalks.  The corn is sequestered in this new little raised bed surrounded by fencing so the squirrels don't get to it.  This picture is weeks old and the corn is now much taller than the fence.  My husband remarked when he got home from work the other day that the corn fields he saw were as tall as mine is, so we are on track.

I am excited to be able to pick my own corn that was grown under conditions I know about except whether the seed was actually organic because I bought these before I knew about the dangers of GMO seeds.  But next cycle when I plant more, not having had some experience, I will make sure to plant organic corn rather than treated corn.  Again, as I have said before, we need to speak with our wallets to make sure we are getting food that is helping us to survive and not making us sick.

Whole Foods

When I was at my last employer, they provided an online course for their employees on the Mediterranean Diet Plan with Dr. Will Clower. If you don't know the program it is a way to lose weight and get healthier by eating better food, also known as the French Don't Diet Plan.  I blogged about this previously. I came across another nutritionist recently named Patrick Quillin, when my mother gave me the book Wisdom of Whole Foods.  I read this over the weekend and fell in love with the premise.

Many of you may know that for a while I have been touting the benefits of eating real foods; those that don't have preservatives in them or at the very least without high fructose corn syrup.  This book really goes into the reasons why those things are so bad for you and also talks about the benefits of certain foods including things to eat to prevent cancer.  For example, I had no idea that pineapple and mushrooms reduce inflammation.  This book is quite detailed on those benefits.

I urge you to read it, or at least review the website.  There is so much in the foods that nature has provided us, rather than ingesting so many chemicals.  Why wouldn't you try something that could extend your life longer and live healthy?  I am so convinced that we are killing ourselves as a nation by all the crap in our food system.  We can vote with our pocketbooks by not buying it and sooner or later the manufacturers of food will realize we no longer want their products. We have the capability to reduce illness in ourselves and I think we owe it to ourselves to try.

Bale Gardening

I cam across an article about bale gardening the other day. It is a method where you condition a bale of straw and then plant in it.  The picture in the article showed a bale strapped to a city apartment railing with all kinds of vegetables growing out of it.  It is an ingenious way to contain plants on a balcony and grow your own food in the city.  I don't have an apartment, but it would be cool to try this method in my garden for some of the things that I want to grow.