Back from Chicago

Photo courtesy of The Art of Seeing

Actually, today's Sunday and I've been back since Friday. But this has been my first opportunity to post. Did you miss me? I missed you!

We had a truly lovely trip to Chicago and there are so many exciting things to tell you about that it is going to take me multiple messages to write about them all.

So, for this message, let me just recap today for you.

Today, I spent a little over 3 hours helping a disabled man (a friend of a friend) move from his apartment to a new house. Lots of fast-paced carrying heavy things up and down stairs. Actually, I had fun. And it was a beautiful sunny day. (Lest you think me overly altruistic, I will get paid for the work. :)

Then, I took the kids out to pick those Transparent Apples mentioned in my last entry. It was my friend Ann's birthday, so it was fun to bring her a card and a few little gifts, including a cabbage from my garden, and some halvah from Pars Persian grocery store in Chicago. Actually, I feel a little guilty about that one. But I have fond memories of halvah, and since she eats sweets anyway... She was excited, as she's never tried it.

Her granddaughter was there spending this week with her, and my kids had a grand time playing hide-and-go-seek with her and feeding the horses apples. Ann's husband Mike spent hours with me picking apples with his antique apple-picker. Basically, an apple-picker is a small wire basket with hooks on it at the end of a long pole. Well, shoot, just check out the picture above and you'll get a pretty good idea of how it works. What fun!

Today's Raw Food

10 a.m. Smoothie with 6 bananas and 2 cups romaine lettuce
1:30 p.m. 2 cups cherries
2:30 p.m. An ear of corn
3:30 p.m.? A couple of Transparent apples
5:45 p.m. Another ear of corn
6:30 p.m. A green smoothie with 5 bananas and 4 cups romaine lettuce
8:30 p.m. 2 large fresh cucumbers

1785 calories, C-P-F 89-6-5

What happened to Friday?

One of the residents of PIGS, a Santuary

I had a busy day yesterday! I took the kids out to the garden in the morning. We saw our farmer friends' 2 new piggies. They're so cute. "Are they going to kill them, Mama?" asked my oldest daughter. She's such a sensitive sweetie.

They tried picking mulberries, but didn't get much. We found a warren of baby rabbits that drowned in the 2 inches of rain we got the other day. The kids were interested to see them and talk about death. They weren't upset, but they did think the maggots and ants eating them were kinda gross.

Then they went and swung on the tire swing.

On the way home, we did a dumpster run. We got a lot of good stuff, but 28 avocados! I was smart enough to give a bunch away. Still, I ended up eating 5 by the end of the day.

I brought the kids home and headed back to the garden to work off some debt to my farmer friend, Phil. At the beginning of the summer, he bought most of my seedlings (with his discount) and sold me his old seeder. I have owed him about $50 forever.

Phil and I weeded side-by-side for about 5 hours, so we had a fun time talking. He's 79 and has had an interesting life. He has been pestering me to "help him" lose 12 pounds--he's not overweight but he does have a spare tire he wants to lose. He has decided to give up sugary drinks like lemonade and sugared juices that his wife makes from plums and other fruit. Talking about food got him telling stories about his travels in the Navy during the Korean War. He was a meteorologist, so he had lots of free time to explore when the ship was docked. He told about the little pizza place with red checkered tablecloths in Hong Kong, and a fancy restaurant on a ship where you could pick your live shrimp out of baskets hung over the side in the ocean water. He said the best meal of his life was in a little hamlet in Hawaii where he got a big lobster dinner and lots of drinks for $2.

I worked hard in the garden until sundown and didn't get home until almost 10 p.m. I should have gone to bed, but instead, I started eating guacamole. Naughty me.

My food

10:30 a.m. 5 bananas, 3 cups romaine
1 p.m. 3 cups romaine, 1 avocado, a dressing made with avocado, grape tomatoes, orange pepper, celery, and a tiny bit of onion, more celery for dipping
6 p.m. 1/2 cup raspberries
9 p.m. About 2 cups sugar snap peas
10 p.m. 3 mashed avocados, lime juice, and a little onion powder with 3 large stalks of celery to dip

* A note: My 2 year-old dumped the last of our expensive unheated Utah red salt. So, we're off the salt (for good?!?).

2260 calories, C-P-F 44-6-50 (Yikes!)

Exercise

1 plank, 1 set of tricep dips, 2 pushups

Butterfly Farm

This morning, my children and I headed out to meet an acquaintance and her dog at Butterfly Farm, a restored prairie with walking paths about 15 miles north of us. This farmland was purchased by an eco-friendly couple of city transplants, Jerry and Esther Lott. They built the imitation barn home pictured above and restored the prairie themselves. After their recent deaths, both from cancer, they donated the land to a nonprofit that has an adjacent bike trail. Now it is open to the public, but no one really knows about it yet, so we had the whole beautiful place all to ourselves.

At first, the children all whined in concert. This was a bit irritating and embarrassing, as we were with this woman who is childless, and I didn't know what to expect of her reaction. She was quite laid back, thankfully, and we found our way into a wood along the edge of the property, where the children cooled off. The girls began to have fun.

We saw lots of fascinating insects and beautiful butterflies. The adults and the dog caught sight of a chipmunk, but the kids couldn't sight it among the underbrush. I am so enamored with foraging now that I was quite excited to see massive amounts of elderberries in bloom.

After walking over a mile and listening to my oldest whine nonstop, the woman finally found a way to distract my son. They began inventing ice cream sundaes. My son wanted to put tic-tacs and chocolate chips in his. The conversation went on and on, and I felt a bit of discomfort, but less than I felt when he was whining. And, it inspired me to make banana-mint "ice cream" when we got home with some of my grapefruit mint leaves from the backyard. It was a hit!

Today's Food

8:30 a.m. About 12 cups watermelon

11:30 a.m. Banana-mint ice-cream (about 4 frozen bananas and 6 mint leaves)

1 p.m. About 1/2 cup mulberries and 1 1/2 cups red raspberries while picking

5:30 p.m. 8 small dried figs, 2 Medjool dates, some shredded zucchini "pasta" with a sauce made from Roma tomatoes, an orange pepper, a little basil and onion powder, and a date for sweetening, about 1 cup iceberg lettuce

8 p.m. Some broccoli from my garden, 4 medium strawberries, more figs and 4 dates

9 p.m. About 2 cups watermelon

About 2350 calories, C-P-F 90-5-5

(This is day 6 of overeating emotionally. Come on, let's get it together!)

Today's Exercise

About 75 minutes of slow walking

July Food Expenses

Photo from the Greensboro News-Record

This month's goals are to reduce our spending on groceries and gasoline. We plan to take fewer trips to the grocery store and to limit 90% of our grocery spending to local foods and bananas.


Grocery Receipts

7/1 Cub Foods, $5.52, 6 gallons reverse osmosis water, 1 12 oz. package cherries
7/2 Freeport Food Co-op (United Foods International), $63.99, 5 lbs. organic raw hulled sunflower seeds, 8 lbs. organic Medjool dates, 2 10 oz. bags organic frozen cherries, 4 rolls recycled toilet paper
7/3 Chana Outdoor Auction, $13, 2 huge watermelons and 1 large muskmelon
7/5 Aldi $6.06, 10 lbs. bananas, 2 lbs romaine hearts
7/6 Cub Foods, $6.42, 9 gallons reverse osmosis water, 1 1/2 lbs. Fuji apples, 1 bunch organic celery
7/6 320 Store (purchased by a friend), $5, Mission figs
7/6 Farmer's Market, $10.75, tomatoes, eggs (for the cat), Crispy Mint lettuce, cucumbers
7/7 Cub Foods, $3.52, 12 oz. frozen cherries
7/10 Cub Foods, $3, 9 gallons water
7/10 Aldi, $4.47, 5 lbs. bananas, 3 lbs. oranges
7/12 local chicken for the cat, $5
7/13 Woodman's Market, $71.08, 4 mangoes, 14 lbs. organic bananas, 6 lbs. organic apples, 3 12 oz. packages organic dates, 4 organic kiwis, 2 large honeydew melons, 3 seedless watermelon, 2 lbs. sunflower seeds, 2 lbs. raw cashews
7/13 Walgreens, $3, raisins
7/14 Cub Foods, $3, 6 gallons reverse osmosis water, 3 oz. cinnamon
7/14 Freeport Farmer's Market, $9, iceberg lettuce, raspberries, blackberries, tomatoes
7/16 Aldi, $23.93, 10 nectarines, 20 lbs. bananas, 9 lbs. Gala apples, 1 large pineapple, 1 cantaloupe
7/16 Sav-A-Lot,$9.48, 1 seedless watermelon, almost 1 lb. plums, almost 3 lbs. of ripe bananas, 3.5 lbs. peaches
7/16 Cub Foods, $30.75, 2 large seeded watermelon, 8 lbs. bing cherries, 1 cantaloupe, 1 honeydew, 2 bunches organic celery
7/16 Cub Foods (my husband), $8.97, 3 12 oz. bags frozen mango
7/18 Cub Foods, $5.56, 6 gallons reverse osmosis water, 3 lbs. Fuji apples
7/19 Devon Market, $22.17, 8 ears corn, 4 ripe mangos, 2 packages dried figs, 1 package fresh green figs, 1 package fresh Black Mission figs, 1 head baby bok choy, 1 young coconut, 1 large container Deglet Noor Dates
7/19 Pars Persian Store, $11.65, 2 lbs. Medjool dates, 1 package halvah (gift), 1 can Iraqi date syrup (gift)
7/19 Cousin's Incredible Vitality (raw restaurant), $73.38, 5 All-You-Can Eat "Salad" Bars, 1 flax pizza, 2 different smoothies (both with raw cacao), gratuity
7/19 Whole Foods, $3.27, fresh lychee
7/20 Whole Foods, $30.60, 6 Lara Bars, 2 Raw Revolution bars, 3 lbs. fresh lychee, 1 lb. Southern Rose apples
7/23 Huron Market (roadside stand), bicolor sweet corn, $4--seller claimed it was locally-grown, but others have raised doubts
7/23 Cub Foods, $3, 9 gallons reverse osmosis water
7/24 Aldi, $2.55, 5 lbs. bananas, 1 honeydew melon
7/25 CVS Pharmacy, $10.06, Roasted cashews, Honey-Roasted Peanuts, 2 Dove bars with Almonds (my husband was on a cheating spree--we ended giving the nuts away, but he ate the chocolate)
7/26 My farmer friend Phil, $5, 5 lbs. raw peanuts bought from a local feed elevator
7/27 Cub Foods, $13.36, 5 lbs. organic bananas, large Crenshaw melon, 6 oz. organic raisins, 2 organic nectarines
7/27 Roadside stand, $12, 13 ears corn, a quart of nectarines, a large muskmelon
7/28 Farmer's Market, $10, 24 ears corn, 2 lbs. sugar snap peas (purchased by my son with his own money)
7/28 Cub Foods, $2, 6 gallons reverse osmosis water
7/29 Sullivan's, $14.12, 4 muskmelons, 2 seedless watermelon (melons grown in Indiana)
7/31 Aldi Foods, $10.92, 6 lbs. Gala apples, 2 honeydew melons, 4 nectarines

Total: $432.75

Free Food

7/1 Aldi dumpster, 1 pineapple, 4 D 'Anjou pears, 1 orange pepper, 1 unripe mango, 5 limes, approx. $7.23, other food not counted because it was given away
7/2 Red and black raspberries from a friend's house, approx. $12
7/3 Black raspberries from the roadside, approx. $2
7/5 Red and black raspberries and mulberries from friends' houses, approx. $6
7/5 Gift of dumpstered food from a friend, 2 heads iceberg and 6 Roma tomatos, approx. $4
7/5 Aldi dumpster, 16 limes, 6 lbs. strawberries, approx. $12
7/6 Aldi dumpster, 4 D 'Anjou pears, 5 heads iceberg lettuce, 4 zucchini, 2 pints grape tomatoes, 16 avocadoes (got 27, but wisely gave some away), 8 lbs. Roma tomatoes, 8 lbs. oranges, 1 lime, approx. $46.62, other food not counted because it was given away
7/6 Gift of apricots, $5
7/7 Aldi dumpster, 50 lbs. very ripe bananas, approx. $16.50
7/7 Gifts of raspberries, sugar snap and shell peas, approx. $5
7/8 Gift of raspberries, approx. $2
7/9 Gift of dumpstered romaine lettuce, approx. $9.52
7/10 Aldi dumpster, 50 lbs. ripe bananas, 5 cantaloupes, 3 lbs. Granny Smith apples, 2 lbs. Red Delicious apples, 2 lbs. strawberries, approx. $35.61
7/11 Aldi dumpster, 3 lbs. Vidalia onions, 2 cantaloupe, $6.50, plus more given away
7/11 Gift of raspberries, $2
7/12 Aldi dumpster, 10 lbs. red grapes, $13.45
7/12 Mother-in-law's garden, cucumbers and sugar snap peas, $10
7/16 Mother-in-law's garden, sugar snap peas, cucumbers, $10
7/16 Aldi dumpster, 3 colored peppers, 1 lime, $3
7/16 Community garden, iceberg lettuce, basil, $3
7/20 Gift of dumpstered food, 6 bags prewashed salad greens, 2 cantaloupes, $14.38
7/20 Aldi dumpster, 3 colored peppers, $1.99, other food given away
7/22 Mother-in-law's garden, 4 large cucumbers, $1.56
7/22 Gift of apples, White transparent and red/green unknown variety, maybe 50 lbs.?, $75.00
7/23 Gift of cantaloupe, $1.19
7/24 Aldi dumpster, 6 pineapples, 6 lbs. green grapes, 8 cantaloupes, 5 packages celery, 5 colored peppers, 1 pint grape tomatoes, 8 heads iceberg lettuce, $48.21
7/26 Aldi dumpster, 4 D'Anjou pears, 2 quarts strawberries, 2 lbs. green grapes, $9.67
7/27 Aldi dumpster, 20 lbs. overripe bananas, 8 colored peppers, $12.12
7/27 Foraging, blackberries and chokecherries, $5
7/30 Aldi dumpster, 2 heads iceberg lettuce, 3 limes, $3
7/31 Aldi dumpster, 40 lbs. bananas, $14

Total: $361.55

Garden Produce (Charging ourselves value we would get at Farmer's Market)

7/3 Endive $0.50
7/4 Endive $1
7/7 Kale, snow peas $4
7/8 Endive, snow peas $3
7/9 Endive, snow peas, sugar snap peas, mint $5
7/10 Endive, purple pepper, snow peas, sugar snap peas, mint $4
7/11 Kale, snow peas, sugar snap peas, mint $3
7/12 Endive, snow peas, sugar snap peas, lettuce, mint $3
7/13 Purple peppers, sugar snap peas, shell peas, mint $3
7/16 Endive, purple peppers, $1
7/20 Snow peas, shell peas, sugar snap peas, tomatoes, $12
7/21 Snow peas, shell peas, sugar snap peas, tomatoes, yellow french filet beans, $15
7/23 Sugar snap peas, snap beans (various types), yellow zucchini, $12
7/24 Shell peas, tomatoes, snap beans (various types, given away as a gift), cucumber, $16
7/26 Sugar snap peas, yellow french filet beans, Dragon Langerie beans, green beans, tomatoes, 1 purple pepper $12
7/27 Sugar snap peas, yellow french filet beans, 1 yellow summer squash, 1 zucchini, 1 overly large cucumber, a few cherry tomatoes, $6
7/28 Sugar snap peas, $6
7/29 Sugar snap peas, purple pepper, green beans, summer squash, $6
7/31 Endive, tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, yellow french filet beans, Dragon Langerie beans, summer squash, $12
Total: $115.50

Garden Expenses

7/16 Evergreen Y.H. Enterprises, various Oriental vegetable seeds for fall planting, $14.90
7/31 Fall plants--broccoli, cauliflower, bartered for work in Phil's garden
Total: $14.90

Farmer's Market Income

7/6 $5.00
7/9 $7.50 (sold to a local bakery)
7/14 $8.00
7/21 $6.00
7/28 $10.00
7/31 $7.50 (sold to a local bakery)

Total: $36.50

Voting with my grocery dollars

Some of you may not be aware that I have been painstakingly recording our monthly grocery intake and dollar out-go every day in a post entitled June Food Expenses. Those of you who love to see what I get out of the dumpster and my garden will be really interested in that post.

Since today is the last day of June, I'd like to summarize our purchasing (and foraging) habits and reflect on how they impact our health and the health of our planet.

Total Grocery Receipts: $645.77

Estimated value of Free Food We Obtained This Month: $575.67

Estimated Value of Food We Grew This Month: $57.00

Total Consumption For a Family of 5 plus 1 Cat on a Raw Diet: $1278.44

This works out to $42.61 per day.

At first glance, this seems like an overwhelming number, but there are some mitigating factors to consider.

First, we spent a grand total of $135.81 on cat food for Bart, who we are transitioning to a raw diet. Much of this food is still in the freezer and though we will have continued expenses in future months, this amount will greatly decrease in upcoming months. Subtracting this amount from our total grocery receipts would make our total out-of-pocket expenditures for our 5 humans a total $509.96, much less than we spent before we discovered the amazing combo of raw food AND dumpster diving, when our average was more like $850.

Second, we spent $16.01 on non-raw food. This expense won't continue.

Third, this amount includes paying $0.33 per gallon for the water we drink. In June, we purchased 45 gallons of water. This may not be a concern for families who have water purification systems (or access to a clean spring). Our family spent only $470.10 on raw human food this month.

Finally, we have a large quantity of food remaining in the fridge and the freezer. This "inventory" is always in flux at our house and after months of tracking our expenses, it will balance out and we will be able to see our patterns of consumption more clearly.

$470.10 is NOT too much to invest in optimal health. For that matter, neither is $1278.44, if you have that kind of money to spend. (Check your budget. How much is spent on medications and out-of-pocket health bills? How much do you spend eating out, drinking alchohol or pop, and consuming processed junk foods? How much of your budget is spent on entertainment or luxury items? Are you sure you can't afford some fruit? :)

How do our spending habits affect the health of the planet? This question is so important to me, as I want my children and their children, and all children for that matter, to have the benefit of living in a clean, healthy, beautiful place.

One issue I am particularly interested in is consuming a high percentage of my food from local sources. Buying locally supports my local economy. It means that my food is fresher, healthier, and requires many less resources to deliver to my plate. I can meet (or be) the person who grew the food and have some influence on their practices. This month, $274 of local foods were consumed in my household. This equates to 21% of our total food consumption. However, if each dollar is a "vote" then the picture changes. Because of my gardening and foraging practices, many of our local foods were not "purchases." (Of course, by dumpster diving, much of our non-local consumption was also not purchased.) This means we only spent $35 purchasing food from local producers. This equates to 8% of our actual dollars spent on food.

Another issue is our support of organic (or better) agriculture. Conventional agriculture is doing so much damage to our ecosystem and our bodies, I feel exhausted just thinking about explaining it. In The 80-10-10 Diet, Dr. Graham says that choosing between cooked organic food and raw non-organic food is like "choosing whether to shoot oneself in the foot or shoot oneself in the hand." Unfortunately, though much of the produce we purchase locally is not sprayed with pesticides, much of it is not organic either. Many of the local producers use commercial fertilizer and/or use non-organic seed or seedlings (I do this one myself). Our source of local free-range eggs does feed some commercial chicken food to her chickens.

In our area, organic produce is difficult to find. Certain items are never available--watermelon, for example, or are available for short periods of time (grapes). The cost is quite high, usually at least twice that of conventional produce, and the quality is sometimes poorer. I believe that we will continue to improve our supply only if we demand it and build it. I plan to document my family's moves in this direction in the coming months! This month, we consumed $119.75 in organics, but only $42.78 in actual expenditures (or dollar votes, as I like to call them).

Finally, if you visited the June Food Expenses post, you will note that we went to the store virtually every day this month. This is RIDICULOUS. Sometimes, we went because we were going to our garden and it was on the way, but many times, we were making trips specifically to go to the store. Several days, we actually went to the store more than once. Surely, better planning next month will result in less pollution coming from our tailpipe and less money leaking from our wallet.

Next month, we plan to trim our expenditures by only purchasing bananas, cat food, and water at the grocery store. We will purchase everything else at the Farmer's Market, harvest it from our garden, or get it out of the dumpster.

Gooseberries

Picture found on Wikipedia.com

I went to bed at a proper hour last night, so I didn't get a chance to blog about my day. Imagine that. So here's what happened yesterday.

The weather was nice and cool so my husband worked a bit longer at his painting job than he normally does. This gave me a chance to work on some housework, something I haven't done in ages, it seems. My husband has been taking care of things quite nicely while I've been gardening, but it was nice to scrub the kitchen and hang out some laundry myself.

When he returned, I headed to a friend's house with the girls to pick more raspberries. Mmmmm. Not many came home. My friend is one of my dumpster diving converts and so she also shared some of her dumpster finds with me--peppers, tomatoes, red grapes, and more.

My son has been suffering from some cleansing symptoms, so he rested on the couch all day and read books and slept. My daughter had a similar bout last week, so we all know it will pass. :) For some reason, he became obsessed with wanting to know how big the longest shrimp in the world is--maybe this was inspired by the full-color flier for Long John Silver's I found under his pillow? Anyway, you might like to know that the largest variety of shrimp in the world is the Black Tiger shrimp, which averages 21 centimeters in length, but a fisherman in Colombia caught one that was 40 centimeters long! Check it out here http://www.local6.com/problemsolvers/8755909/detail.html

I headed to my garden in the afternoon and did more weeding and replanted some okra where I didn't get good germination. My garden looks better every day and it is especially nice to have the cool weather to work in this week.

On my way home, I checked out a wild place near my friend's house to see if I could find any ripe berries. I tried some ripe gooseberries for the first time! I can see why they're mainly used in pies. Not bad but bland and somewhat tart at the same time and with a sort of strange consistency. Not something I'd go out of my way to pick again.

Yesterday's Food

12 p.m. About 3 cups black and red raspberries

2 p.m. 5 medium bananas

5 p.m. A few gooseberries, black raspberries, and mulberries

5:30 p.m. Salad with iceberg and endive, half an avocado, and a salsa made with grape tomatoes, zucchini, onion, cilantro, lime juice and a few sprinkles of spices and salt

8 p.m. Another salad with purslane and green leaf lettuce and more salsa

Approx. 1500 calories, C-P-F 80-8-12

No formal exercise.

Is Greenmama Crazy?

Yes, folks, that's exactly what you think it is... jars of urine in my lovely leaded glass window. Following Jgunn's advice, I have started sprinkling my urine around my garden in an attempt to discourage the groundhogs and the rabbits who are wreaking havoc on all of my tender greens. Is it working? Well, if it's working on some of the critters, I don't know. But it's not working on all of them. Maybe my raw vegan pee isn't stinky enough to scare them. Or maybe I just don't have all right places "watered"--it is a pretty big garden! Pretty soon, I'm going to have to start camping out there! (By the way, before I get any more tips, I have already tried moth balls, Irish Spring soap, and other deterrents. Next year, I plan to invest in a fence.)

Yesterday, I did rest and fast as planned, although I chose to break my fast in the evening and eat a bit. I slept in until 12:30 in the afternoon! I haven't done that (except when very ill) since I've had children. I am feeling better.

Today, I spent a solid 6 hours weeding my corn. I wish I could say I was finished. I also had a fun time picking red and black raspberries with my daughters and planting beans with my son.

This weekend, my husband and I discovered that our son had been convincing neighbor children to give him junk food and he had a major stash hidden in his room. After talking with him, we decided to institute a reward system. If he is able to go one week without eating junk food, he will get a Transformer. He is very excited. I am not sure this is the right way to go, but it seems more productive than our earlier attempts, which included long talks and grounding him when he broke the rules. He understands why we eat the way we do and he agrees with it, but he is just simply compulsively drawn (one might say, addicted) to white flour and sugar.

Today's Food

10 a.m. 4 cups iceberg lettuce, 4 blended bananas over the top
12 p.m. 3 cups red and black raspberries, while picking
5:30 p.m. Some purslane while weeding in the garden, 1 Greek fig (a present)
7 p.m. 4 cups iceberg lettuce, 1 cup raspberries, 8 bananas (4 blended for salad dressing, 4 blended for "ice cream")

Approx. 1700 calories

*I have not lost any weight since June 5th, people. I need to get back on the exercise wagon ASAP!