I'm glued.

I've recently joined a forum called "Down To Earth Forums." It's a space where do-it-yourself-ers gather and talk about all sorts of things like growing your own food, raising livestock, making your own chemical-free cleaners, making your own soap, crafting, cooking, etc. It's basically home ec for those of us who are too young to have had it in school! It's a great place to ask questions - example: when my radishes didn't seem to be growing, I made a post on the forum and got some much-needed advice. (Namely, thin your radishes even though it seems like cruel punishment and give it time).

Anyway...I've titled this post "I'm glued" because yes, I am glued to Down To Earth Forums, and thanks to a post someone put up I'm glued to this mini-series documentary called Victorian Farm and that's why I haven't blogged about The Minifarm in a week or so even though there is plenty to write about. I've spent every spare moment watching this show on youtube.

Here's the first 10 minutes so you can be hooked too:

Our County Fair Date.

J and I vowed not to miss the LA County Fair this year, so we scheduled our fair date so far in advance we could hardly sleep the night before from excitement. Yes, we are a couple of little kids when it comes to events like the fair.

And the fair did not disappoint! We were awed by the handicrafts: quilting, home brewing, baking, and oh, the art! Photography, sketches, incredible pictures made with pressed flowers. Plenty of inspiration to go and get creative.

J got all nostalgic in the vendor section (his family used to sell their hand-blown glass at the fair), remembering (and then eating!) his favorite tri-tip sandwiches - two of them - and delicious chocolate fudge.

Being the great husband-to-be that he is, J sat with me through an hour-long organic small-scale gardening class, no hints of boredom on his face. We even discussed building a worm-composting bin after the talk, while ogling kookaburra and wallaby in the Australian Outback area.


We contemplated going down the giant slide, shrugged it off due to the slight embarrassment we (I?) felt about acting child-like in public (even at the fair! shame on me!) and then decided having children is a must so we can have society's permission to engage in such naive fun.


And now comes the part of the fair I was most excited about...the animals!! Pigs, goats, sheep, cows, chickens, ducks, rabbits bees oh my!! There was a beautiful vegetable garden that the bees, whose working hive was on display within Plexiglas, were out pollinating.

We finished off our day with some beer tasting, shopping (yes, we got suckered in on a couple of products), and a romantic ride on the Ferris Wheel.  An excellent fair adventure.

  old woman holding a baby wallaby in it's "pouch"

goats are my favorite farm animal ever.

 after traipsing around, we relaxed with some award-winning beer

yes, that is a deep fried snickers bar and some chocolate covered bacon. yes, the bacon was surprisingly good. yes, this went against everything I've learned about good quality eating in the past year.  but whatever. you only live once. 

 ferris wheels are for lovers. 

Happy fair-going! 

<3

M

vinegar and oil. and baking soda.

Right now I smell like a giant, coconut macaroon. Not joking.

I've been looking into organic/natural hygiene you see, and my research has yielded some surprising results. One of which is coconut oil, which is good for a lot of things, especially a scalp treatment. Since my scalp is always kinda itchy (TMI, perhaps), and since I can never seem to find a shampoo/conditioner that cleans my hair and leaves my scalp hydrated, I thought why not. If it turns out horribly, it's not like anyone is looking. It's just me and the dust bunnies at home right now.

The other interesting bit of info I've been soaking up is this whole notion of "no-'poo", as in no shampoo. There's this underground movement of people who are attempting to redefine normal on the personal hygiene front, not an easy task, and they clean their hair with baking soda and rinse it with vinegar. It's chemical-free, if you're concerned about cancer, reduces plastic waste, if you're concerned about the environment, and it's pretty darn cheap if you're concerned about saving $$.

So I gave that trend a try as well. Results? So far, surprising. After a long day at work, my hair is pretty icky, and I felt squeaky clean after using the "no-poo" method. I rinsed with diluted apple cider vinegar, which did leave me smelling a bit like homemade pickles, but no one gave me any funny looks at work today so assume only I could notice. And after work I let my hair down to reveal a beautiful, grease-free shine. Even my bangs were still feathery. Nice.

The "recipe" I tried:

1. Make a paste out of baking soda and water. Massage into dry scalp.
2. Let sit for 2-3 minutes. Rinse out.
3. Pour dilute vinegar (1 part vinegar to 4 parts water, approx) through hair. Rinse with cool water.

I'm going to let the coconut oil sit for 1 hour and then do the baking soda/vinegar routine. We'll see what happens!

An education is a dangerous thing to have. With knowledge comes power, and with power comes obligation and the need for a wholelotta wisdom.

It all began when I watched Food, Inc., a modern-day equivalent of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. Thanks to filmmaker Robert Kenner, my eyes were opened to the truth behind the industrializaton of food - how big business has sacrificed food quality increase profits. The cow and the chicken are no longer complex creatures belonging to an ecosystem but commodities to be processed, genetically modified organisms are beginning to dominate our landscapes, and single-crop "farms" are depleting the soil of vital nutrients leading to an increase in disease and need for more pesticides and antibiotics. Ignorance is bliss; after seeing the film I felt like crawling into an imaginary void and curling into the fetal position - my understanding of food and American culture was deconstructed before my very eyes. (Paradigm shift anyone?)

Since my curiosity was piqued, I felt obligated to take a stand, for my health and the health of my community. Encouraged by the movie to vote with my dollar, I chose to only buy organic for 40 days. In doing so, I had to give up the myriad of choices offered to me by my local grocery store and get creative with my cooking. Saying no to tomatoes since they weren't in season was difficult, but it also made me look forward to summer when they would be available in the organic section.

During these 40 days I also began reading. What do all of the different organic certifications mean? What is a grass-fed cow? What is the difference between a free-range chicken and an organic chicken? I read In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan. I've contemplated joining a CSA. I've bought more food from my local farmer's market. I'm currently reading Silent Spring by Rachel Carson as a continuation of my environmental education.

The bottom line is that it's all about stewardship. It's incredibly disheartening how our fast-paced Western lifestyle has disconnected us from the very earth we live on. We favor accomplishing tasks and have forgotten that the greatest joys are found in the process of getting from point A to point B. And this lifestyle has permeated the very core of our culture - our eating habits - as evidenced by the fact that we no longer know where our food comes from, how it's made, or quite frankly what is in it. Eating is a means to an end instead of a daily time to stop, gather together and share.

It's all I can do to keep my feet planted here in LA, where a grass-fed dairy seems nonexistent and where fast-paced is the norm. I daydream about my little utopia; I live in a small community where each of us is interdependent upon the other for the necessities in life, neighbors share meals, and nobody worries about reading food labels because they simply don't exist.