Category Archives: health

Raw Kofta Balls and When God was a Rabbit

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Last Saturday our book club got together to discuss this meet’s book, which I loved. This book was the author’s first novel and as I don’t read a lot of fiction these days (I am more of a non-fiction fan lately) it was nice to sit down and enjoy a group of characters that were unusual enough to seem almost unreal but free enough in their ways to make me feel free too. When the main character suggested to her christian teacher that perhaps Jesus were an unplanned pregnancy I laughed out loud. Hey, God must have a sense of humour – he made humans after all. I think we were all split down the middle on our likes and dislikes of the book which was nice as it gave way to some good criticism and interpretation on what the author was trying to convey.

Prior to discussing the book we ate a raw food dinner where each person contributed a dish. I was so excited about this as I am a big fan of raw food and absolutely super-heart my Excalibur. That means I really love my dehydrator. Arms-out-to-here much. We had a delightful dinner with amazing raw food and even more amazing company. What a wonderful group of women who are all so different yet alike in many ways. I have only been a part of two meets so far but I have to say, “Love you ladies!”.

When I was searching for a recipe to bring to the meet I happened upon one that I’d book marked in one of my recipe books. I figured it would be too much prep for the time so I decided to make it for today – which means I had to start prep yesterday. I did however, bring some kale chips and bliss balls to our meet and they were a delightful part of a wonderfully tasty night indeed.

Tomorrow, I make Raw Banana Bread Breakfast Bars! …which means I actually begin prep today with bananas in the dehydrator. I’ll try to remember to post those too, if I don’t eat them all first!

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diy veggie container

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If you  have ever wanted to make your garden grow without you then it sounds like we have something in common:

  1. We have a smallish yard and it’s mostly shaded
  2. I did my best last year to place the shade friendly veggies in the shade
  3. I also did my best to water when there was no call for rain
  4. I should have known better

I did not have a great harvest last year, let alone much at all to speak of. No, I didn’t water my veggies when it called for rain and most of those times, it did not rain. The veggies I placed in containers on our deck (which gets about 5 hours of sun a day on average) did okay but yet again, I didn’t water them as much as was needed. I also didn’t use fertilizer. I thought the compost in the non-soil mix I made from this wonderful book was enough but when I talked to this amazing woman at a local library whose book I bought last year and inspired my winter planning, I found that I sure needed that fertilizer. Compost is good to start but not to last.

This year I have moved things around and hopefully placed those veggies that need medium depth soil and less sun in the right place. Side note here: I had to build boxes with a bottom so the spawn-of-satan-weeds did not get in through the bottom. Check out the ‘control’ section of that link and you will understand. Those veggies that require deeper soil are either growing in the cold frame (thank you Nikki for this inspiration!) or are going to be planted in containers on the deck.

That being said, I found a great video on diy self-watering containers – to help with my watering deficiencies – and I did purchase some seaweed fertilizer as well. This is a great video and I was inspired! I finished the third container today. Now to add the ‘non-soil’ and plant those seeds! Wahoo! Here are some pics to show you how it all worked out for me. I used 1.5L bottles of water for the bottom inserts. Now I just have to remember to add water on a regular basis! Baby steps!

How is your garden planning going?

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Homemade Juggling Balls!

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Today at sports class the boys got to make their own juggling balls. How nifty and fun, I say!

We used biodegradable balloons and rice in baggies. It’s simple:

Cut the long end off of a balloon. Stuff the balloon with a bag of rice about the size of a child’s fist. Stretch the balloon to fit over the rice and then add another balloon over the first to hide the hole. And your done!

Fun!!

Of course I go to take this pic of L and he seems so serious!

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L discovers the cure for cancer of the lungs due to smoking

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we were talking about the effect of smoking and L said, “If there was a pill like microphage and neutrophil white blood cells that eat bacteria, we could put the pill in water, wait until it evaporates, then drink it, then it eats up the smoky stuff in the lungs”.

I really didn’t know what to say. cute. then I had to look it up.

~smile~

The first cuke.

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It’s our first cucumber of the season! We were all so excited that we ate it right away – even though it is a pickling cucumber.

Eating the cucumber made me feel like a little girl again and I remembered all the pickles my grandma would make. I felt like I was suddenly back in her kitchen again crunching down on the freshest cuke ever. Almost like time never passed. I like that.

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One of the boys said, “Mommy, you forgot to peel it first”. So I happily explained that we don’t have to peel the ones that we grow in our garden.

And they happily ate their very first cucumber from our garden. Thank you, Grandma, for passing the love of a garden onto your daughter who has perhaps unintentionally passed it onto me as I do to my children. May they do the same.

Yum!

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