Q & A with Wholefoods' John Mackey

Q: You've been a meat-eater, then a vegetarian, now a vegan. What can you cut out next?

A: I've cut out all oils. I dont eat olive oil or canola oil. I've reduced the salt I consume. We don't cook with salt at home. I've cut way back on concentrated sweeteners and sugar. And I feel great. I've lost 20 pounds. My vitality is higher, my cholesterol plummeted, and my blood pressure has dropped. I'm healthier today than I was 20 years ago.

Read the entire USA Today interview with Wholefoods founder John Mackey (more about the stores than about him) here.

What the Egg Industry Means

Yesterday, the egg industry ran a full page in several major national newspapers. It was simple: an egg and text on a white background, intended to mollify the American public over the recall of half a billion eggs due to Salmonella contamination.

Marion Nestle, professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University, author if many books on food politics, and widely-respected spokeswoman for organic, sustainable, and safe food and food systems, has interpreted what the egg industry's words really mean. This is terrific. If you don't think the egg industry thinks you're an idiot, you will when you read what they really said in their expensive newspaper ads. Read Nestle's brief article in The Atlantic as she translates the egg industry's words into plain English, here.

KISS in Iraq

I confess to never having been a KISS fan -- or a Gene Simmons fan. But I like this video -- a KISS USO concert for U.S. troops in Iraq. What I love the most about it is the friendly competition and camaraderie between the four service branches as they belt out their particular songs and try to outsing their comrades. I don't know who wrote the four service hymns, but every one of them gives me goose bumps. I am a HUGE sucker for ceremony and protocol and love that part of military life. And the service hymns are a huge part of the esprit de corps. Regardless of how you feel about the military and its current involvements overseas, my hat's off to those who serve -- and to KISS for honoring them:

Chow Down Movie

The latest documentary extolling the virtues of a plant-based diet is Chow Down—the story of a man who followed Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn's plant-based approach to reversing his heart disease (and shorter stories of two others). You can rent/stream ($2.99) the movie, or download a digital version ($9.99) or buy a hard copy -- all from Amazon. You can read an in-depth review of the movie and the medical story behind it here.

Here's the trailer -- it would have been nice if the two speakers were identified. The first is Dr. Esselstyn, the second is Dr. T. Colin Campbell, author of The China Study.

Philly's Only Vegan Coffee House

David and friend Mike Barone opened the Grindcore House -- Philadelphia's only vegan coffee house -- last Saturday night from 7:00 -10:00 with a featured art exhibit. This was a "soft" grand opening with the formal grand opening coming soon. Dave said they had a huge turnout as the night wore on. (Sister Liz was there from Connecticut.) The Grindcore House FB page generated nearly 600 "likes" in a matter of days prior to the opening. (Dave was always good at drawing a crowd.)

If you're in south Philly, stop by for a cuppa and a cookie: 1515 S. 4th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19147.

A few pics from the opening (thanks to Matt Grosse):

And thanks to Justin Miller for this one:

Vee-gan, Las Vegas!

Steve Wynn, Las Vegas resort mogul, has introduced vegan entrees to the menus at the Wynn Las Vegas and Encore Las Vegas resorts. With a half-billion eggs being recalled in the United States in the last two weeks, those entrees are probably looking pretty good right now. Read the whole story here.

Breakthrough! The Christian Gene

Omega-6 vs. Omega-3 Fats

Another killer post by the Happy, Healthy, Long-life Librarian -- this time summarizing everything she's learned in recent months about the Omega-6/Omega-3 contest.

Most diet-conscious folks know that we need more Omega-3 and less Omega-6 fats, which roughly translates to "eat a plant-based diet." The 6:3 ratio needs to be as close to 1:1 as possible, but most Americans eat a diet that is about 17:1, accounting for all manner of inflammation leading to disease.

But even within the plant-based diet there are caveats. All nuts are VERY high in Omega-6 (walnuts are the lowest), and garbanzo beans are WAY high in 6 along with tahini (3,100:55 !), which makes hummus not so great. But black beans have an almost-ideal ration of 6-to-3. Therefore, black bean hummus without the tahini brings hummus back into the healthy range. And all oils (with the exception of flaxseed oil), like nuts, are higher in Omega 6 than Omega 3.

She cites the Nutrition Data website as a good place to check on the nutritional content of most foods, including Omega 6 and 3 content. (Enter a food in the search box at the upper right, then scroll down through the various nutritional charts. Omega fats are near the bottom left.)

I strongly encourage folks to subscribe to the Happy Healthy Long Life feed to get her occasional updates.

Why There Are No Jobs in America

A short, hypothetical scenario created to illustrate why starting and running a business in America is so hard thanks to being forced to have the government as a partner. This "partner" contributes little and takes a lot, making the chance of success limited. It can be done, however—the author of the piece is a young entrepreneur who started and runs a very successful financial research firm. (Today [the date of publication], this piece is posted on the home page of its host site, but will migrate to the archives quickly. I'll try to keep the link updated. If not, search for "This Is Why There Are No Jobs in America" and the author's last name, Stansberry.)

U.S. debt, for the second time in history, is about to . . .

10 Signs the U.S. Is Becoming a Third-world Country

Read 'em and weep.

"No Reasonable Person Should Believe Our Advertising"

In a Huffington Post article, "The Dark Side of Vitaminwater," best-selling author John Robbins points out the twisted logic of Coca-Cola in their defense against a lawsuit brought by a public-interest group saying that Vitaminwater has no health benefits. Here's the opening to the article:

Now here's something you wouldn't expect. Coca-Cola is being sued by a non-profit public interest group, on the grounds that the company's vitaminwater products make unwarranted health claims. No surprise there. But how do you think the company is defending itself?

In a staggering feat of twisted logic, lawyers for Coca-Cola are defending the lawsuit by asserting that "no consumer could reasonably be misled into thinking vitaminwater was a healthy beverage."

Does this mean that you'd have to be an unreasonable person to think that a product named "vitaminwater," a product that has been heavily and aggressively marketed as a healthy beverage, actually had health benefits?

Or does it mean that it's okay for a corporation to lie about its products, as long as they can then turn around and claim that no one actually believes their lies?

Why I Want to Work for the Government When I Grow Up

“. . .government employees seem to work shorter hours, have more vacation time, access unbelievable healthcare, never worry about job security and even make more money than people slugging it out in the private sector.”

Those are the words of a federal careers expert, quoted in a depressing Forbes.com article about the cushiest jobs in America: working for the government. Read it here.

Ten Reasons Obama's Presidency Is in Serious Trouble

Excellent summary of Obama's presidency to date and why it's in meltdown -- article by Nile Gardiner of the U.K. Telegraph. Read it here. (And may the reasons double by November.)

"I Can't Believe Grownups Would Say Words Like That . . . ."

A great (short) interview with legendary investor Jim Rogers on the failed financial policies of the current administration. A sample:

I would abolish the Federal Reserve. I would cut taxes. I would cut spending in a draconian manner. A very draconian manner. The idea that you can solve a problem of too much debt and too much consumption, with more debt and more consumption, defies comprehension. I can't believe that grown-ups would say words like that out-loud. But that's what they seem to think - I don't know if they really believe it's going to work, but they just don't know what else to do, and you know they're all doing... for the next elections, so they're making things worse. There are plenty of ways to solve the problem. You let the people who go bankrupt go bankrupt. You let Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac go bankrupt, go out of business. You let AIG go out of business. You stop bailing everybody out. The Japanese tried it our way in the early 90s; they refused to let anybody go bankrupt, and they still talk about the 1990s as "the lost decade." Now they're talking about this decade as the second lost decade. Japanese stock market today is 75% below where it was in 1990. That is not a typo. It is down 75% in 20 years. Can you imagine if the New York Stock Exchange, or if the DOW Jones to use a better example, were at 4000? I don't think people would be very happy. Well, that's the equivalent of the situation in Japan right now. It didn't work in Japan; it's not going to work in the US.

Read the whole interview here.

Redefining Marriage

This week, U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker struck down the voter-mandated 2008 Proposition 8 in California that defined marriage as the union of a man and a woman. Somehow he took it upon himself to define society's most critical institution in direct contravention of the expressed will of the people. The decision will, of course, be appealed to the 9th Circuit (or 9th "Circus" as some refer to America's most liberal Circuit Court) and then to the U. S. Supreme Court.

Go here to read the brief analysis of this decision by Dr. Robert George (too many credentials to list; go here for my previous post about him), a staunch defender of Proposition 8. And here for a statement on the decision authored by George, Charles Colson, and Dr. Timothy George (no relation to Robert George), the authors of the Manhattan Declaration.

Men and Women

Someone sent this to me and I thought it was cute, but not altogether true. I don't think shopping is a male vs. female thing, but I do think shopping malls are. I (most men?) avoid malls like the plague. If we have to go, it's "get in, get done, get out." But I will spend hours shopping for something online. Thoughts?

"Wake Up, America!"

Dr. Michael Youssef is the founding pastor of the 3,000+ member, non-denominational Anglican Church of the Apostles in Atlanta. He is Egyptian by birth and world-traveled. He received his theological education in Sydney, Australia, and at Fuller Seminary in America, then a Ph.D in social anthropology from Emory University in Atlanta. He became an American citizen in 1984. But because of his Egyptian heritage, he knows the Arab world and the Muslim religion. And he believes America is blind to the Muslim agenda.

Much has been in the news of late about the proposed building of a $100 million mosque just a couple blocks from Ground Zero in New York City—a project that will most likely be funded by Saudi Arabia where Christians are not even allowed to worship in their homes. Youssef believes America is acting naively when it comes to its attitude toward Muslims—as Europe has done which is gradually becoming "Muslimized."

Please read Youssef's brief take on the New York City mosque debate, found here. In a short space, he gives an overview of the Muslim agenda that few in America are even aware of. (Thanks to my friend, Robert Orr, for the link to this article.)

Way to Go, Missouri!

Yesterday, Missouri voters became the first to formally tell the federal government to back away when it comes to mandating the purchase of health coverage. From the St Louis Post-Dispatch:

Missouri voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected a federal mandate to purchase health insurance, rebuking President Barack Obama's administration and giving Republicans their first political victory in a national campaign to overturn the controversial health care law passed by Congress in March.

"The citizens of the Show-Me State don't want Washington involved in their health care decisions," said Sen. Jane Cunningham, R-Chesterfield, one of the sponsors of the legislation that put Proposition C on the August ballot. She credited a grass-roots campaign involving Tea Party and patriot groups with building support for the anti-Washington proposition.

Now—where are the rest of the states?

Read the whole article here.

Don't Drive Through the Drive-Thru

I'm a big fan of Dr. Michael Greger (M.D.). Every year he reads around 5,000 articles published in major medical and nutritional journals to uncover the latest research. He then summarizes the best of his findings in an annual DVD—tons of helpful information. This year's edition consists of two DVD's, he had so much to share.

Watching the latest edition this morning while riding my stationary bike, I was amazed at this finding: a major journal reported research conducted at the Cleveland Clinic on the content of fast-food hamburgers. That is, how much actual beef muscle tissue—what we think of as meat—is contained in fast-food burgers? They analyzed the burgers from eight national fast-food chains and found that eating them is roughly equivalent to eating a hot dog—the waste bin of the processed meat industry. The eight burgers were found to contain between two and 14 percent of actual beef muscle tissue. The rest of the burgers were made up of organ meat, blood vessels, nerves, fillers, and the like.

Fortunately, no brain or spinal tissue was found—that's been outlawed as I understand it, due to the prions in those organs that result in BSE (Mad Cow Disease).

I recall how my mother bought meat when I was small, from a local butcher shop in our small town in Alabama. She went into the shop, requested this or that cut, and we watched the butchers cut the meat off large sections of carcass. If she got hamburger, the raw meat portions were run through a meat grinder and wrapped. In other words, it was all meat. Even when a McDonalds opened in our town, it was years before I was allowed to eat there. My mother just didn't trust "hamburgers" that she couldn't see being prepared in front of her, I guess. (My other memory from those butcher shop visits was bringing home large wrapped portions of beef bones for our dogs, Sugar and Jet, to chew on. How they loved those bones!)

And this nut didn't fall far from the tree as I have returned to that same perspective. Not regarding meat, of course—that's off the menu regardless of its source. But I no longer put much trust in corporate food sources -- like fast-food or other chain or even standalone restaurants. It's too easy for food to be tampered with behind closed doors in the name of the bottom line. When I see advertising campaigns like the "Got Milk" ads featuring celebrities, I imagine the average consumer believes those ads are somehow health related when they have nothing to do with health, put profit. They have no idea of the gazillions of dollars from trade and lobbying organizations that go into producing those ads, purely for the purpose of selling a product that has been proven to have deleterious health effects.

Yes, the McDonald's jingle used to say, "Two ALL BEEF patties . . .," but knowing that "all beef" includes mostly the junk portions of the cow ought to be enough to cause anyone to avoid drive-thru's altogether.

Summer CSA (July 22)

My CSA share box gets seriously heavy in July, what with the tomatoes, potatoes, and melons. This was the harvest for this week: peppers, cucumbers, squash, eggplant, slicing tomatoes, "cherry" tomatoes, potatoes, watermelon, and a smooth skinned cantaloupe:

After the watermelon had cooled I split it and discovered it had yellow flesh! I can't remember ever tasting a watermelon as sweet as this. I emailed Sammy (the farmer) to get the variety name and to see if it was a hybrid or an open pollinated variety—if the latter, I could save the seeds. He said it was a hybrid that he got from Johnny's Selected Seeds, but couldn't remember the name. I looked on their site and Sunshine looks like it might be the variety. It was unbelievably good:

I also love the variety of "cherry" tomatoes Sammy grows. They rarely make it past the first day:

Giant Zucchini

This zucchini got too big before I noticed it, so I decided to just let it grow. I brought it in today since I was ready to pull the plant up. It's interesting that the longer this zucchini stayed on the plant, the weaker the plant got. It stopped putting out any new flowers and lots of the leaves began wilting. Since a plant's mission in life is to bear fruit and create seed for reproducing itself, I wondered if this zucchini being allowed to grow so large sent a signal to the plant that said, "Our work here is done." It weighs 4 pounds, 4 ounces:

In Praise of Compost

Back on June 2, I posted this picture of three "plants" (wasn't sure what they were at the time) that had sprouted at/near the base of a compost bin:

This is what they look like on July 24:

I think they are some variety of pumpkin squash, based on the early markings. I recall getting a pumpkin squash in my CSA share last summer which I never ate. It sat on my kitchen table through the winter and I composted it in the spring. So these plants are likely from those seeds. However, if the squash was a hybrid (rather than an OP [open pollinated] variety), it likely won't reproduce true to the parent. So it will be a surprise!

I think the robust growth of these plants is due in part to the alfalfa meal I put in the compost bin every time I add new raw material. It is a great nitrogen source for the bacteria and must be feeding these plants as well.

What Little Boys Do on the Way to School

This is a great video. It's a demonstration of how "balance bikes" -- bikes without pedals -- can be used to teach really little kids how to balance and steer bikes before they learn to ride with pedals. But the demonstration turns priceless seeing all the things this little guy does on his way to kindergarten, arriving just as the bell rings. The freedom and joy of being a tyke on a bike:

Pictures from Pella

Back when I joined Facebook, I started a Kruidenier Family Group for people with the last name "Kruidenier"—a rare enough name to create a small group. I haven't counted lately, but I think around 30+ Kruideniers have found the group and joined up from all over the world.

I looked at the Group's page the other day and found a note left by a nice lady in Pella, Iowa, who isn't a Kruidenier but lives in a house built and inhabited by a "Dirk Kruidenier" in the late 1800's. Dirk Kruidenier, and his wife, Wilhelmina Pluggers Kruidenier, were my paternal great-grandparents. I contacted the lady and asked for more information about the house. She and her husband had bought and renovated the house and lived in it for a number of years, but were selling it. She directed me to a local real estate web site where I found some pictures.

Pella, Iowa, (40-50 miles east of Des Moines) was founded in 1847—the settlement of around 800 Dutch immigrants who journeyed to America. I actually have the beautiful wooden trunk brought from Holland by Dirk Kruidenier when he emigrated with his parents as a six-year-old in 1854. He and Wilhelmina Pluggers were married in Holland, Michigan, (her hometown, also the daughter of "pioneer Dutch settlers") in 1877, and they lived in Pella in the house (below) where Dirk owned a "general merchandise store there, with considerable success" (from his obit). They moved to Des Moines, Iowa, in 1904 where he entered the wholesale carpet business. Then, in 1910, he along with his three sons became the distributor of Cadillac automobiles in the region: Kruidenier-Cadillac Co.

Here is Dirk Kruidenier:

And Wilhelmina:

These pics of their house are from the real estate web site, so not great quality. The lady who currently owns the house offered this info: 11-foot ceilings downstairs, transoms over all the interior doors for air circulation, plaster medallions on the ceilings in four rooms with a large hook for hanging gas lights, three bedrooms upstairs (plus a bath the current residents added) and a master bedroom and bathroom downstairs. She said they love the house and hate to sell it.

The design is unusual to me: the bulbous living room on the front of the house with dual front doors (?), one on each side of the porch (?):

The lady said the brick walls of the house were "three bricks thick!"

Nice detailing over the windows and in the brick work on the right:

The interior of the aforementioned living room with the curved front wall. I like the period wallpaper:

I'd never seen pictures of this house before. Nice to get a glimpse of where one's forebears lived—especially after coming to America with everything in a small trunk.

Dirk died in Des Moines of a heart attack at age 68 (1916), and Wilhelmina lived until age 80, also dying of a heart ailment of some sort. (Unfortunately, Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn wouldn't write Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease until 2007.)

I would love to have known them both.

Attentive Marketing

Today's stage in the Tour de France was one of the most exciting I've ever seen. They boys rode up a massive final peak in the Pyrenees with a screaming, twisting 20k downhill to the finish. I'll quench my inner sportswriter and not describe the entire thing and mention only a decisive event that determined the winner of the stage: When the leader of the Tour attacked near the top of the peak his chain popped off and his main rival sped past him and started the downhill with a 30-second lead, eventually displacing the unfortunate rider at the finish line as the new Tour leader.

Many of these very expensive bikes have a small accessory installed called a chain catcher that prevents chains from popping off the front rings (which happens rarely, anyway). But this rider's bike didn't have one installed (although I bet it will tomorrow).

I laughed when, about three hours after the race ended, a marketing email came through from Competitive Cyclist in Little Rock, Arkansas—a terrific seller of high-end road and mountain bike wares. They sell the best of EVERYTHING related to this sport, and I have gotten quite an education just from lurking about on their web site. The highlighted item in their marketing email? Chain catchers:

Selling on the news of the day. That's why they're the best in the biz.

Colin Campbell on the Flawed/Failed Strategy of the NIH

It's awesome to witness the macro-views of Dr. Colin Campbell, author of The China Study and Emeritus Professor of nutritional biochemistry at Cornell. In this Huffington Post piece, he calls on the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the "most prominent biomedical research institution in the world," to establish an Institute of Nutrition -- amazingly, not one of its 27 existing institutes is dedicated to that subject!

Is that amazing? The "National Institutes of HEALTH" has 27 institutes and centers that deal with everything except the connection between food (nutrition) and health.

In his piece, Dr. Campbell explains why this is needed: the "genome project" has been a failed exercise in promoting health. It serves other purposes, but its hoped-for ability to reverse major diseases by genetic manipulation has produced no results. Rather, laboratories like Dr. Campbell's, and others', have shown that nutrition has the power to suppress genetic tendencies toward disease. Yet this is being totally overlooked, if not ignored, by the NIH and other mainstream medical institutions.

He concludes:

As for health professionals who claim they cannot convince patients to change their dietary practices, this is not surprising when the professionals themselves are not educated in this field and are vested in a strategy that is the antithesis of good nutrition. It is time we recognize what nutrition can do and a good place to start is to establish an NIH Institute of Nutrition dedicated for this purpose.

What a Great Way to Eat!

Great second-week update -- with beautiful pics, recipes, and nutritional info -- on the "Healthy Librarian's" three-week test of Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn's "no oil" vegan diet. Seeing the pics of this food, and the positive results as noted by the Healthy Librarian, makes one wonder why everyone doesn't eat this way all the time.

Dehydrated Tomatoes

The influx of tomatoes (mine and from the CSA shares) has created the opportunity to dehydrate plenty for use during the winter. Here's a tray of slices ready to go into the dehydrator with a dusting of five different spices:

Here are the spices—all tomato friendly—that I sprinkle on the tomatoes: (L to R) garlic powder, dulse flakes, sea kelp seasoning, basil, and garlic and herb.

Because the dehydrator mats are perforated, allowing lots of spices to fall through to the counter, I put down waxed paper beneath the trays to catch the overflow spices:

I then pour the spice mix into an empty spice bottle to use next time. (When I get a large enough empty container -- like the garlic shaker in the picture above -- I'll go ahead and make a mix of all the five spices to use when dehydrating tomatoes or preparing things like hummus or pasta sauce or as a potato or pasta sprinkle.)

My dehydrator has five shelves, but there is a larger model that has nine shelves. Here are three shelves of tomato slices ready to dehydrate, the second picture showing all five shelves:

The dehydrator has a thermostat that controls the temperature of the circulating warm air that dries out the food. The goal of dehydrating is to dry the food slowly (at a low enough temperature) so as to preserve the enzymes -- usually 115 degrees F. or less. I usually set the thermostat at 95 degrees.

You can see in the above picture that the tomato skin (on these half-dried tomatoes) is very much evident on each slice. As anyone who has cooked tomatoes knows, tomato skins come off when heated, separating from the meat of the tomato creating a not-so-desirable effect. And it will happen when these dehydrated slices are mixed into, say, a hot pasta sauce that is cooking. To prevent that from happening, I add the dehydrated slices last -- turning off the heat, putting the tomatoes in the pasta sauce, then covering the pan. The heat and steam in the pan will soften and hydrate the tomatoes but not so much that the skins separate off the slices. Before serving, the tomatoes can be folded into the sauce and they will be soft enough to mix in.

Beautiful Beagles

Thanks to vegan.com for the link to this great video:

Bionic Bikers

The Radio Shack professional bike team hired Dr. (Ph.D) Allen Lim away from another team (a reported $500,000 contract) to handle the riders' performance development (nutrition, performance output, recovery, etc.). One of his major emphases is the connection between core temperature and performance—the hotter the riders get during a race, the more their performance suffers.

To monitor the riders' core temperature during a race, before each day's stage in the Tour de France (going on now) they swallow a tiny "thermometer" contained in a small capsule. The thermometer transmits their core temperature to the team car that follows the riders. When a rider's temperature starts to rise too far, Lim will use the team radio to remind the rider to take in more fluids, or drop back and pick up an ice pack which he drops down the back of his jersey, or pour more water over the top of his head while riding -- all of which can help lower the rider's core temp and increase his output.

The team members also wear a light headband at night when they're sleeping that transmits sleep patterns (brain waves) to a monitor that records their "quality of sleep" during the night. As the three-week tour progresses, nightly recovery becomes increasingly important to the next day's performance, so sleep is critical.

Sounds like Radio Shack is getting their $500,000 worth -- I guess.

Craft Day

Last Saturday I took the materials for a couple of craft projects and paid a day-long visit to Columbia. Before Ellen, Arianna, and I worked on the crafts, we all visited Daniel at the Farmer's Market where he has sold home-brewed compost tea every Saturday morning for the last four months. UrbGard Compost Tea (short for Urban Gardener) has been an experimental, entrepreneurial venture to test the market for compost tea. There was a lot of educating involved as not that many folks are familiar with C.T., but he always sold a few gallons. A few shots of Daniel's "booth" at the market, explaining C.T. to customers, and the girls helping bottle up more tea:

Back home, the girls and I decorated watering cans. I brought them each a blank can with plenty of paints and markers and they did a great job decorating them:

The girls used their digital cameras to record their artwork for posterity:

And, yes, the watering cans worked even better after being decorated:

We took a break before the next project, during which Arianna beat me soundly (even with Daniel coaching me) in a game of Spit:

The next craft was using a product we called "gimp" when I went to summer camp 50+ years ago—plastic coated threads that can be braided into necklaces, bracelets, lanyards, and other indispensable objects d'art. I haven't made these since 1960 or so and was amazed I could still remember how—and that this product was still available at craft stores. The girls caught on quickly and were soon churning out all manner of beautiful items.

This is a lanyard I made out of gimp at church camp as a kid, which I somehow have held on to. The hook provides a starting place for the braid (we would attach the hook to our tennis shoe laces to start braiding) and served to hold wooden name tags, small crosses carved from cedar or braided from gimp, or whatever. Note the psychedelic green and orange color combo—shades of the 'Sixties:

To start the girls' braids we attached the hook to a drawer handle:

(Thanks to Jen for this pic and several others:)

And to Ellen for this one!

And a little home movie to conclude a great day of fun stuff:

Doesn't Hurt to Dream

Saw this little beauty for sale near my house today: a 1950 Ford N8 tractor, complete with bush hog (for cutting grass). I've always loved these little Ford tractors. They seem to be a perfect size for a hobby farm—a way for little boys in their sixties to play in the dirt. I'm thinking about it . . .