Kale, Glorious Kale!

My mother found yet ANOTHER gem for me...a whole book on KALE!  It's called The Book of Kale: The Easy-To-Grow Superfood by Sharon Hanna. 

I read the whole thing in one night, so it's a good resource for those of you who don't have a lot of time (isn't that EVERYONE?).  It starts with the health benefits of kale, shocker that it ranks high in EVERYTHING healthy! Then it goes into a very interesting history of kale. (I do realize how incredibly dorky that last sentence sounded...but I found it fascinating that a veggie that is depicted on ancient Egyptian's Pharaoh's tombs and was speculated by paleobotanists to have covered the Earth in the time of the dinosaurs, was such a staple in the diet of the olde Irish that they had "kail fairies", was encouraged in WWII British Isles Victory Gardens, could be such a little known gem in 2012 USA.) 

Pictures

So this is my new goal, to add more pictures to my blog. I was looking at some blogs friends of mine do (Not Raising Brats) (Yellow Finch Designs) and I clicked on a few of the "What We're Reading" links and realized, I need more pictures.  Just to be clear, my pictures will in no way resemble what Liz has on Yellow Finch!  They will be off-center and ill-frames, but they'll be a little different than just reading words.  Of course I'm one of the 5 people in the US that doesn't own an iPhone, so I'll actually have to take the pictures with a CAMERA and upload them, but I think it will be worth it.

 I've gotten so lax about taking pictures.  When we take the kids to the zoo, I always think, "We have 100 pictures of this place, we don't need more."  I feel this excuses my laziness for picture-taking.  But it doesn't.  Each trip is different and each experience can be captured on "film" to help me remember that day.  Today I'm going to add some pictures of my garden.  If I had been doing this for awhile, you'd be able to see how it's grown, but this will have to be the "before" pictures.

MooCrew

I am a member of the StonyField Farms MooCrew!  I got an email about it awhile ago, kind of checked it out, then went back the other day and really gave it some time.  It's kind of cool!  It's how I found the Justlabelit.org site from yesterday's post.  There are different  "challenges" that you can do and you receive credits for them.  When you have so many credits you can "buy" StonyField stuff like shirts, water bottles, onesies, all the necessities in life.  But I like the idea none-the-less!

Just Label It!

I found an interesting site the other day while completing my Stonyfield Farms challenge.  I thought it might be something that would be interesting to share with all of you .  It's a website dedicated to changing the way our food is labeled, specifically getting genetically modified food labeled.  Here's a quick video clip about the Just Label It mission.

Eat Wild

As I pulled down my bookmark menu to blog today, I saw a site that I was SURE I'd blogged about before, but I guess not. I bookmarked it a long time ago and I've used it here and there, when I feel like searching for local farms.  It's called Eat Wild and it's a great resource for finding locally raised, grass-fed meat, dairy and eggs.

Here Fishy Fishy Fishy!

Sadly, it's not that easy to fish sustainably.  I always have a hard time figuring out which is the "right" kind of fish to buy.  Farm-Raised, Wild Caught?  I've read articles saying each is the best.  It's hard to find "organic" fish, and I'm not sure that any fish is certified organic (I can see why it would be hard, especially the wild caught." So when I came across this article in my ZooTales from the Akron Zoo, I  was really excited!  FINALLY, some directions! 

Missing Cat

When I was trying to think of a blog topic today, all I could think about was my cat, so I decided to blog about her. 

We went to Sesame Place again this year.  We were gone for 4 days and 3 nights.  When we got home, Abby, the dog, was there to greet us.  We started unpacking, the kids played with all the toys they'd missed over the last few days, and Evan and I realized, we hadn't seen the cat.  So we looked EVERYWHERE for her.  She's an indoor cat, so it shouldn't be hard to find her, but we thought she might be mad at us and hiding so we waited until the evening, when the kids were in bed, hoping she'd come out...no luck.  So we put up posters the next day, but we haven't gotten any calls.  I'm going to go to the Humane Society as soon as it opens again (they were closed for 3 days around the 4th of July holiday).