New Year Resolutions

Some mornings as I go through the motions of what I refer to as “chores”, I’m reminded of some event or some person’s story that gives more meaning to what I’m doing than the wagging tails or happy clucks I get as I go along feeding, watering and turning out animals for the day.

It’s no secret that when I started out here it wasn’t to save the world, my neighborhood or anything really heroic. It was actually to make it easier for me to get clean food and save my little farmer’s market, and my home. It was a survival tactic.

Over the years, however, it has become a bit of a mission you could say. Some say, an obsession. Others still, an addiction. Call it what you want – I still call it, survival.

It’s a type of survival that I really didn’t know I needed back when I began.

I thought what I was doing was simply going to pay the bills and allow me to be a productive member of society, while not having to trek 20 miles for organic groceries. Maybe allow me to have a little more free time than the corporate grind had provided. And I suppose it does – even if that free time doesn’t always come when I’d choose it. And those little pink disconnection notices are sometimes narrowly avoided because there’s not a weekly paycheck like with a “job”.  It’s a seasonal check and you learn to budget, both money and your time, in very creative ways.

But the kind of survival it provides other than usually keeping the bill collectors at bay, is that of what many others don’t survive; poor health.

Maybe some of it is my genes. Granted I have an American Indian and Italian/Sicilian or Mediterranean heritage, so perhaps a bit of the best of 2 worlds when it comes to the benefits of age-old diets ingrained into my DNA.

But there are plenty of people with what should be good genes getting sick and feeling poorly, and vice versa. And I may have been on that same path myself, if over 15 years ago I’d not started doing things a bit differently. And had my mother not been the homemaker she was, providing us 3 square meals a day, every day, for the first 13 years of my life. Something I do not take for granted or lightly. And lessons I still fall back on today. Thank you, Mom.  

I tell folks I was an organic gardener before being organic was “cool”. And I was. Some of it was out of benign neglect and some out of frugality. (I prefer that word over “cheap” because it makes me sound smart instead of stingy.) And now I definitely do it out of wisdom and not stinginess – or lack of funds – as it were at the time. Gardening wasn’t something my ex-husband saw much merit in and so golf clubs took priority in the limited budget. I used what I had and could get on the cheap – shovels, soil and seeds.

What is it then, that separates some people into categories of healthy or sickly? Certainly I am not going to speak in terms of absolutes, because we all can find or even know of an exception to them. The 90 year old 2 pack a day smoker who ate greasy fast food daily and the 35 year old health-food nut who never touched tobacco, never lived with a smoker and yet suffered from emphysema and heart disease to their early grave.

I will, however, make the argument that sometimes a person can throw themselves out into traffic and survive while others may not. I don’t honestly think fate controls everything. We have, and make, choices. How much risk do you want to leave up to odds when it comes to your life or your health?  Or that of your family and loved ones?

I take that same equation and apply it to my customers. I don’t know what tips the scale for other people, so I’ll err on the side of caution when it comes to what I sell them. That’s why I have an all organic farmer’s market and garden shop.

We’ll not split hairs on the “rules” that the USDA has created, bent and adjusted to “regulate” (i.e. allow) large corporate food factories the ability to make more profit by being “certified organic”.

Let’s just suffice it to say that organic gardening, to most reasonable people, means not using synthetic chemicals or those which we know will subsist in the soil and/or on the food or flowers we grow – in the ground.

I felt I needed to add those last three words because the ever growing popular method of growing food in soil-less environments is, in the opinion of many dirt farmers, not really organic growing.

"After all, if it’s not a drug, it can’t make you well – according to the FDA."

It may be synthetic chemical free, but without the soil, and its countless un-duplicable benefits, it’s just not the same. The flavor isn’t the same. The nutrient density isn’t the same. And while it may be safer to eat than its conventionally grown, toxic pesticide doused counterparts, grown without carbon-based soil is not, in my opinion and that of many others, truly organic. But that’s perhaps another conversation. I’d rather, of course, you ate that, than conventional – if it were your only 2 choices.

But it’s not our only two choices. Here in Dallas and across the country in most well populated areas, there is a plethora of choices for obtaining organically grown whole, wholesome foods, even grown in local soil, in some cases. And when I say whole-foods, I mean unadulterated, unprocessed, untainted and in its original form. Not necessarily what you find in any particular store by a similar name. Or any store for that matter.

Supermarkets have to meet budgets to pay employees and stockholders. They’re going to sell a lot of stuff. Some of it may not be as wholesome as you think. And that’s all I’m going to say on that subject. 

And when I say well populated, I really guess I mean, well-to-do, because we all are becoming familiar with the phrase food desert, and it rarely applies to neighborhoods with the demographics of upper incomes. That's why, in large part, markets and shops that pop up in these food desert neighborhoods so desperately need to be supported. In some cases, they're the only source of healthful, organic and local food to which the community has access.

There are increasingly more locations where actual farmers gather to bring consumers directly what they may not find in even most independent stores. Likely, what they’ll never find in supermarkets. And it takes a little work to find some of them or make their schedule jive with yours. I will grant you that. But if it were a matter of survival, what steps would you take to make it happen?

Well, without getting myself into trouble with the FDA, I will just say that we know for a fact that there is a direct correlation to eating well and good health. Saying any more than that could probably get me into trouble. 

After all, if it’s not a drug, it can’t make you well – according to the FDA. And food, clearly, is not a drug. Even though many years ago it was said to let food be thy medicine, someone forgot to tell the FDA – or they just decided that it wasn’t going to be profitable enough for their allies and friends in high places, so they decided it wasn’t true. (Who said that if you tell a lie 3 times people will believe it? [cough, cough] )

But without me making any claims, I can assure you that if you spoke to enough co-workers, neighbors, relatives or Facebook friends, you will find someone who has an experience that will rival that of the FDA’s claims.

Yet organized or commercialized telling of the truth about how people get over illnesses, fought off diseases, and even just had more energy or felt better – truth of experiences – is not allowed. At least not without a disclaimer basically saying it may not be true because the federal government says so.

I can, however, tell you of the woman who sought me out at one of my Market Days to thank me for helping teach her how to garden at home. And that her family has never felt healthier since eating so much home-grown food. And I think I can get away with telling you that I’ve had customers tell me that nothing they buy at the grocery store compares to what they buy at my market when it comes to flavor or freshness.  Or that a woman previously diagnosed as lactose intolerant was able to miraculously drink unpasteurized milk without suffering any symptoms. But it’s probably not safe to say any more than that.

I was reminded recently of a speech given by raw milk dairyman Mark McAfee several years ago at a conference of producers. He was encouraging them to “break the law” by verbally sharing these kinds of stories, like those told to him from customers who’d been plagued with asthma, IBS, Crohn’s, pasteurized milk intolerance, etc., and found relief – gasp, a cure? – after including dairy products from him into their diets.

Against all federal government wisdom, CA allows people to sell and buy real milk products at the store, so long as the dairy passes inspections. Of course, retailers had to learn how to properly display the product as well as educate consumers on proper storage. I tell fellow members of a raw milk co-op what a dairyman told me – keep it at the very back of the fridge so it stays super cold and it will last a long time. And it does. I often get 2 weeks out of a gallon. That is if I don’t drink it all first.

"One good thing out of the USDA since Mr. Vilsack took over, is the slogan Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food."

Mark is right though. Farmers and ranchers and dairymen/women have a big part of the good health key of survival in their hands. All consumers need to do in order to get a copy of that key, is rearrange their schedule a little bit, change up their priorities and think of it as a key to what it really is - actual survival.

Slowly but surely news of the spikes in preventable, chronic illnesses are making more headlines. Usually, though, it’s not on the nightly news or in mainstream media. Instead it’s tucked away in various indie owned publications often thought of as “fringe” or liberal.

Is it liberal or fringe to want to feel well? To have your family feel well? To operate at their best potential?

But surely you see on the news the one in 3 million people of the city who had something dramatic or awful happen to them overnight. Or some obscure story that really doesn’t affect us or our daily existence. Rarely do we hear of the odds gaining on childhood obesity rates, childhood type 2 diabetic cases climbing, or increases in other various lifestyle/nutrition related chronic illness and diseases. No, those wouldn’t compliment the paid commercials that keep the news on the air. But, perhaps if we did have it in our faces as much as we do pop culture or other “news”, we’d pay more attention. And respond accordingly.

The key to your best chance at surviving these things isn’t all that hard to obtain, really. But there are lots of duplicate and even some counterfeit keys out there so buyer beware.

One good thing out of the USDA since Mr. Vilsack took over, is the slogan Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food.

Who is your farmer? Rancher? Dairyman? Fisherman? Beekeeper? Who makes your sausage? Your jelly or jam, pickles, bread and cheese? Can you say you know how many pairs of hands your “fresh” produce passed through before it was slipped into that cellophane covered Styrofoam container and put on a shelf? Much less how long it's been since it saw soil? Harvested prematurely for shipping quality is common even in large scale organic production. How much would anyone pay for a pound of smashed heirloom tomatoes?

We’re all being brainwashed into thinking that bacteria are evil causes of death when in fact, as Mr. McAfee so pointedly covers in his speech, they are the givers of life.  And the food on the shelves offered for sale in the supermarket, are generally devoid of bacteria. It is dead.

Lifeless, “food-like substances”, a phrase coined by author and writer Michael Pollan, can do little but provide empty calories to give us some energy to make it through to the next empty calorie meal.

Just because something can sit on a shelf for 5 years and still be edible, doesn’t make it good for you. By removing all of the bacteria, the very life, from something and adding salt, sugar, fat and preservatives to it, we haven’t created some new good thing. We’ve destroyed one. Food spoils for a reason. It’s lost its value. Mold and fungi beat you to the punch and started to consume it first.

We, by design, need nutrients and whole foods to be sustained. To survive. There’s that word again. And I’m not using it to be an alarmist. Just a realist.

It’s no secret that the (bad) joke is that 2016 has taken away so many pop-culture icons from the 80’s and that many, far too many, were at quite a younger age than what we normally think of people exiting this planet. I can’t help but wonder what some of the differences in the diets of some of them may have been. Apparently, no amount of fame or fortune can fix what years of abuse or neglect can do to a body once it reaches a certain point.

"In some cases it’s like not realizing they should have had life preservers and a radio on the boat until after it springs a leak and starts to sink. In the middle of shark infested waters."

Our bodies are pretty resilient. Made to take a lickin’ and keep on tickin’, as the old watch commercial claimed. But they’re not designed to take a kicking – meal after meal, week in and week out and year after year; especially if we’re not providing it the means to filter out toxins, repair damage and build immunity by eating healthful foods.

How much of this behavior can our bodies take before they break down? How much before a developing brain is inhibited? An immune system retarded or never fully developed to protect the body decades down the road?

Food, Inc. made millions aware of the questionable trail their food takes before they eat it

I hear from some of you, stories of people driving cross-town to save .50 on a lb of bananas, elated at the deal on close-out CAFO meats about to spoil, “cheap” eggs, concoctions in a box that are super easy to make and on sale 10 for $10, etc.

And yet, we see expensive vacations, smart phones all around for everyone, new cars and big houses requiring double incomes of extensive hour jobs and more. But our health’s first line of defense, food, is sought at bargain basement prices.

It’s no wonder people say they "can’t afford organic food". They can't hardly afford any kind of food that's not so subsidized by the government that it's sold in its raw form for less than the farmer's production costs. America has spent a lot of their money on “stuff” that won’t really make much difference in the long run. In fact, much of what they buy will break after just a few years and need to be replaced.

Well friends, we only get one body to live in. And the best the FDA can do when it starts to break, in most cases, is mask the ailments and the aches and pains with RX’s that, even when correctly prescribed, cause many side affects and even deaths. How many people have died as a result of eating a salad? Organic ingredient home-made meals?

The number of people lost to bacterial outbreaks caused by food, not only pales in comparison to those lost by RX’s, but is generally the result of previously wholesome foods being over-handled and processed into something compromising, not food in its original, raw, whole state.

I have been growing some food for myself for many years. Decades. I only decided to make a living at growing for others a few years ago. But in that amount of time I’ve met so many people who are like-minded, but only becoming so out of duress.

And that makes me very sad.  In some cases it’s like not realizing they should have had life preservers and a radio on the boat until after it springs a leak and starts to sink. In the middle of shark infested waters.

No one eats “clean” every bite. At least no one I know of. And certainly not me. I’ve confessed to not liking maple syrup and using instead processed, flavored corn syrup. And I can’t sit through a movie without a bucket of popcorn and something to wash it down.

However, fast food to me means Chipotle, and the stench of sitting at a light outside of a traditional fast-food chain is sickening to me. I typically eat vegetables that I or someone I know grew – in season. When I eat animal products, be it dairy, honey or meat, it’s again, conscious of the steward and the manner in which it was brought to market.   

Hedging your bets by adding more clean food to your diet, even gradually, seems like a smart thing to do. I generally don’t eat pancakes and “syrup” but a few times a month. And perhaps if they were across the street and I had the extra money, I’d treat myself to a movie or a steak burrito more frequently than a few times a year.

But because, in large part, most people don’t see the value in paying more for groceries that provide my living, I’m limited. And maybe that’s a good thing. Because I, too, grew up in the era of up and coming convenience foods, and I can see it become a temptation to skip making dinner for eating out more frequently than I do, had I the access and means to do so.

 "Fill in the blanks of your grocery list where you need to. But your local organic farmer is your best, first line of defense in the game of survival."

How much would you pay for survival?

What’s the value of an airbag? A parachute? A life preserver?

The lack of these things when needed, produce most certain instant negative results. If only we could make ourselves see at the time we begin our eating habits, that the lack of eating a more wholesome, unadulterated diet was going to result, most likely, in slow, often painful, and certainly expensive, series’ of consequences – often with an unhappy and uncomfortable, ultimate early ending.

Watching the life of someone we know come to a premature end is sometimes the only warning needed. For others, it’s an alarm when pain of their own body comes. Sadly for some, for too many, convenience or lack of self care, wins over awareness of the long term damage being done and the outcome is rarely pleasant.

Know your farmers. Know your food. Fill in the blanks of your grocery list where you need to. But your local organic farmer is your best, first line of defense in the game of survival.

And most of us, don’t take that responsibility lightly. We live and breathe our work. We’re agtivists asking you to sign petitions, write letters to Congress and vote both with your dollars at the store and your rights each election day. We ask you to be pro-active.

Farming or even growing a big family garden can be long, arduous work. And it doesn’t always pay as well for the skill set the farmer could demand under other circumstances. Most farmers wear many hats including plumber, electrician, handyman, accountant, marketing executive, CEO, veterinarian, chef and more. 

But I can honestly say that becoming a farmer, even on the small scale that I do it, is the most consuming, disappointing, educational, interesting, monotonous, satisfying, uplifting and worthwhile occupation at which I have ever tried my hand.

Oliver adoring baby chicks

 One big smile from a youngster as a chicken huddles over her new chicks, or has a rooster eat cracked corn from their hand,the excitement when they suddenly realize they're planting future French fries,

Clark w/his carrot

or they're experiencing livestock for the first time, the delight on their face when picking or savoring their favorite veggie – can cancel out the rough mornings of broken frozen water pipes, foundation and plumbing issues on an old farmhouse, another lost crop and loud neighbors that come with owning an urban farm on a commercial strip of street. Sometimes all on the same day. 

Knowing that perhaps just one person will benefit from my nagging about eating better, makes potentially alienating others worth the risk of doing so.

I know we do it from a place of compassion and love and I hope others know that is our motivation as well. In the end, for me, it’s about helping people in my community achieve access and want to have access to, healthy, safe, wildly nutritious food – at affordable prices - without being broke myself.

Julianna tending chickens on vacation

But if it were solely to make a living, with the living I’ve made thus far, it could be had doing something much less worrisome, time-consuming and uncomfortable. Even so, it still wouldn’t be nearly as fulfilling.

You know these are French fries in the making right?

I hope you’ll go into 2017 resolving to scale back things that keep you from being able to afford to pay a few bucks more a week on groceries, a few hours more a month at the farm and for meal planning and gain the benefits of preparing, from scratch, more, much more, of the food you and your family consume - and consume it together around the kitchen table. 

 

Let 2017 be a year of re-prioritizing for the sake of good health. Happy New Year everyone!

Marie

Eat Your Food - Naturally!

Back to the Ground

Before I started farming, I used to write a weekly column about home gardening sprinkled with some tips about healthy eating. With more and more of you looking to grow home gardens and eat locally, I thought I'd revive some of those tips. Plus, I can now add new information that I've gleaned from colleagues or learned as I've been growing food full time for the past 7 years. Granted, I grow on a much larger scale than most of you will likely want to tackle. But many of the tips and some of the techniques, can be replicated in any size garden.

And with all of the talk these days about the importance of eating organic, fresh foods, well, it doesn’t get any more fresh than picked from your own back yard where you know for a fact what you used, and what you didn't use, in the garden. So if you want to eat healthy, fresh and organically this year, you should know that it doesn’t have to be expensive or cumbersome. 

Awhile back I shared a link to a blog by a mother who planned out how to budget for her family on a food stamp allowance and still eat an organic, healthy diet all week long.  Here is that link again. http://www.rebeccablood.net/thriftyo/2007/04/the_organic_thrifty_food_plan_1.html   I think a lot of it is still relevant. It all comes down to a little bit of planning and a little tweaking of our attitude regarding the way we think about eating and lifestyle priorities.  

I have had many conversations with folks about how hard they think it is to eat a healthy, home-cooked diet rich in vitamins and fresh foods.  I’ve been told I’m nuts or unrealistic. Well, I'm not perfect at it either, but I know it can be done. I keep reading about people who have done, or are doing it.

Plus, I hear all of the time people say that they are just too busy to cook. Too busy to shop. Well, you know what? I'm busy, too. I have 14 acres and lots of animals to take care of every day. Honestly, I don't always feel like cooking when I come in after a 12-14 hour day in the field - any more than a single parent does after pulling a double shift and dragging kids to several different soccer fields or home from day care centers. 

So, in order for all of us to do this better, we need to plan. I'll invite folks that I know to share cooking tips, including pre-making dishes for later in the week, and using leftovers so there's less waste, too. These can help keep the output of both money and time spent, more efficient.

I think part of the problem, too, is some folks today have lost touch with their roots when it comes to eating healthy diets of real food. And believing too much of the marketing they see in ads. Trust me, just because it's sold on the supermarket shelf, of any grocery store, doesn't mean it's all that great for you.

Most of us who grew up in the 60’s and 70’s, ate much healthier, real foods when we were younger than many of today's kids do. And, I daresay, almost all of our grandparents ate mostly meals made from scratch, because most of the aisles filled with ready made meals found in today’s stores, didn’t exist 50 years ago. Come to think of it, as a kid, I could make it through our neighborhood grocery store in about 10 minutes walking up and down every single aisle. All 8 of them!

So what did they eat in the “old days”?  Simple – they ate real food.  And most, in the summer anyway, they grew a lot of it themselves. I remember my mom growing in our tiny little postage stamp, mostly concrete back yard. Corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, peas, and who knows what else she grew back there.She planted a garden every summer in my mid-west home town next door to Chicago. 

It seems we have gotten used to popping “pseudo foods” into a microwave or driving through the fast food lane, or skipping meals altogether, because we keep our (or our kids'), schedules so full we don't have time to prepare and eat food at home the way it used to be done. 

Eating is not simply about stopping your stomach from growling or quenching a craving for fat or salt. It is meant to fuel your organs with vital nutrients so they can have a better chance at working properly. It's to really satisfy your hunger so you don’t over-eat. And, it can help restore any potential damage done, (you know, from when you had that streak of eating an entire box of sticky buns for breakfast and some kind of mystery food in a box for dinner), so you don’t become sickly. What’s the saying about food being our medicine? Or an ounce of prevention…. You get the idea.

One great cost-cutting way to get your daily dose of healthy, real food, is still by growing some of it like people used to do – right outside your back door - or front door, or both!  Even if you just start with container gardens for lack of space, there are many things you can grow at home that are pretty easy. 

What if we all learned to grow some of our own food like our parents and grandparents used to do, and passed that skill on to someone else?

There really isn’t that much to it on a small, home garden scale and it is very, very inexpensive, especially if you start from seeds and use your own soil and make a bit of compost at home. Even if you're on a super tight budget and receive assistance; did you know that you can use those funds to purchase plant starts and seeds for vegetables, fruits and edible herbs at places that accept SNAP? And what you traded one or two of those extra-curricular activities you hurry off to 3 or 4 times every week, usually at dinner time, became community gardening or joining a garden or cooking club?  Just food for thought.... Think of the gas money you could save, too!

Once the initial prep work is done on a new garden plot, there’s just a little bit of upkeep a few times a week, and you’ll be on your way to fresh salads, fresh steamed or raw veggies and other delicious foods.  As a side benefit, you’ll get some good exercise and fresh air, too.  It’s also a great hobby for kids to do with you, so they can see what vegetables look like as they're growing, and learn where they really come from – before they show up in cellophane wrapped containers in the store.  And hey, if you don't have any around, see about including a neighbor's kids. You can usually rent a kid pretty cheap for an hour or two.

 

Teach them that yes, we actually plant and dig French fries, out of the ground first. No, those nubby little packaged school lunch carrots don’t grow on trees - or usually that small. Peas can actually be eaten raw, they’re not hard to start with - those are frozen. I often hear many parents say they have never seen their kids eat so many vegetables before they started to help grow a family plot.  Kids can be a lot of fun in the garden. Plus, they don't usually mind picking bugs off of plants and that's one of the ways we control pests. I keep a few containers around for our CSA members' kids to catch grasshoppers and caterpillars to feed to the chickens. Most of them love it!

So, let’s get started this year! Next time I’ll visit with you about how to select a site for your garden, what you can do right now to start preparing the soil – and guess what, it doesn’t involve digging – and the fun part; seed and plant shopping! 

Until then, start thinking about 4 or 5 things you really like to eat and could possibly grow yourself! And....

Eat Your Food - Naturally!
Marie 

PREVENTION

PREVENTION – Grandma said an ounce of it is worth a pound of cure, right? It’s what we preach for all other diseases, isn’t it?  Condoms, eating well, exercising and stopping smoking, etc. 

Dallas County, I really think you can do a better job of helping the public do a better job of prevention, so summer doesn’t have to come to what you all call an epidemic again. (Although I still say 40 precious lost lives is not an epidemic - especially compared to the 10's of thousands that die from preventable chronic disease like diabetes and it's related complications caused, mostly, from eating fast and processed food which we rarely see any ad campaigns against because the food industry would scream.)

But it is July, and as a resident of a city who contracts with the County of Dallas to provide Health and Human Services, again this year, I’ve not seen ONE single piece of information regarding what I’m to do in order to protect myself and help prevent mosquito outbreaks. Now in all fairness, my city hasn't done anything either. But we PAY the county to help us, from what I understand, and I think you might need to do a better job of helping.

They may not be your typical resident, but they live here, too and need to be reached; 

They do not watch television. So please don’t tell me, you’ve been running commercials. The billboards in my area have not been changed, and even if they had been, they're homebound, and don’t get to the highway to see them.  They may not read very well, and don’t get the paper delivered. And they may not have internet service.

They do, however, get a water bill, a gas bill, an electric bill and perhaps a Social Services check every month. We all get plenty of daily junk mail with pictures of coupons for things many will never be able to afford, too. It seems to me that within this budget allowing for the wasteful expense of spraying risky adulticide chemicals from airplanes over my neighborhood, (that as you may have conveniently forgotten wasn't even effective according to the later CDC report), there would be a line item for public outreach campaign that could include simply designed brochures explaining NOT the symptoms of this rarely contracted disease, which could mimic the symptoms of eating a greasy fast food meal or the flu; potentially causing unnecessary panic in individuals who fear they’ve contracted the illness; but instead, explaining what to look for around my home and neighborhood and what to do when I find it – to help my community and myself PREVENT it.

The 4 “d’s”; Drain, Deet, Dusk/Dawn & Dress – which, by the way, is 5 D’s for those of you counting - isn’t working very well to educate people on how they can help prevent a mosquito problem as well as it could or we’d see better evidence its effects - namely, less mosquitoes, more sales of BT products, less standing water, etc.  

What about those who are allergic to Deet? Those who HAVE to be out at dusk and/or dawn for work? Who can’t drain an area of their property that floods and remains swampy? 

What if, the 4 D’s looked something like this;

DEFEND – instead of Deet – since the list now (finally and thankfully) includes other options for protecting oneself as outlined on the EPA’s page. Deet isn’t the only game in town. And in all honesty, this category can include the DRESS options….

(This could make the campaign the 3D’s, and let your marketing department take it from there and have fun. I see “3D” glasses sent out to read the brochures, pics of mosquito larvae swimming in water just jumping off of the page – loose fitting funky clothes and spray coming out of a bottle, etc, all in 3D! Time to hire an ad agency to do your brochures and jazz it up a bit.

DRAIN – Areas of standing water, and pick up trash, toys and other objects where water accumulates.

DUNK – those areas you can’t Drain – with larvaecide – namely, BTi. I KNOW you all have heard of this option dozens of times at least. Bits and dunks available through your local municipality – for free. Last up to 30 days. Wow, send one with each water bill?

And if you insist on having that 4^th D – keep this one broken out and on its own.

DRESS - wear loose fitting long, sleeved shirts and pants at Dusk and Dawn when mosquitoes are most hungry and when around ponds, creeks and other places mosquitoes are most likely to congregate. 

 

There’s your 4-D’s that can be conveyed in diagrams or cartoon images.

Picture examples of where water accumulates, such as rain gutters, bottoms of trash cans, kids’ toys, trash, ahem, neighbors’ abandonedswimming pools and litter. (Like dammed up bar ditches in front of brand new elementary schools in SE Dallas County - image to follow once I find it again.) 

How about a picture of a koala bear eating eucalyptus leaves along with the DEET on the bottles. An image of someone wearing long sleeves against a sunset/sunrise. And by all means, pictures of Dunks and Bits being tossed into standing water -  for those who’ve never heard of them or don’t know how to use them.

How about using some of those funds for grants to help people replace screens and add screen doors or gutter guards to help keep mosquitoes out of their homes and from providing out of reach breeding places?

And perhaps most important of all – how about sending out one of these brightly colored, easy to read brochures monthly, starting say in March in a utility bill or door to door flyer? It's JULY. Nothing. 

 

Mother Nature, she’s going to win. She’s not going to go away forever, although we have done a good job of setting her back by way of hurting the beneficials and continue to do a good job making it a slower recovery rate for her as we continue to think we can win by spraying toxins everywhere. But WE’ll end up killing OURselves and our kids with the effects of the poisons we use to try to make her go away - long before we kill her totally. She’ll have the last laugh and once we're gone, the planet will survive just fine without our interference. 

Mosquitoes and various vector carried illnesses will always be around – no matter how many times you pay someone to fog or aerial spray, day or night – so we need to learn to live among them in a more preventative way. And do a better job of making it so easy for them to procreate and eat.

.

Marie

Eat Your Food - Naturally!

The Kids Are Going to be Alright

Everyone generally has some purpose behind what they have chosen to do for a living. Some choose their career for fame and fortune – no, not too many but it is a purpose for some. Certainly I don’t know many people who choose what they do for a living that have done so because it’s going to make them famous or rich.

They often choose it because a particular skill needed came naturally to them; it's what their parents encouraged them to do; it’s in an environment they enjoy being in; or it supports some specific cause they feel strongly about.

I’d have to say that, for those of you who do not know my story, the latter is what drew me into this world of farming and local food. I’ve always been an advocate for the little guy getting a fair shake, the underdog you could say. (In fact, that was one of my favorite cartoons growing up.)

And, the latter is what keeps me persistent about developing this place into a sustainable food production “hub” for the community of south east Dallas County where I’ve lived nearly ever since I moved to Texas some 22 or so years ago.

I don’t know too many who own and run small farms for a living that do this solely for the money either. Although, it can seem to bring “fast” cash after only a few hours of selling at a market. But let me tell you, if you have put your full time self into making sure those crops are selected, planted, cared for and harvested with dedication and purpose, it doesn’t feel like “fast” cash. The only part that is fast is the rate at which one runs out of one dollar bills for change…..

Having come from a family that sat down to eat most all of our dinners together as a family, (and even breakfast and lunch was served at home, in the kitchen at the table with my brother), I feel pretty privileged compared to many kids that I hear about today, who eat on the fly. My mom was able to stay home to plan and prepare balanced meals, three times a day, seven days a week. We weren't wealthy, she just cut lots of coupons and shopped sales like everyone else. And eating “out” was reserved for special occasions, or, a family owned pizzeria's pizza was delivered with the Sunday night family TV programs. That, incidentally, was also the only time I remember being allowed to drink soda. At home or in most cases, at all. It just wasn’t served to children that much as I remember. Not that those artificially flavored/colored, sugary fruit drinks that left u with brightly colored smile all over your face were much better for us; but even those were not common in our diet. It was OJ and milk for breakfast; milk for lunch and dinner. We were growing kids. We didn’t drink coffee, frozen or otherwise, or soda. It stunted your growth! Ok, ok, but that's what we were told.

I also learned to enjoy a wide variety of vegetables in my meals as a kid. Granted, often they were frozen and not garden fresh; but I lived in my grandmother's apartment building which had a concrete slab for a backyard. We didn’t have a huge garden in our yard from which my mom could pluck fresh our side dishes and salads. (An option I do now have that I find quite cool.)

 

But we were fed everything from Artichokes, thanks to a Sicilian grandma, to Zucchini. We missed a few letters in between like kale, Swiss Chard, turnips, and various others I suppose. But overall, I feel like I developed a wide pallet for produce. And cook as she did, my mom was a simple cook. Not a lot of fancy sauces or seasonings. I knew what Brussels sprouts tasted like, and I liked them! Cabbage was great to me – until they turned it into “sourkraut”! And I remember her growing beans or peas on the chain link fence along the alley and grabbing some on my way out of the gate to go play. That sweet flavor didn’t need any seasoning according to my taste buds.

And, much to the dismay and horror of many, all winter long we scooped the poop of our building’s 3 canine residents right into the usually snow covered opening in the concrete slab that became my mom’s spring garden. The tomato plants, cucumbers and corn she grew didn’t seem to mind that it wasn't on someone's approved list of items "ok to compost". 

The stories about kids’ diets that I hear nowadays though, don’t reflect the same kind of food variety filled options that my memories are full of. Many a modern day kid is seen sipping on a $4 coffee "ice cream shake", or even a regular hot cup of java; soda like it’s water, all while toting a bag of some kind of cardboard-like artificially flavored snack “food” or the less than prime parts of an animal shoved into an artificial casing wrapped in sugary filled dough slathered with preservative filled condiments. (Yes, I've been told I can be a bit dramatic, but I'm making a point.) 

I was recently told about a young boy who was participating in some kind of after-school or summer program and had been asked if he liked squash by one of the adult volunteers. The child looked up, puzzled a bit, and replied, “What’s squash?”.  The adult inquiring probably had the same puzzled look on his face and asked another question of the child about their normal meal contents. To which this child responded that his busy mom would bring home a loaf of bread and “cheese”. He would make himself 2 cheese sandwiches for breakfast, lunch and again at dinner. He did however get to decide whether he wanted mustard or “mayo”.

Wow.

How do our children function on such diets? How do they grow? How are they not sick or full of allergies? How can we expect them to make good food choices later in life?

A diet of no one at home to nurture their mind or body, pretty much sets them up for specific issues later in life. And while many will be able to overcome these issues, many do not. If they’re never taught how to eat properly and why they should want to, much less how to prepare, heck, how to IDENTIFY a vegetable; how can they be expected to do this for themselves as adults. Or, if they have them, for their children? And so the cycle we seem stuck in today, had begun.

We were the first of the “latch-key” kids, learning to grow up on our own without a lot of parental benefits often afforded those with 2 folks around. But at least we had regular food in our fridge to choose from because before she went away, my mom taught me how to cook, make a grocery list and shop for food. Real food. And, they still taught "basic foods and nutrition" in high school. Many kids our age had healthy bodies despite the broken or dysfunctional homes some came from. But when you have neither, a healthy diet or a healthy family of origin, the odds have really been stacked against you. And it’s not always something folks really understand the consequences of until many years later into their lives. If ever.

This is something I feel pretty strongly about and something it seems is only slowly starting to be better understood. While the first 13 years of my childhood were filled with good meals, there were things going on around me that kept me from being able to say I came from a “Walton’s” type family life. And my younger brother, only 7 at the time we earned our place as a statistic, only had me to look to for the limited guidance I could give him regarding life. At least he ate well most of the time, but how could he really absorb a real sense of why it was important to feed himself well if I hadn't really been taught it yet?

At first we thought it was all A-ok to be on our own, because hey, now we could make those cool, sugary pop out of the tube cinnamon rolls for breakfast, whenever we wanted. Not just when it was our birthday or something. (IF our mom even ever made them. This may have been a food we discovered from our Saturday morning cartoon binges, and now shopping unsupervised, took home with us.) But even to us, Chef boy R Dee got old and we remembered certain things we had grown used to eating. Like artichokes and tuna casserole with peas. Our taste buds wouldn't let us get away with this silliness all of the time.

Thankfully, I knew more or less how to cook, and so I did my best to follow old menus my mom had previously used, with the aid of the cookbooks she made margin notes in; most of which are still on my bookshelf today. Artichokes, corn on the cob, green beans, and various other vegetables still adorned my aged 14, 15 year old prepared lunches and dinners. And breakfast was still milk and OJ – even though my brother insisted on Captain Crunch peanut butter cereal a lot. I wasn't really equipped to know how to reason with an 8 year old, so he often got his way.

But what about those kids who aren’t blessed with 13, or even 7 years, of good eating habits and guidance to fall back on? Maybe that six-a-day cheese sandwich child’s mom grew up on microwave popcorn and “cheese-food” sandwiches herself. This is the sort of situation that breaks my heart and makes me cry. Literally. And if I accomplish nothing else with this 14 acres I call Eden's, I will make sure that I do everything I can to show as many children as I can that good food can be just as cool as they think those pop out of a tube rolls and cardboard salt sticks in the shiny foil bags are. Adults, once educated with more information than they may have had previously, usually have a bit more power over their choices. And providing them with opportunities to gather that information is also something on my agenda. But a child is pretty much at the mercy of what’s in the pantry or fridge at home; whether or not he or she knows a cucumber sandwich would be better for them. And if they don't know how to prepare something, they're likely going for that bag of chips - even if it's not the only thing available.

Seeing kids grow up overweight to the point it has critically affected their health, not just their self esteem due to normal childhood teasing, is not fair. And I’m all about fair and justice, remember? At least give someone a chance to do things differently. So many times we choose the easiest solution, instead of the best one. Nothing here against busy moms and cheese sandwiches, but there has to be a better solution than that. Sometimes it takes nudging a person in a different direction, but it takes a community to raise a child. Right?

Our media bombards them at every turn. In our schools, on billboards as they ride down the street on their way to school or soccer practice – fast “food”, snack “food”, and anything other than images of healthy fruits and vegetables, bombard their minds everywhere they turn. If you have not ever been given anything other than false information, how can you be expected to choose differently?

Many kids, and I daresay adults alike, are not only bombarded with negative media about food choices, but are also under constant pressure to “go-go-go” without much time to let their natural instincts even try to kick in and encourage them to go for the apples instead of the fried salty snack. Quiet time is something used as a punishment – not a rewarding opportunity to listen to their little bodies tell them what it wants.

In the spirit of this goal, I have had it as part of my business plan to develop a children’s educational program here at the farm ever since I decided to expand my business from a garden center to an agricultural operation. I always encouraged parents to include their kids in gardening classes, but now I was becoming even more aware of the need to not only teach them to play in the dirt, but to also play in the kitchen with what they pulled out of the dirt. 

So, enter in FARM CAMP. It’s my first attempt, as I am the full time grower here, it's my first opportunity actually, to offer something at a really organized level that is very pro-active towards connecting younger children with food. With nature. With themselves.

The woman who is bringing FARM CAMP to Eden’s this summer has a long history of working with kids, and from what I’ve seen, living at a pace of life that allows one to hear and respond rather than observe and react. I really think this is a great and important first step for not only the farm, but for up to 10 lucky kids who get to be the first ones through this inaugural program. Jennifer will move on to open her own children’s education facility, but my hope is that it has started the momentum towards a full time, year round children’s educational program here at Eden’s that will bring many, many kids face to face with a chicken, a carrot and a squash. Some, for their first time ever.

Seeing the smiles on their faces as they come here to my farm, without fail, brings one to mine. And it does wonders to make those long, hot or cold, wet or thirsty dry, days – worth every uncomfortable minute. 

We borrow this planet for a short time – and leave it to those not even thought about yet. I hope to do my part to not only keep this slice of nature healthy for whoever follows me, but to help bridge that gap of knowledge about a lot of things like healthy eating, that came about whenever our society seemed to stop choosing the solutions that build strong minds, bodies and families and going for easy or convenient, forgoing potential consequences.

Eat Your Food - Naturally!

Marie