Birthday, Garden, and Congaree

Went to Columbia for Ellen's eighth birthday party last Friday. Seems like yesterday when she was water-born in a tiny cabin in Ashe County, NC:

Jen fixed an amazing vegan chili supper and cake for Ellen's guests (and parents) and a cool piñata modeled after their dog Blue:

Their garden has one of the nicest arrangements of raised beds I've ever seen:

Farmer Dan hard at work early Saturday morning:

On Saturday Daniel and I spent a few hours at the Congaree National Park which contains "the largest tract of old-growth bottomland hardwood forest left in the United States." Cedar Creek flows through the park:

The cypress trees are enormous:

The cypress tree roots send up shoots, called "cypress knees," the purpose of which seems unclear to the experts:

Notice the size of these "knees" in front of Daniel:

We didn't see any large wildlife (we saw signs where the wild pigs had been rooting), but the butterflies and other wildlife are everywhere:

The butterflies seem to sense the salt (?) on our skin, landing on my hand and on a vent hole in Daniel's "Croc" shoe. I took a cool movie of the butterfly on my hand opening and closing its wings, but accidentally deleted it off my camera. Bummer:

A huge wasp nest:

Amazing to think of how wild our nation once was—especially how many huge trees once existed—and sad to think how few of these places remain. I was very impressed with this park—the facilities, staff, etc. There are a couple miles of boardwalks and other hiking trails, making it easy to see the bottomlands. I'd like to make a return visit to see more.

"Don't Come Cryin' to Me . . . ."

Although I've never used the phrase, "Don't come cryin' to me . . . ," in the right movie and the right scene, there's nothing better—and it fits well here:

"22 Tools You Should Keep in Your Car"

(No, I don't—but I'm thinking about it.)

A Higher Standard

Just a couple quotes from today's reading in Oswald Chambers' My Utmost for His Highest --

You must maintain continual watchfulness so that nothing arises in your life that would cause you shame. . . . If you act deceitfully, God's blight and ruin will be upon you. What may be craftiness for you, may not be for others—God has called you to a higher standard. Never dull your sense of being your utmost for His highest—your best for His glory. . . . The greatest spiritual crisis comes when a person has to move a little farther on in his faith than the beliefs he has already accepted.

The full reading for Sept. 15 can be found here.

Tomato Bouquet

An avocado tree is growing in this white bucket with a small tuft of green also evident:

On closer examination, the tuft of green turns out to be a bouquet of tomato sprouts. Apparently a cherry tomato fell into the soil, got buried near the top, and all the seeds in the cherry tomato sprouted (sorry the pic is a little fuzzy):

I've had lots of volunteer tomatoes come up, but never scores from the same single tomato:

Always something new in the garden.

David and Abby In Town

From Philadelphia came David and friend Abby this week for a few days in Charlotte and Columbia. I got them for a full afternoon where we talked, made smoothies, hummus, and got a juicer ready for Dave to take back to Philly:

Caught this pic of the swallowtail butterfly caterpillars devouring a parsley plant where they hatched:

Is "Calling Out" Citizens Part of the President's Job?

Last night I watched the president's speech on healthcare—the first of his televised speeches I've had the heart to endure. And I watched to see if he said anything about "prevention" or "personal responsibility for one's own health" as a key variable in his plan to "fix" healthcare. And he didn't.

His plan seems to be, "Companies, you are free to call anything you want 'food' and offer it to Americans to eat, regardless of whether it is good or bad for one's health. And citizens, you are free to eat whatever you want and live however you want without negating your right to have unlimited amounts of money spent in an attempt to clean up the mess you create." (I am well aware that there are individual cases of illness and need that occur apart from a cause-effect scenario for which individuals can be deemed accountable. But those relatively few cases have not created the healthcare problem in America.)

The president's focus seems to be on the healthcare "system," not the health and well-being of individuals. It's a well-known fact that America spends more money per capita on "healthcare" (read "disease management") than any nation in the world, but ranks way down the list in terms of actual health. We are number one in trauma care, but in the "30's" (last time I checked) in "healthiness." It seems that the president's plan is focused on the "per capita" problem: How do we spend less money per capita on healthcare and move America's ranking higher among the developed nations of the world? We could spend less money and still have a nation full of unhealthy people. The per capita number would be better but it wouldn't change the health of people.

But the national goal ought not to be having the most efficient "system" of doctors, insurance companies, drug companies, and government. It ought to be to have the healthiest people. That's why this whole debate is mislabeled. It's not a healthcare debate, it's a disease-care debate. The focus is on sickness, not health.

What I learned last night was that anyone who (in the president's opinion) mis-characterizes his healthcare plan will be "called out" by his administration. But after hearing a commentator on the radio yesterday read a section of one of the developing plans, there's no way people will agree on what it means. It's hard to agree on something that can't be understood by the average citizen. So if, in the president's opinion, your interpretation of what he is saying is different than his, you will be called out and identified. Is this part of the president's job description—calling out citizens who disagree with him?

I would rather the president call out individuals who are not doing their best to live a healthy life—beginning with his own need to stop smoking. My son, Daniel, sent me a link to a post on the healthcare debacle that says it well (from the blog of retired philosophy professor Dr. Bill Vallicella—reprinted here without his permission):

The problem here is the liberal mentality. Faced with a problem such as obesity, the liberal wants to classify it as a public health problem -- which is absurd on the face of it. No doubt there are public health problems, and some of them are getting worse because of a failure to control the borders; but obesity is an individual problem to be solved (or left unsolved) by the individual and perhaps a few significant others. If obesity counts as a public health problem, then how could any health problem not count as a public health problem?

Here is the straight skinny on obesity: if you consume more calories than you burn, then you gain weight. If you burn more calories than you consume, then you lose weight. So if you want to lose weight, eat less and move more. Try it. It works. Of course there are people with special conditions. But I'm talking about the general run of the population. For the most part, people are fat because they refuse to discipline themselves. Liberals aid and abet them in their indiscipline. I am tempted to say that that is part of the very definition of a liberal. The liberal tendency is to shift responsibility from the agent and displace it onto factors external to the agent. So it's Burger King's fault that you have clogged arteries, not your fault. Nonsense on stilts.

The problem with liberals is not that they are stupid, but thay they stupefy themselves with their political correctness.

Evidence of Life on Planet Stallings

Am happy to report a new piece of evidence that there is a pulse on Planet Stallings. The last book on which I worked with Robert A. Schuller is available for pre-order at Amazon—should be shipping soon.

It was a good subject—what to do when life's circumstances work against all one's best efforts to maintain a relationship with God. Here's the "product description" from Amazon:

Robert A. Schuller explores the various ways individuals lose or experience interference with their connection to God. He explains that emotions such as shame, regret, fear, and disappointment can stand in the way of the intimate association God wants with His children. The good news is that when His people are struggling, God stays close. There are many ways to reestablish a dynamic connection with Him. Schuller calls these "Connection Corrections" and leads readers through identifying communication barriers and how to break them. Each chapter delves into the reasons readers fail to connect with God, how to begin repairing the broken wires, and the life-altering benefits of restoring a positive, power-filled relationship with Him. Readers who feel adrift from God will no find that no barrier is too big to keep them from a close, loving relationship with Him.

Habits, Habits

In the space of 24 hours this weekend I was confronted with three lessons on the same subject. I assumed they were for me, specifically, but perhaps they will create resonance in your thinking as well. The subject: habits.

1. I was standing in my neighbor's backyard discussing his amazing and fast-growing wild blackberry patch and how to cut it back before it takes over the neighborhood. His back yard, in an angular fashion, abuts the yard of another neighbor, separated by a fence. I was struck by the odd paths that were worn in the abutting back yard. You can see them in this picture, but they are even more pronounced, and further to the right, in person:

I didn't realize what they were until the black Lab that lived in that backyard came racing down to tear along the dividing fence with my neighbor's dog while we talked (see the worn path at the base of the fence on the Lab's side). After four or five laps the two dogs gave up and the Lab loped back up toward h/er house—on the central path you see in the picture. I was amazed. This dog's world seemed to consist of what s/he saw and encountered on the paths s/he had carved into the sod. The path branches jutting off to the right must have led to a couple of other points of (habitual) interests in h/er world. But I wondered: What pleasures and new horizons must the Lab be missing as a result of h/er habitual confinements to the same paths every day? More importantly, if I could take a God's-eye view of my life, what paths would I see in my world that I trod daily—loping mindlessly along like that Lab—without thinking; paths that act as blinders to what's around me? Indeed, those paths appear in the carpets of our homes over time. But what about the unseen mental and physical paths we create in the world? Habits.

2. I was reading an interview with a former Wall Street investment guy who made a career shift and returned to medical school and became a doctor, and now combines both areas of expertise in his return to "wholistic" investment counseling. He was talking about the kinds of things that contribute to mental acuity as we age—well-known things like crossword puzzles, juggling, ping-pong, learning a new language or musical instrument, etc. But he also mentioned the importance of breaking habitual patterns—things like brushing one's hair or teeth with the "opposite" hand and getting dressed with your eyes closed in order to force the brain to create new neural pathways. Those last suggestions were new to me and spoke to the habitual parts of my life. Think how many things we do habitually (teeth, hair, dressing) that are passive; that require no new thought, concentration, experimentation, or learning, and therefore contribute nothing to the expansion of our experience, elasticity, or enjoyment in life. Habits.

3. I'm currently reading a book called Maximum Achievement by a well-known corporate speaker and trainer named Brian Tracy. (The book is great—really forcing me to think in fresh ways about where I am in life, and why, versus where I'd like to be.) I was reading his thoughts on "habits" (pp. 90-91):

Virtually everything you do is the result of habit. The way you talk, the way you work, drive, think, interact with others, spend money and deal with the important people in your life are all largely habitual. Your behavior in every area of life is based on the accumulation of all your experiences, starting in infancy. Probably 95 percent of your actions an reactions are automatic, unconscious responses to your physical and human environment

Your habits are major obstacles to your becomeing the kind of person you want to be. Your habitual ways of thinking, feeling, talking and behaving are often roadblocks that stand between where you are today and where you really want to go. They keep you "running in place" . . . .

The most dangerous habits you can form, however, are mental habits. Because of the fact that whatever you think about continually you create in your life, your negative or self-limiting thoughts hurt you more than almost anything else you can engage in. . . .

Success and failure, happiness, and unhappiness, are largely the result of habit, of the automatic ways you respond and react to what's going on around you. Changing habits that are no longer consistent with your higher purposes is one of the hardest things you'll ever do, and one of the most essential to the quality of your life. But unless you've already reached some level of excellence or perfection, you are living today with habits that you must discard if you are going to move forward. Remember, bad habits are easy to form, but hard to live with; good habits are hard to form, but easy to live with. Your job is to form good habits and make them your masters.

The good news is that all habits are learned, and they can therefore be unlearned.

Habits.

I was glad to be confronted with the dangers, and opportunities, associated with living habitually. There are good habits and paths, to be sure (Deuteronomy 6:4-9; Jeremiah 6:16; 18:15). But I wonder if even the good ones can become the enemy of the best. Anything we do without fresh, conscious thinking—either reaffirmation to continue or sudden awareness of a new and better way—seems more passive than active.

This is fresh ground for me—at least as of this weekend. But I meditated on all these as I (rather mindlessly, except for continual prayers for safety) went up and down the ladders, pressure-washing the outside of my house. After hours of chewing this cud I decided it was worth passing on. (Maybe not the best image—but let me know your thoughts.)

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One path being worn in my yard is to my compost bin. Checked the temp Sunday and things are heating up:

Stunningly Beautiful Music

The better your speakers, the better this sounds, so turn up whatever you listen through to hear the soft sounds at the beginning and the deep harmonies throughout:

The Sad State of America

This is an example of numerous intelligent critics who see a dim future for America in light of the current (and a couple previous) administration's fiscal and economic policies. This video plays automatically when loading the blog, so I'll take it down after a few days since it becomes an annoyance by its always-on status after being shuffled further down in the blog. After removing the video player in a few days the video can be seen here.

Economy Car

Last time I bought gas for my car I set the trip odometer in order to check my mileage. Refilled my tank today with 7.304 gallons after driving 246.2 miles, which results in 33.71 mpg. And those are all in-town, stop-and-go miles, so I'm assuming highway mileage would be even better. I like it!

I drive under 60 mph (usually), skip at least one of the lower gears when I can, start and stop slowly, and keep my tires inflated. Signs of old age, I guess, but I think these all contribute to better mileage.

Every time I begin thinking about replacing my 1987 Honda I realize I'd be driving something that would likely not get as good mileage as I currently get. So I press on. Am really thankful for the divine blessing of a car that meets my needs so economically. Thank You, Lord.

Bicycle Ballet

Well, so much for my being able to ride around in the street on a two-wheel bike without falling over. These girls at some kind of 2009 bike competition in Europe (Holland, I think) are astounding. The bicycle is such a huge part of European culture—especially Holland and Belgium—that riding one is an art form. The bikes the girls are performing on are fixed-gear bikes with no brakes. That is, if you peddle forward you go forward; if you peddle backward you go backward. The riding on one wheel thing is something to behold:

Tobacco Hornworm

Discovered two of the biggest tobacco hornworms I've ever seen on a tomato plant today. I would have called these tomato hornworms before doing a bit of research. The tobacco and tomato hornworms are nearly identical except for two things:

Tobacco hornworm: a reddish horn on the tail and white diagonal stripes on the body.

Tomato hornworm: a black horn on the tail and white (horizontal) "V's" on the body.

These are obviously tobacco hornworms given the reddish horns and white diagonal stripes. They both attack the same kind of plants (mainly tomatoes and potatoes, but also eggplants and peppers) so you may see one or both kinds. I left these alone in hopes that their natural enemy, tiny parasitic braconid wasps, will come and lay eggs on their backs. The eggs hatch and the larvae bore into the hornworm's skin and feed off its body fluids, sealing its fate. The larvae then emerge and create scores of tiny white cocoons which mount vertically on the hornworm's back. The cocoons eventually "hatch" new parasitic wasps which are great for the garden. I'll try to get pics of that if it happens. (Have some from years past but they aren't digital so can't post them.) If they don't become a host for the wasps they eventually fall to the ground, burrow underground and pupate over the winter, hatching into a new brownish-patterned hornworm moths that lay eggs on plants the following year, starting the cycle again.

This one was huge -- nearly four inches long (inside the red ellipse):

This one was shorter, about three inches. The poopy-looking stuff is exactly that -- or frass, to be more exact:

Here's what they do: strip tomato branches perfectly clean of leaves. The hornworms, because of their coloration and the thick foliage of their preferred plants, are extremely hard to spot. But looking for stripped-down branches, and the pills of frass on the tomatoes and branches, is a sure sign a hornworm(s) is lurking:

Wilbur, Dogue de Bordeaux

A couple of quick pics of Wilbur, Sammy Koenigsburg's French Mastiff (dogue de Bordeaux). He's the sweetest thing you ever saw—loves to come right up for a scratch-'n-rub as long as you're willing to indulge him. Don't know if he would provide a barrier to intruders, but I wouldn't want to find out. Without a reference point in these pics, it's hard to get a feel for his size. He is HUGE:

The chickens roam around oblivious to Wilbur's looming presence:

Yard Scenes

Just some quick scenes from around the yard. The buckwheat around the dogwood tree was about ready to flower when I took these pics, and has now flowered. It's a cover crop that will add biomass and nitrogen to that little patch of earth in anticipation of some cool-weather crops this fall:

Some Brandywine heirloom tomatoes looking healthy:

Blueberries (darker pine straw mulch) and tomatoes (wheat straw mulch) along the back fence (all growing poorly, if I do say so):

Compost "bin" slowly gaining mass:

The ambient temperature was 80 and the interior temp of the pile was only 94 -- not enough mass yet to generate considerable heat. It should get up around 130 degrees if it ever gets cooking correctly (which it probably won't at the slow rate I'm adding raw material):

I trimmed the decimated leaves (from the cabbage butterfly caterpillars) off the kale and it's coming back! And I haven't seen the white butterflies around for about a week so I hope this new growth will last into the Fall:

A burgeoning aloe vera plant:

A wasp and butterfly (moth?) on the buckwheat:

The First Sane Words . . .

For a number of reasons, I have not paid a great deal of attention to the war of words over "healthcare" reform. Ever since watching one of last fall's presidential debates between Obama and McCain, and the subsequent election of Obama, I have tuned out, for this reason: In that debate, the moderator asked both candidates whether they considered "healthcare" a right or a responsibility. Obama said "right" while McCain said "responsibility." With Obama now in the White House, his view that healthcare is a right is the primary reason I have tuned out of the current debate. That view can only lead to more massive government programs to provide said right while giving citizens an excuse to opt out of the responsibility for creating their own healthful lifestyles.

But I have seen one set of sane words from a Senator that expresses what I believe about America's health crisis—that it is due to lifestyle choices for which we are largely responsible. Democratic Senator Tom Harkin (Iowa) recently published a paper titled "Fighting Disease, and Remaking America as a Wellness Society." You can read the entire paper (alas, full of proposals for umpteen pieces of legislation) for the details, but the opening paragraphs of his paper are worthy of commendation. I find it amazing that this view has not been heard elsewhere in the debate. Perhaps it has been—as I said, I haven't been listening that much.

Harkin writes:

The wealthiest nation in the world ought to be the healthiest nation in the world. But we're not. In fact, the U.S. ranks a dismal 24th in life expectancy, and we lag on many other health measures, as well.

The problem is that, while the U.S. spends far more on health care per capita than any other country, we spend it unwisely. More than 75 percent of all U.S. medical expenditures are accounted for by chronic conditions such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, stress, and depression—man of which are preventable by changes in diet and lifestyle. Meanwhile, we spend peanuts on prevention—less than five percent of health care spending in the U.S. goes toward the prevention of chronic disease. In short, we don't have a health care system in America; we have a sick care system. And this misplaced emphasis on "sick care" is a major reason why there has been a shocking 78 percent increase in family health care premiums since 2001.

In my opinion, we don't hear the words "preventable by changes in diet and lifestyle" coming out of Washington more often because so many politicians' campaigns are funded, and their ears bent, by powerful food and agribusiness lobbyists. It's commendable that Harkin, a senator from one of the breadbasket states in the Union (Iowa), had the courage to print such words. May his tribe increase.

When Friends Become Your Food

Trace Ramsey is a thoughtful small farmer, photographer, and commentator living somewhere around the Pittsboro (Raleigh-Durham) area of North Carolina. He publishes occasional commentary with pictures on his blog, and I took the opportunity to post a response to today's post, "What Happens When Your Friends Become Your Food."

The post title explains the dilemma Trace is wrestling with: raising and caring for three little piggies that he knows he will one day kill and eat. Along with beautiful pictures of his pigs and their lush, natural habitat provided by Trace, there is honest and compassionate reflection about the tension created when you make friends with beings you intend to eat. But Trace says clearly that the answer is not to treat the animals as non-sentient "farm machines," because they aren't. Instead, he wrestles with a genuine problem, and I commend him for the public revelation of his thought process. His conclusion is a call for animal farmers to take responsibility for the meat meals they produce for themselves and others, responsibility manifested in how the animals are raised and cared for.

Here is the comment I left on his blog -- I offer it here in hopes of continuing the dialog:

Hi Trace,

Enjoy your photography and commentary! And I appreciate the thought you have put into the dilemma of killing and consuming your piggie pals. That thought process alone sets you apart from the vast majority of animal farmers in the world. You are definitely to be commended for creating a lifestyle for your pigs that lets them express all their porcine sensibilities — their “pigness,” as Joel Salatin likes to say. The pictures of your co-laborers on your farm gives evidence of the healthy life you’ve provided for them.

Could I add another thought here (as a vegan)? I think the very fact that you care about the dilemma you’ve created (killing that which you have “created” and grown to care for) is evidence that harvesting animals for food is an unnatural act. It’s easy to grow to feel the same way about a pig as we do about a dog or cat. They all enjoy belly rubs and ear-scratches and demonstrate pure pleasure that a tomato plant or tractor can not. You are certainly accurate to conclude that farm animals aren’t machines. It’s why we don’t kill and eat our pet dogs while they do in other cultures. There is obvious a lot of cultural confusion about what to do with animals we grow to care about. I think your sensitivity to the needs and ultimate end of your pigs is evidence that something in you/us wants NOT to kill them and eat them.

That reality then begs the question, Why should we? There is nothing in animal flesh that we need for good health that is not available in plants (with the possible exception of vitamin B-12 which, if we didn’t sanitize and cook our field crops, we’d get plenty of from the naturally-occurring bacteria that produce B-12)—and much that we don’t need (saturated fat, cholesterol, etc.). Therefore, eating animal flesh ultimately boils down to appetite and economics: Meat (fat) has a taste humans grow to like, and raising animals free-range is perhaps economically motivating.

So if taste and economics are the two main reasons for eating animals, we’ve only complicated our dilemma: We have now elevated our taste and pocketbook as higher values than the existence and pleasure of other sentient beings. In other words, we have to say to our porkers (chickens, cows), “I don’t need to kill you in order to be healthy, but I’m going to kill you because you taste good and you’re worth more to me dead than alive.” Ouch! No wonder we feel conflicted about the act.

Please don’t take my thoughts as adversarial, Trace. As I’ve said, I commend you for the public and deliberate way you’re working through your relationship to the animals you’re raising. I hope other animal farmers will learn from your example and that your commentary will stimulate further helpful and healthy dialogue on what is, at best, a complicated issue.

Ultimately, of course, I wish the human race could learn to co-exist with the non-human species in a non-confrontational way. Idealistic, perhaps, but as a Bible reader I see that peaceful coexistence was the pattern in the beginning (Genesis 2:19-20) and will be in the coming peaceable kingdom (Isaiah 11:6-9). Both man and animals were apparently created to be vegan (Genesis 1:29-30), though that pattern has been maligned through the ages. But I still think it represents the ideal to strive for. Dilemmas are not always avoidable, but the original plant-based pattern for living allows us to avoid the self-imposed angst we feel about loving, then consuming, our non-human friends.

Thanks again for sharing your thoughts and providing a forum for feedback and discussion. Best wishes in all your endeavors and efforts to create a food “system” that is sustainable and satisfying to all its participants, human and non-human alike.

Chipotle's Business Model

Because I eat out so rarely, I had never eaten at a Chipotle fast-food restaurant. I've been aware of them for years but never knew there was anything different about them other than that seemed to be growing rapidly. But after watching the following video—they buy pork, chicken, and beef from sustainable natural farmers like Joel Salatin—I looked a bit closer and discovered there was a Chipotle in Matthews. I ordered and paid for a vegetarian burrito online and scheduled a pickup time following church on Sunday—worked like a charm. The burrito was great—my only preference would have been for brown rice instead of nutritionally deficient white rice—but otherwise it was very good. Nice to see a major fast-food chain going the extra step to use food sources that are outside the factory-farm system for raising animals. Unfortunately, neither the video nor anything on their web site (that I saw) suggests they are using organically grown ingredients on the veggie side of their model. Hopefully they'll get there. (I also like Chipotle because they co-sponsored a pro-Tour bike racing Team, at least for a year—haven't heard anything about their sponsorship lately.)

Anybody have any other experience/information about Chipotle? My enthusiasm for Chipotle's business model (their animal food sources) shouldn't be misinterpreted as support for their animal-based menu. Rather, I take note of it as evidence of a rising level of consciousness in the culture about the place of animals as "beings" rather than as commodities. That's a step in the right direction. The next step will be, once animals are recognized as "beings" by the whole culture, when the culture experiences the revulsion of slaughtering and consuming sentient beings. So we acknowledge small steps as they occur. And Chipotle has definitely taken a major step in a positive direction by sourcing their animal products from farmers who treat the animals well, doing less harm to the animals and the people who eat them.

Happy Birthday, Soldier

My father, Robert Daniel Kruidenier, had cancer not taken his life prematurely, would have been 95 years old this past Wednesday, August 12. Pausing today to honor his memory, especially for my children who didn't get to know him very well. I found this picture online a couple years ago taken somewhere in China in the CBI Theatre (China-Burma-India) in WW II -- members of the 29th Fighter Squadron -- American pilots who were training Chinese pilots to fight against the invading Japanese. (Several of the men in this picture are Chinese.) He came home with no pictures of that period of his life and am thankful that someone had posted this one online. He did make it home with his A-1 military issue flight jacket, worn in this picture, which we still have. The P-40 Tomahawk in the right rear was the plane he flew; we do have pictures of him in other settings strapped into this workhorse. He is in this picture only because he survived the sinking of the British troop transport ship he was on in the Mediterranean, the H.M.T. Rhona, as he made his way to the CBI Theatre. He later worked closely at N.A.S.A. with the German scientist who developed the plane-mounted torpedo used to sink the Rhona. That sinking was the first successful deployment of the torpedo in the war, a fact that the U.S. military kept quiet since they didn't want to advertise the success of this new German weapon. Daddy and the German munitions engineer had a good (nervous) laugh about the ironies of life and war many years later.

Thanks for your service, Daddy -- wish you'd lived longer. Happy 95th anyway. (Daddy is standing, back row, fourth from the left. If you click on the picture you can see a bit larger version.)

21-Day Kickstart to a Plant-based Lifestyle

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is sponsoring a 21-day introduction to a vegan diet beginning September 8. It will include daily emails with guidance and tips leading to weight loss and better health. PCRM is extremely trustworthy and sound in its guidance. I've signed up for the 21-day journey, figuring I can always learn something new. You can do this completely privately by going here and furnishing PCRM your email address. (You can always opt out if you decide to either during the 21 days or after if you no longer wish to receive PCRM communiques.)

Saint Joel

You won't be around the organic/natural food movement very long before hearing of Joel Salatin, and for good reason. He is the icon in the movement for raising animals in a natural, humane way -- right up until the moment, as one commentator has put it, that he slits their throat. There's much contradiction in some of his words (you may or may not agree), but let's give him credit for raising healthy animals and treating them as temporary partners in the mosaic of creation. He's a clay-footed character, as we all are -- but one who has helped to change a farming system badly in need of redemption. Another clip from the movie Fresh:

It's About Life

Also from the movie Fresh -- Will Allen is a pioneer in the urban gardening/farming movement. Great views of what he's done with three acres in an urban environment. Wish the animals weren't destined for the table, but that's another horizon to conquer in this growing movement of returning to natural food and health:

Dangers of Confined Animal Breeding

Another clip from the movie Fresh -- the experience of a hog producer who raised his animals in confinement instead of on natural pasture. Because he injected so many antibiotics into his hogs to combat the diseases that arose in confinement, they developed resistant strains of bacteria. When a boar hog stabbed him in the leg with a tusk, he contracted an infection from which he almost died because it was resistant to all the standard antibiotics. He eventually destroyed his herd, started over, and has had his hogs on pasture for 14 years -- with no disease:

Fresh, the Movie

On the heels of the recently-released movie, Food, Inc., comes another movie about the place of food in our culture. This one is called Fresh and is to be released in September. It features many of the same players that all these movies do (Salatin, Pollan, et al), but that's fine -- repetition is needed to rise above the competing noise in the marketplace. Here's the trailer:

Garden O'Yore

Came across this two-picture view of the garden I had in my backyard a few years ago. Makes me tired just to look at it -- the building of the raised beds, trellises, etc. But it was definitely worth it. Both the work and the harvest were a pleasure:

Testosterone in the Kitchen

August 2, 2009 article by Michael Pollan in The New York Times Magazine on what the current spate of testosterone-laced competitive cooking shows on television says about how we view food and eating. As usual with Pollan, the article is long and encyclopedic, but the payoff is predictable as well. Read it here.