Olympic!

It's SO exciting to see the Summer Olympics getting started in London. Seriously?! It's here already? It's like Christmas. There's nothing like the global atmosphere of the Olympic games. People are literally drawn together all around the globe to watch the same events and learn about each others' star athletes. Seeing all of it makes me want to begin to achieve something.

This summer, I've begun working towards readiness for a triathlon in September. Anyone who wants to join me is welcome. I am not ready yet, but am more so than I was a few months ago. I want to run a half-marathon next summer. I am hoping to tackle the covered bridge half marathon in Vermont on June 2, 2013. I will be ready! For the first time, I am running longer and farther each time, and I have no pain in my shins, knees, hips, or ankles. It's wonderful! I used to absolutely hate (and I am not talking, kinda dislike, but passionately loathe) running. I played tennis in high school and when the coach would send us on a run, I would walk most of it and if I ran more than a block, my knees hurt, I couldn't catch my breath, and I just felt hate in my little heart. Before my wedding, I decided I needed to get in shape (as many a bride is wont to do), and thought running might be my best bet. So I started out with what felt like a HUGE goal to run for 3 minutes without stopping. I made it for one minute. Sad, yes, but true nonetheless. I ran one minute for three days in a row, nearly dying each time. Then, I got this crazy idea to increase it to three minutes. I ran three minutes twice in a row (meaning two days in a row) and barely succeeded. Then, I decided to add a minute every time I ran. It turned out so manageable. Some days, I didn't succeed in adding anything, but I felt good to be running 5 or 7 or whatever number of minutes. Also, counting it in time rather than distance made it SO much more achievable. If it was a slow day and running just wasn't my cuppa tea, I could "jog" at a pitiful 4 miles per hour, but if it was a good day, I'd crank the ol' treadmill up to a whopping 5 mph and I'd really cruise. Well, by my wedding, I was running more than 30 minutes each day and I was heading up towards 6 miles per hour. And I must have ramped up slowly enough to avoid injury because I was running in an old pair of converse shoes and never had any pain. Then, I had my honeymoon and life started, and I stopped running, and when I got back on the treadmill, I had excruciating pain in my shins.

I gave up running for a year and then decided, out of the blue, to do my first 5k. It was incredible. I sucked, but it was so amazing to cross the finish line. I have never felt like I did that day. I became addicted to running, though my physique was addicted to food and my couch. I registered for more 5ks and started running indoors. I began to push myself (frustrated to be starting at square one again) and then the next time, running would hurt. My shins were so painful it hurt to walk sometimes and they would keep me up at night. So, I iced them and elevated them after every run, and still they persisted.

Over the last year, I have had so much going on that running has fallen out of focus in my life until just recently. These past few months, I found it back on my radar. I decided to start facing down my giant of running outdoors. Sounds dumb, I know, but I hate running outside. I prefer the predictability and control of a treadmill. I like the feedback and the ability to stop whenever I want.

Until now. This summer, our car broke on us. I can still drive some, but I feel bad taking the car to the gym when I don't have to drive her. (Yes, our car is a girl, her name is Bonnie. Cars should have names and personalities, I think.) So, I began this insane thing of running outside. In the heat. Up hills. Without any ability to stop whenever I want. And I learned that running outside pushes me more and makes me better than running inside. I have started to enjoy running outside. I am so flabberghasted to love running, enjoy running outside, enjoy exercise, and be able to lose weight, I wouldn't be wildly surprised if the next thing I know, I find out I am a natural-born mathmetician. Haah. That'd be the day. I'd rather conquer running than math.

Back on track, I am hoping to run a full marathon the summer after next, in 2014. And then I want to run a long, challenging race each year to keep me committed to my goals. Next time I see June 2, I will be taking down some challenges I used to think would beat me. I am learning that I have a fierce heart and I am a competitor. I challenge myself to win.

Future Vintner

I am already getting excited for next summer's garden. I am ready to apply the things I've been learning this year (for example, tomatillos are great producers, but they need a cage, just like tomatoes, or they fall over and break) and make new strides as well.

Next year, I will make an official "berry patch" section of the garden. It'll be complete with blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries, perhaps also some boysenberries and a red currant bush. I also plan to purchse a pear tree, peach tree, and some variety of apple. I am beginning to be able to visualize my yard at its completion, and it's fun. Well, along the back wall of my garden, I plan to install a grape trellis and permanent grape vines. So, I am on the hunt for excellent wine-making grapes. I want to be able to make (not tons, but a little) white and red wine. I've been looking up recipes for making herb-based wines, as well, and might attempt a lavender wine. I have SO much lavender in the yard, and I am planning to plant more when I get the garden landscaped the way I want it. All in time, yes, but each day is a little slice of time. :)

Some day, I'd love to have a real chunk of land in the mountains and be able to grow our own small vineyard and make wine from the grapes there, maybe even sell a little. Who knows.

I've also found a great website that seems to have all the supplies and information on how to make wine, as well as some delicious sounding wines that are made by this company. It's called Midwest Supplies Home Brewing and Wine Making.

I'd love to also get to know a local beekeeper and help with the work of keeping bees so I can harvest some fresh honey and bottle our own mead. Oh, this could be so much fun. Next year seems to be the year to put things away and plan for the future.

This post is primarily intended to be a reference-point so I know where to look when I am looking for my wine-making information. If it's helpful to you, then YAY!

Learning about canning

I am planning ahead right now, but thought I'd post about it. I have none of the necessary supplies for canning. That's okay. :) I am researching things and learning what I should do, what I will need, and how it's done. I think we're going to purchase a used (from Craigslist) deep freezer to store on our back porch (it's "finished"). That way, when things become ready in the garden, I can just go out there and pick them, prepare them, and freeze them. Things like okra, asparagus, and peppers (sliced and frozen, they work out well). But things like the remaining greens at the end of the growing season, pumpkins, corn, tomatoes, tomatillos...well, I will turn those into cooked things (tomato sauche, mashed pumpkin that's ready to be made into pie, tomatillo salsa, etc) and freeze the cooked products.

Next year, I'll probably can things like tomato sauce, tomatillo salsa, pumpkin, etc. Ah well. For now, I'm planning ahead.

I purchased the picture-filled canning cookbook: Canning For A New Generation: Bold, Fresh Flavors for the Modern Pantry and I have loved it! I haven't made anything from it yet, but I will! It has more global canning recipes that seem to suit the cooking palates of my generation very well. I am also looking at another, slightly more traditional, but updated nonetheless, cookbook for canning by Ball. It is the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving.

It seems to compliment the "Canning for a New Generation" book very well and together, they compile a complete canning guide for anything I could want to can.

We shall see where this takes me.

I found a useful website as well with some tips on canning and an easy-for-beginners recipe for apple jelly. http://www.grit.com/garden/preserving/guide-to-canning-food.aspx?newsletter=1&page=4

This is where I am starting and I will just keep collecting information as it becomes pertinent.

Food Research

This video is called "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead" and it's a large part of what started my investigation into food and how it could work with my body. It's also where I got the idea of a juice-fast from. And this guy is impressive for what he does and the other people he inspires. It's very challenging to do something like this from home and without stopping life around you. Everyone wants to hang out and get together, and let me tell you, there are FEW occasions when Americans gather without gathering around food. It's like trying to run and having tons of little threads tied to you. It's much harder.

There's also "The Future of Food" which gives a lot of information, actually, about the history of food and how we've gotten to where we are today. I love this documentary because it makes a lot of pieces fit together better. Again, this is an excerpt, but I think the whole video can be found on Hulu.com or Amazon.com in instant videos. Definitely worth the time it takes to watch. Very informative.

Okay, yes, now I am learning about myself that I am a food nerd. I love learning new things about food and nutrition and applying those things to my diet. My recent discoveries revolve around dairy and eggs. I have grown frustrated lately walking into the store and seeing products that are made by animals and having no idea where those animals come from, what the labels on the products really mean, and what the practices are at those places, let alone how long things have been idling on store shelves. Somehow, buying natural products in a climate-controlled, flourescent-light-filled building has started to feel really weird to me. It makes sense to do that in the winter when produce cannot be locally grown, but in the summer? And certain products have just begun to make so little sense to me, I can't keep it up. We've been avoiding buying milk and eggs at the store lately because I've asked to have a little time to do some research before we start up again.

Well, the research has been done, and of course, there will always be more, but for now, a satisfactory verdict has been reached. So, I wanted to know what the chickens were being fed, where they lived, and how they were handled. I did just enough research to become thoroughly mentally scarred and determined to gain a better understanding. I learned that organic chicken farmers usually don't raise their own chicks from eggs. They buy them from chick farmers who sort out the boy chicks. The boys are then either thrown (alive) into a grinder and ground up for meat in dog foods and such, or are put in a plastic bag and just thrown out with the trash. I also learned that "cage free" just means that the chickens are given a certain amount of floor space per chicken, not that they're free-range. They are usually kept in an indoor area and are given very little in the way of space (I think it's something like 3 square feet per bird) and live their entire life indoors.

Then we get to cows (used for milk). What they're fed is incredibly important. Many American dairy and meat cattle are fed grains and corn. While that sounds fine, their bodies aren't made to handle it. Thus, all the talk about cattle with or without antibiotics. So, often, our meat and dairy products will be labeled as antibiotic-free. The important piece of the puzzle, then, becomes what they eat. If the animals are eating mostly grains and soy and corn, but they are not being given antibiotics, it's really cruel because they will get sick, but won't be given antibiotics. So, someone who is very intent on eliminating excess antibiotics from their diet and doing so in the healthiest way will do best by finding cattle that are fed a grass diet. An all-grass diet is best, but hard to find. Mostly grass is also good. Free-range cattle are best, but often hard to find because the farmer would need to own a decent bit of land and specialize in more than just cattle. There's an excellent farmer who sets an example in "Food Inc."--a movie I strongly recommend everyone watch. We are all eaters, we vote 3 times a day with our food choices. This video exposes how mono-cultural our diet has become. Very intriguing.

I believe that information is very powerful. This information sent me on a journey to find a solution. I no longer wanted to reach out and take a gallon of milk with no idea of its actual source. I no longer wanted to feel completely blind behind the mask of marketing and the claims made on labels. I scoured local dairies in Northern Colorado, I called the top few I found and have some interesting findings. I'll intersperse my information with some really interesting food information resources.

Another food documentary that is not so much shocking as it is empowering is "Food Matters." Included here is just an excerpt, but I would highly recommend watching the entire thing. It's really excellent. Not every opinion in here jives with what I think makes sense, but it is very interesting to consider, nonetheless.

My top-pick local dairy for the Denver area is Johnson Acres. They are local, they deliver to ten areas in the Denver Metro area, one of which is just 2 miles from my home. All cattle are always completely grass-fed. (Many people who keep cattle will raise them on grass and "finish" them with corn or soy which means at least 6 months to a year of corn or soy to "fatten them up" or give them the calories to produce more milk.) Johnson Acres cattle are alternated through different pasture areas to allow the pasture to re-grow and keep the cattle healthy (they don't end up consuming their own waste as a result of being left in the same pasture too long). This dairy is fantastic. There are two reasons we're not ordering milk from them right now. 1) There is a waiting list for getting onto their delivery route. To me, that's a good sign, being able to stop obtaining new customers when they are at capacity. But sad, because we can't even try their stuff yet. 2) Their milk is only delivered raw. There is not pasteurization. In my opinion, that's a fine thing if the milk is handled very carefully. This dairy farm has certain very strict guidelines for the quality of their milk. This dairy also sells poultry raised on the farm and beef, etc. Jason is not so sure. So, for now, we're using a different dairy.

We got our first delivery from Longmont Dairy yesterday. The milk is delivered in glass containers that are reusable. It tastes amazing! The cattle are fed a majority of their diet in hay and grasses, which is excellent, and they are not left hooked up to milking machines all day, but spend all their free time in a large pen with plenty of space. It's not the same a large, grassy fields, but much better than cattle that can't walk because they spend literally all their time stuck in the milk farm. We're really pleased with this dairy. They do pasteurize their milk and deliver directly to our house. We can add things to our order whenever we want, and they deliver our favorite yogurt, Noosa. Eventually, I think we'll go the route of pursuing a milk share (where you buy into ownership of a cow with a one-time fee, and therefore it is legal for you to obtain raw milk from those cows). For now, however, this works excellently.

As far as eggs go, I found a guy just a couple miles down the road from us who raises chickens from eggs in his yard and sells the eggs. We went and toured his egg facility and were able to see all the hens, roosters, turkeys, quail, pheasant, etc. that he keeps. It was really excellent to be able to actually see the birds and to know that the eggs are fresh. Upon getting them home, we found that the eggs were blue, green, white, brown, and slightly speckled. It was lovely. They cook up really nicely and have very orange yolks that stand up a bit taller and are larger than others I have had before. The farmer's name is Rick and his phone number is (303) 324-3567. I found him on Craigslist and contacted him. He's looking to sell about 20 dozen more eggs per week. If anyone would like me to pick up eggs for them, I am happy to do so and you can pick them up from my house. They're $4 per dozen. I am actually on my way out the door now to go pick up some more eggs for the coming week.

I also found useful the documentary, "Forks Over Knives" which states the importance of a plant-based diet. I don't think I'll be becoming a vegetarian any time, but this really suggests the critical role of moderation and appropriate portions where animal-based foods are concerned. Animal-based food is not necessary to live, though it does round out our omnivorous diets nicely. This has made me re-evaluate how much meat and animal products I use on a regular basis. A very interesting documentary. I've taken to watching things I agree with and don't agree with. I certainly don't agree with everything that's said in these videos, but find it thought-provoking. I really enjoy researching things, and especially familiarizing myself with other people's opinions (provided they are well-thought-out and well-presented). This documentary also gives some good information about how food affects our health. We spend SO much money (as a country) on medical treatments and prescriptions, but want to get cheap food. Perhaps it should be the other way around.

This next video is "The Gerson Miracle." It was recommended to me by my upstairs neighbor who follows these principles. It started me thinking about food as more than just something to do, or something that tastes good. I think the entire philosophy in this video is a bit hard to swallow, but the idea is very thought-provoking. I am leery of anything that calls itself a "miracle" just because it smacks a bit of Snake Juice or something along those lines. And yet...it's quite something to think about.

The final video for thought today is called "Vegucated." It's about some people who decide to take a challenge to live a vegan lifestyle for a while and what they learn through this experience. I honestly don't think I would ever become vegan, but still found the information that is presented to be very interesting. Hope you do, too. Just "food for thought," hope you enjoy perusing it. And check out the dairy and egg farms we've discovered.

Where do I land on these ideas? I think I line up well with author and researcher, Michael Pollan, who wrote The Omnivore's Dilemma, In Defense of Food, The Botany of Desire, and many other books. His main point is this: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly Plants." I think that is very sensible, but much more difficult than it should be. What is food? Well, if you've watched even one of the above videos, you are probably a bit shell-shocked about what food is. I did this research (and am continuing by reading about ten different books--yes I read more than one book at a time), while I started a garden in my back yard. Gardening and healthy eating are good friends; concepts that get along with each other well. I am continuing this and my goal is that I will become more conscious of what my food choices are, why I make the ones I do, and re-evaluate them as necessary. Also, as Michael Pollan says, I won't be afraid of food. I won't become afraid of making the wrong choices and get caught up in that fear. I will just become conscious. It's like waking up. It feels good.

I'll probably be adding a page to my blog soon about the different resources I have found and used to help me understand food better.

My birthday and an awesome local find

We found the most awesome little pizzeria on my birthday. It's called Kaos Pizza and it's on Pearl St. in Denver (near DU). We went looking for an old favorite restaurant, but found it had closed, so we found this little gem instead. The food was unbelievable! It's a 100% locally-sourced restaurant (and apparently, they are the only one in the Denver area, surprisingly) with fresh food, a lovely atmosphere, and friendly staff. I could spend every afternoon just soaking up the feel of that place. But I would soak up a lot of pizza and wine, too, and that would be bad for my waistline and the concept of a juice fast. Ah, well.

 This picture was taken under the leafy arbor where we ate. The chair back you can see in front of me is at our table. They have misters running to keep it cool out here. Having my sense of smell for my birthday meant this was a really excellent place to hang out. Everything smelled really good and clean and natural. It's been 11 years since I could smell on my birthday. This was such a welcome experience. I really do attribute it to the juice fast. I decided to go ahead and eat for my birthday. So, we went out for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It was really fun. We were planning to eat salads, but each restaurant Jason had planned to take me to didn't work out for one reason or another. So, I ate a veggie/egg dish from Blue Sky Cafe in Golden for breakfast (Blue Sky runs a double-business by having a rastaurant in the morning and a yoga studio in the afternoon. Their food is really good and really good for your body, too.)

Then there was this incredible place for lunch. Sorry for all the pictures of me. Jason wouldn't take pictures without me in them. I feel a bit over-present on this post. This is the garlic bread and the most excellent pasta sauce we've ever tasted. We bought a gallon of it. The bread had fresh rosemary on it. We watched the dude step out of the kitchen onto the patio to cut rosemary for it. Pretty much amazingly awesome. The kitchen is detatched from the main building. It's right behind me in this picture. The street is in front of me and the main building is to my right.

 You can see the windows on the kitchen in this shot. That's where the magic happens. Seriously, if you're in Denver, try this place. It's affordable and delicious. Best pizza ever. And go this summer. It's so beautiful with the patio open!


Jason took me shoe shopping. He's the best shoe-shopping companion because he knows my taste in shoes and he also has good input himself. It was a lot of fun and I got some cheap shoes that are more like sneakers, so I wear them all the time. We also went to the book store, and the sneaky man let me buy a cookbook for a slow-cooker. I've been hoping to have a slow-cooker for a long time now. I just thought it would make my kitchen more effective and fun. Below is a picture of me with my birthday brownie (I was trying to be careful with calories, but still enjoy the day). And beside it is me with my gifts. Jason doesn't wrap presents. Nope. He kinda makes a mess and they're super easy to get into when he does wrap them. So, he let Amazon's wrapping be enough.

I got a VitaMix blender from our entire family and from Jason, and I got a slow-cooker to go with my cookbook. Both are amazing. I made fresh flour with my VitaMix the other day. About 2 lbs of flour! It's sweet! The dress I am wearing is an awesome birthday find by my mom and sister at Charming Charlie. LOVE that place. Ladies, it's organized the way we think, so only bring the money you plan to spend! It's that incredible.

 For dinner, Jason took me to Indulge Wine Bar in Golden. And they were having a party and the patio was closed and we had a long wait. Sooo....we went to Simms Landing in Lakewood. We dined on the patio and our view was spectacular!

I was completely amazed at the quality of the service, as well. Seriously, the waiters treated us like royalty. They were incredibly accommodating! The place is very well-decorated and classy. It's a really elegant place to go. And the food was amazing. Really amazing.

 We watched it get dark and our view transformed into this. It was gorgeous. We were there a long time. Behind us were lounge seats with fire pits between them so people could have more casual dining or more formal like our seating. And yet, the atmosphere was very relaxed.

 These are apparently the faces we make when we have not had wine in a long time and have a glass each. Haha. Behind me, you can kinda see the lounge seats and fire pits. Not really though. There's a bit much of a glare off of my white face!
Wine makes Jason feel suave, but it comes across like this. It was a lot of fun. Thanks, Jason!
Being able to taste everything and smell everything was well worth the month of not eating food. And I am not hungry, per se, just miss the experience of eating. My friends have noted lately that I am posting a lot of comfort food on my pinterest account and then I blog about drinking juice. Yes, it's a paradox, haha. I miss those cheesy, bread-filled dishes with pasta and meat, but I am also much happier to be losing weight and experiencing summer without the allergy overload. It's well worth it, but those of you who see me on Pinterest know what I am thinking. :) My final day of the juice fast is August 3rd. Still have a ways to go.

Fresh produce and a house torn down

Where did the house go?

No, we didn't tear our house down. :) But the house across the street is gone. From our window well in the basement, this was the old view. Looks alright, but it was falling apart. The tractor moved in for the first day of demolition the week before the 4th of July.

This was the same day that the energy company came and picked up our fridge. In the picture to the left, you can see that they tore the street up. I guess the gas for the entire street had to be shut off for the time of the tear-down, and the gas was buried in the street a ways down. This is the view from our front porch. (Which, man, if you could see the plans I have for my front porch, you'd be amazed, but that's another post for another time)

Demolition is underway! And what a glorious sight it was, too! That house had been falling apart and looked bad for a long time. Then again, most of the houses in our quirky little neighborhood have some, um, character to them. But it's fun to have the immediate vicinity fixing up. When this neighbor told us he wanted to tear down his house and rebuild, he said he felt bad for us for having to look at his house all this time. He feels like we have a really pretty house and wants to fix his up to the same caliber. I didn't tell him that we have a LONG ways to go before this place feels done. It made my day to hear he thinks we have a pretty house!

Look at that thing tearing the house down! I got a pretty huge kick out of this. I ended up standing on my front porch taking videos and pictures for a little while until the guy running the backhoe looked a bit uncomfortable about it.

I wanted to look him in the face and say, "Hey, look, it's not every day that you get to see a house torn down, and it's not every day that house is literally across the street from you!" But I didn't do that. I just went inside and gawked over the pictures in the comfort and privacy of my home. And then I watched from a window.

Here's the "house" today. Pretty amazing. Taken from the same vantage point as the other photos. Just a backhoe left. Not even a lawn remains. Pretty amazing. I can't wait to see the new place go up. The guy who owns this spot says it'll be done in September or October. So we expect to wait until December or January. No biggie. A few months is nothing in the scheme of things. To the left here is the view on the street. They're digging a hole for a new foundation. Apparently, the old one was really bad, but some parts were ridiculously over-reinforced. That's kinda what you get in a house with a really old history. That house had been built in the Midwest in the 1930s and moved to Colorado in the '50s. And now, it's gone. Ah well. It's not like Europe where they build things to last for centuries.

In my garden...

The garden, above, has grown even more. I've helped it along by adding new plants, as well, but the things in it have been flourishing lately, too. On the right is my compost bin. Love this thing. I have put all kinds of things into it and the bottom layer IS starting to turn into dirt. It's gonna be a great feeling next Spring to put our own compost onto our garden and watch it start a cycle. On top in the composter right now is the result of me thinning the corn. It was growing a bit too well in ways, with 4 or 5 stalks to a space, so I thinned it. I am sure it could stand to be thinned more, but hey.

Speaking of corn, I employed something I learned from my dad, and it really worked. He said corn grows best if it's planted in multiple rows together. So, I planted three rows of corn, and sure enough, the stuff in the very middle of the pack is the tallest, healthiest corn I have in the yard. It's not much, but apparently, much better than setting it out there to grow alone. Who knew corn was a social plant? Knowing that make me like it even more.

These are the seeds I have either planted recently or am going to plant in the next day or so. First are my pumpkins. A great pumpkin patch needs more than one kind of pumpkin, I think. From left to right, let me introduce you to mine. :) Far left were planted yesterday, they are my Sweet Sugar Pumpkins. They're fairly small, but are the perfect pumpkin for pies and cooking and baking. In the middle on the top are my Fairytale Pumpkins. They grow pretty large, taste like winter squash and are really decorative. They look just like Cinderella's pumpkin. They are growing next to the sugar pumpkins and in front of the corn. I planted them last night. Below them also in the middle are my heirloom Giant Pumpkins. They're supposed to grow to be about shoulder-height on an average-height person. Exciting. I think they're purely decorative. My giant pumpkins went in the ground two days ago. On the right is the Tom Fox Pumpkin...aka perfect for carving jack-o-lanterns. I haven't planted them yet, but they're going in the ground tonight. The pumpkins have an average growing season of about 100 days and cannot experience frost. So, my goal is to cover them if frost comes early, and they should be ready for harvest at the end of October-ish. I think our house will be pretty festive this Fall! To add to the sense of Fall festivity, I have here my heirloom blue popcorn. Not sure how well you can see the label, but they're pretty awesome. As with most of my seeds, I ordered them from Amazon. I planted the popcorn last week and it's coming up now! The final picture is basil. The seed packet is to the right of the envelope here. I planted them while I was outside taking these pictures and harvesting a few greens for my juice today. I have three types of basil in my garden already, but this is the kind you buy at the store with the big leaves and loads of flavor. I have purple Thai Basil in the ground as well as Sweet Basil and Genovese Basil all gathered around my tomato plants. My friend, Stephanie, told me that tomatoes like basil and the two plants help each other grow well.

Here's the basil I planted a few weeks ago. Looking pretty happy there in a row beside my tomato plants. It smells divine to go out there and get near this part of the garden. Especially on a warm day. Oh man. The way I see basil is that it's not possible to grow too much. It costs a fortune at the store and it's great as a pesto sauce in the winter. So, whatever we can't eat fresh this summer and fall, we'll just grind up before the first frost and make it into bags and bags of freezable pesto sauce that cost us, well, almost nothing. Pesto is amazing, but cheap-as-free-pesto is the BOMB. I am guessing that. I've never tasted the feeling of basically-free-pesto before. I bet the price makes it tastier. :)

The planting methods of putting "friendly" plants next to each other is called companion planting. It's something I haven't learned too much about, but the idea behind it is that different plants have different strengths and weaknesses, and some even work together symbiotically. By playing to your strengths, you're supposed to get a bigger, better harvest of everything. The book I saw on this topic was called "Carrots Love Tomatoes". I have no idea if it works well, and honestly, haven't even bought the book. I read several excerpts and it sounded interesting and like something I will probably try some time. And apparently, carrots do not love tomatoes, but it's a clever title. It's in that vein of thought, I think, that my friend, Stephanie, recommended planting basil with tomatoes. My tomatoes had been pretty sad, pathetic, nearly dead, etc. until I planted basil beside them, and they do seem to have flourished. I've also planted soybeans and other legumes in my garden to help return nitrogen to the soil.
Most plants leech nitrogen from the soil, making a one-way street of nutrients leaving the soil. Legumes like beans, soy, etc. "fix" nitrogen, or return it to the soil. Many farmers leave fields fallow for a season and then will plant something like soy in the field before planting the original crop again. That's because they're trying to get as much nitrogen naturally returned to the soil as possible making it a better growing environment for other plants.
You can see here how much my tomatoes have loved their basil friends. This plant is covered with green tomatoes. This variety is called the "Health Kick" tomato. I bought it because I liked the name and it said it grew medium-sized fruit. Large tomatoes are harder to grow, so I went with this one and then looked up why it's called that. The link above on its name takes you to someone's blog where they have a recipe for fresh tomatoes and some info about the Health Kick tomato. It's apparently quite gonzo as a cancer-eraticator. Well, that sounds quite nice to me! It has extra lycopene in it. My other tomato plants were grown indoors on my back porch and have yet to produce fruit, but they are happy and very green. They're just your normal tomatoes. Honestly, I don't remember what variety they are. Sad, I know.
I am hoping to get enough tomatoes to can them in jars and make tomato sauces and salsas from my garden all winter long. Next year, I am planning to grow Romas and more Health Kicks, probably about 5 or 6 plants. I really want to have no shortage of tomatoes! So, I planted more basil today and I'll update you on it when it comes up!



Now, poor wandering mind of mine, back to where we started this whole basil/tomato thing off.....pumpkins. Ah yes, I remember.

 Here's where they Fairytale pumpkins went in. They're supposed to have a large (1 foot tall!) mound where you plant the seed 1 inch deep. It's the weirdest planting instructions I've read yet, but I did it that way. Makes me wonder what they could get me to do by printing it on a seed packet and writing that it was necessary to make a plant grow. Sad thought, I bet there's a list too long and too strange to expound upon, so I'll move along. Next to the Fairytale pumpkins are the sweet ones. They're uphill and I dug a cool trench between all the pumpkin mounds so that the water goes where it's supposed to and I just put the hose in one spot. It's cool.

You may notice a few pieces of pea gravel here. Oh, my friend, there was a foot-deep layer of pea gravel here before. Jason scooped it all out and beneath it was real dirt. This is not bad at all!

There's the row of pumpkins! This is just the Sugar and Fairytale pumpkins. They're at the very front of the garden in front of the corn, peppers, broccoli, and everything else. They're supposed to have lots of space to grow. This area should grow just 7 pumpkin plants. In Guinea-Bissau, pumpkins are called bobra. They're really a gourd that looks nothing like a pumpkin, but tastes similar. They grow like weeds. We had one that was determined to conquer our back wall there. And it won. It took over a papaya tree and won that fight, too. We're praying these pumpkins aren't as aggressive. Also, the fact that there's a shorter supply of water and a shorter growing season should help, too. I hope. :)

Below here is the space where I planted two mounds for Giant Pumpkins. I am a little scared at the mostrosity they sound like they could become. Hoping they're managable. Either way, it's also exciting.

These guys are my herbs for indoors. This way, I'll have fresh herbs year-round. They have survived my care this far! It's excellent. They've even grown. I've harvested from each one of them, as well. I am rather in love with my little herb garden and plan to make it a stand for sitting in my window this winter. I feel like the herbs will be better-cared-for if they live in a place I spend a lot of time in so they'll get noticed more. I sprouted seeds on my back porch last winter, but I think they'll be happier all the way indoors. Mmm, looking at that mint plant makes me realize that in August, I am going to have a fresh, homemade mojito!

Alright, it's time to talk about this fabled popcorn! The type I bought was called "Shaman's Blue Popcorn" and it came off of Amazon.com. The kind I posted a link to is not the exact one I bought, but it looks like the same thing, possibly even a bit better than what I have here. I have no idea if this stuff is supposed to get as tall as regular corn, but we'll see. It sure sprouted FAST. I put it in the ground late last week, and here it is. It's the little green bits that look like grass. That's how my other corn looked when it was sprouting. See the height comparison? The foreground is my new little popcorn shoots, and the background is the corn that's about ready to make some food! In between (you can't see them too well) is my New Mexico Big Jim Green Chiles. I am looking forward to those! So is Jason. Hehe. The corn has tassels growing above, and the chile shown is a banana pepper!

I planted blackberries and raspberries earlier this summer. Now, they're growing and I am getting berries off of one of the raspberries. I am about to put blueberries in the ground as well, but they can't just go in normal dirt, no, blueberries need acidic soil. This concept made me so nervous for a while. People were talking about getting meters to read the acidity of their soil and I imagined myself in a chemistry lab feeling completely confused, just wishing I was in my garden again. Anyway, you need peat moss to plant blueberries in Colorado. Dig a hole, throw a bale of peat moss into the hole, and throw the blueberries directly into that bale of peat moss. Water generously, and you have happy blueberries! You also need two varieties of blueberries to cross-pollinate with each other. I nearly killed one of mine last week, so I might be going to the plant nursery for another one at some point.

 This is my climbing wall deal for my gourds and melons. They are vines, so they need something to grow on. This also helps them not get moldy from sitting in the dirt. They're kinda hard to see against the fence. but they're pretty! Under them are my absolutely prolific greens. They're out of control in the best way possible. Love this garden. It's way better than I guessed it would be.

 This is me on my birthday! It was a great day, I'll write about it later.

A deeper cleanse

I have decided that the way I spend my time needs a re-evaluation as well. :)

I am tired of parts of days going by without being really spent intentionally. Things like Facebook, Pinterest, news, Youtube, etc. just kinda suck my time up if I let them. So, as I finish out this juice fast, I am going to fast from non-deliberate internet use. So, the above-mentioned things will be out of my picture. Replaced by things like taking a walk/hike/run, gardening, cooking, cleaning, visiting people, reading (I have quite a list!).

I don't seem to need to water my garden right now, so even that time can go elsewhere. Monsoon season has apparently struck Colorado. Never knew we had a monsoon here. :) It's lovely. Every morning is fresh and clean and every evening this week, we get lots of rain. We're sleeping under just a sheet and leave the windows open all the time. It's awesome. Reminds me a lot of the rainy season in Africa, but it's much MUCH cooler here and MUCH less humid.

Today already, I have gone out and tended to my compost pile (cardboard boxes have to be chopped up, so I leave them out in the rain and then they're really easy to tear into pretty small pieces), picked fresh kale and collards from my garden for juice for me, and picked onions for a meal I am cooking in the slow-cooker for Jason. I'll include the recipe for it later.

This cookbook is amazingly excellent. Most slow-cooker recipes seem to involve a lot of things I don't want to cook with like cream-of-chicken-soup. What is a creamed chicken anyway? What are those chemicals on the label? I don't like dumping cans of things someone else cooked into my slow cooker and basically letting someone else cook my meals. Somehow knowing what's in everything feels a lot better to me. This cookbook is for my generation and includes few canned or pre-prepared items. I like it a lot. And they're pretty easy. There's a series of "Not Your Mother's..." cookbooks and I kinda want to collect them all.

Today, my kitchen is making Provencal Garlic Soup and the recipe promises it's not as intense as it sounds. It smells amazing. The garlic gets blanched before going into the soup, so it mellows out a bit. If it is intense, Jason won't care. The man eats garlic cloves raw sometimes. But I think this will be something palatable to a wide variety of people. It's a complete thrill to have it just cooking away in the slow cooker. It feels like having it done for me. I am way more likely to feel like cooking in the morning than in the afternoon, so this is ideal.

After I am done with my cleaning for the day, I am planning to go to the gym and do some swimming, biking, and jogging. I am training for the Fort Collins Club Triathlon in September. Kinda nervous! It's my first triathlon ever. It's a short one, so it shouldn't be that bad. It's a sprint triathlon. This race involves the following: Swim 450 Yards (in a pool), Bike 13 Miles, Run 3 Miles. Not awful, but indeed worthy of training! I am hoping to accomplish it well, not fast, but finished. I've been slowly training for the last few months and now is time to step up the game and get really serious and focused about it. I am hoping to do some research about what runners should eat. My goal is to complete the Tough Mudder and a half-marathon next summer. I have a year.

The Tough Mudder is an obstacle race that involves some pretty extreme obstacles and challenges. From things like scaling walls and swimming in mud pits to running through electrical wires and carrying heavy things uphill. This is a challenge of mental toughness more than anything else, I believe. I want to believe I can take something like this on and win against it. Beat my own expectations of myself. That's what this entire time is about for me right now. I want to find out who I really am and what my best self can be and do and accomplish. I believe I can do this.

I am also in the process of losing weight that I have spent 10 years accumulating. In the last 5 years, my weight has fluctuated dramatically. I've weighed between 145 and 193 lbs at different times over these past years. It's actually a battle of overcoming mental blocks I have built and the fact that much of my weight gain has been a result of emotional eating. Not cool. I am working to learn the proper place of food (functioning as nutrition, not an emotional filler) and learn that I CAN beat this and I CAN do it. Each day is a new challenge and I am realizing that a lot of the emotions that helped me pack this weight on are going to need to be dealt with in order for me to lose it again. When I reach my first goal, I get to register for a half marathon and the Tough Mudder next year. I am looking forward to that. I feel like it's finally time for me to be the one running my life instead of letting it run me. YEAH!

Provencal Garlic Soup

Cooker: Large oval

Setting and Cook time: LOW for 6-7 hours

Ingredients

8 heads of garlic

2 large yellow onions (I used two smaller white onions from my garden)

6 teaspoons of chicken broth base

84 ounces of water

2 6-ounce cans of tomato paste

2 fresh jalapenos

1 fresh banana pepper

6 tablespoons of olive oil

Crusty bread to serve with it

*My recipe is doubled and edited a bit from the book. They used 6 14-ounce cans of chicken broth, I prefer to use homemade broth or the chicken broth base (Better Than Boullion brand) instead. I also added the jalapenos and banana pepper. We like spicy food and had a couple jalapenos on hand and I picked my first fresh banana pepper from our plant yesterday, so wanted to use it, too. I also thought about using fresh tomatoes instead of the tomato paste and then mixing some flour in for thickening, but I don't have any tomatoes today!

1. Fill a small, deep saucepan with water and bring to a rolling boil. Separate the garlic heads into cloves (leaving the paper on) and toss them into the boiling water. Blanch for 1 minute. Drain the garlic cloves into a colander and rinse under cold running water. Peel with a paring knife and remove stem-end of each clove.

2. Combine the garlic cloves, onion, broth base, water, tomato paste, and peppers in the slow cooker and stir to blend well. Use a wisk to make sure the tomato paste and broth base break down completely. Cover and cook on LOW for 6-7 hours.

3 Puree the soup with an immersion blender or food processor or blender. Before serving, add the olive oil. Serve with hot, crusty bread.

I'll post a picture tonight when it's done. Right now, my house smells divine. We are in the third hour of cooking.

Alright, thanks for reading, I am off to work my body into a triathlon-ready machine. Nerves and all, here I come, athleticism!

Cheers to a birthday without allergies

I went to my garden today and realized that I have sorely neglected it lately. I water it every day, but apparently, right now, it needs much more than a daily dousing. So, I drenched the thing. I spent like 2 hours digging and churning soil so it would moisten all the way through, I filled the trenches I've dug between the rows with water again and again and again. And I planted some new plants!
Most exciting of which is popcorn! I found blue organic popcorn on Amazon.com and decided to give it a go. I am expecting it to grow like regular corn (which I have at about my shoulder height right now just a few feet from where the popcorn has been planted) and then dry out and be harvested about the same time pumpkins are harvested and voila! I will have home-grown popcorn this winter. Tomorrow, I am planning to go out and water it first thing in the morning (6am) and again at night. If I take care of it, I hope it'll take care of us, too. :) It's been a little weird watering it lately because the person we share the house with was worried about the cost of watering. It's not bad, really, and when you plant more costly things (like artichokes, eggplant, tomatoes, tomatillos, peppers, etc), it really pays off. But I don't want to be out there watering all the time if it annoys her. She has the primary access to the back yard, so it's me in her back yard. Oh well, she gets to eat from it, too, and enjoys it, so I should get over it and water my poor garden.

Tomorrow's a new day.

For my birthday this year, my wonderful, sweet husband got both sides of our family together to get me a VitaMix blender (professional series...the thing has a logo that says "Culinary Institute of America" on it...which probably means nothing, but makes me giddy inside just a bit) and a CrockPot slow cooker. Now that I have a slow cooker and realize the emense benefit of it, I can't really understand what I've been up to all this time without one. YAY! I now have the most amazing kitchen in the world. I can make fresh juice, amazing things in the blender, and cook sumptuous meals while I get other stuff done all day. Only one thing holding me back from truly basking in the glow of the new kitchen items.....my juice fast.

Oh, the juice fast lingers on, and every day, I tell myself that this is a two-month (relatively short) period of time in which I am resetting myself and after this is over, I can start living in a healthy, balanced way and enjoy good health. This is how I get through the day. It works.

So far, I have lost almost 20 lbs and have had no allergies this June. For me, that's HUGE. Since high school, every June has become increasingly more challenging. Last year, my birthday was an antihistamine-buzzed blur of sneezing and Jason making lovely plans which I could barely witness or experience through teary eyes, a red (raw) nose, and fits of sneezing that left me needing to sit down. My allergies have historically crescendoed on my birthday. This year, though? Nope!

I had a momentary itch in my right eye for like ten seconds on my birthday. Marked difference. I also decided to go ahead and eat some real food on my birthday. And a day later, I had a day of sneezing and hayfever. It was worth it, of course, but still, notable. So, this juicer has saved June for me. I am back on track with losing weight and have had NO allergies whatsoever in the last day or two since I re-started the juicer. It's amazing to really think about the fact that God gave us fruits and vegetables as food, and He knew that those things would provide our bodies with the ability to maintain optimum health. And we decided to "improve" on those food items and look where it's gotten us. The US has so many allergy problems, so many diet-related health issues, and such pained immune systems. We eat processed this and canned that and freeze-dried those and none of us know the actual source of our food. It makes me really sad.

This summer, I am on a quest to learn where my food comes from and to change the way we eat and begin consuming almost exclusively, only things we can trace to their source. This means a lot more cooking, a lot more legwork for every purchase, and a lot better prices, health, etc. Jason is excited because he has been on his own quest for the best-tasting food. He's found that through elimination of processed foods, and finding the most local, organic, fresh foods, we get the best products. Funny how two different quests lead to the same destination.

Since I am eating just juice, and Jason is being fed mostly fresh fruits and veggies, homemade (not canned) beans, fresh salads, etc, we aren't consuming much that we can't get at our local Farmer's Market in Golden. This week, I'll have to take pictures and post them. It's a beautiful menagerie. Once I am finished with the juice fast in August, I will begin buying milk and eggs and such things from local farmers. I've found a couple of sources for eggs (which I have yet to visit to compare) and am still on the hunt for a good dairy in our area. For me, it's important how the animals are handled, for Jason, it's important that the food is FRESH so it tastes the best. Both things mean finding people here who sell those items. We'll see where that takes me! I am planning to begin making and keeping my own yogurt, mozzarella, cottage cheese, mayonnaise, ketchup, etc. I have the most beguiling things growing in my garden and the hope there is that I'll have enough tomatoes, tomatillos, okra, edamame, corn, peppers, squash, collard greens, etc, to freeze and store over the winter that we can eat from our garden for a decent portion of the year. That means now is crunch time! It's a very back-in-time feeling to be planning to put away the summer's produce for winter when there won't be anything to pick in the garden. It's exciting and fun and a little thrilling. And now I have this incredible kitchen full of things that enable health to the fullest. I am so blessed to have a husband who sees the value in this kind of stuff as much as I do, and who believes in me. He views these appliances as investments in our future. Sweet man.

Food for thought. I am reading Michael Pollan's book, "In Defense of Food," and I am really loving it. A lot of new understanding of food and its relationship to our modern life has come about through my reading. If you're looking for a good read, give it a look. (sorry, no pictures today, I am not that organized)