Sacraments, Soap Nuts and Swamps.

If I had been more on the ball I would have had a post ready to be automatically published on Easter Sunday celebrating the Resurrection like a good little Catholic blogger. But I'm relatively new to this enterprise and still learning the ropes of good blogging, so I hope you'll forgive me my omission.

Dominic's first Easter went much better than I was expecting. He's been settling into a pretty regular nap schedule, which makes him primed and ready for bed at about 7:30 or 8pm. If he skips any of his naps he's a grumpy bugger until he goes to bed. So we started our Triduum fairly well. Holy Thursday Mass was at 7pm so we were cutting it close but still able to keep him relatively good tempered until it was over. On Good Friday we were not so lucky. I had to skip out because Dominic missed his afternoon nap (our fault...we were out looking for dress shoes for his Easter outfit) and he was not going to cooperate. We were worried that there would be a repeat performance the next day and I would have to miss out on the Vigil Mass and instead go to Mass in the morning without my darling husband (as the Director of Religious Education he had to be at the Vigil for the Sacraments of Initiation). So we took extra precautions and got him down for an extra nap right before we had to leave for the Vigil, which started at 8pm. Lo and behold! he handled it beautifully, especially considering it was very much past his bedtime! I had to pace with him in the ring sling near the doors to get some air during Communion, but that was the extent of it. Moral of the story? Babies can and will exceed expectations...and they are remarkably resilient. Oh and a ring sling is a must-have for long Vigil Masses.

Now, in my attempt to switch entirely to natural household products, I have finally delved into the world of soap nuts. We all know the saying "Money doesn't grow on trees." (Or, as I like to say, "My money tree isn't producing this year"). But guess what does grow on trees...laundry detergent! These soap nuts (or soap berries, as they are more accurately named) contain a natural detergent called saponin in their hulls. When you soak them in water they release the saponin, which reduces the surface tension of the water, allowing it to penetrate fabrics and thus clean them. Cool, right?

I have been making my own laundry soap for over a year now, but, after experiencing some problems with leaking due to possible detergent residue on my cloth diapers, I decided to give soap nuts a try. I got mine from NaturOli because their prices were the best and they don't use plastic in their packaging. I got a 1/4 lb. bag, which can be used for over 40 loads of laundry. That works out to about $0.25 per load (if you buy the 4 lb. bag, it works out to $0.08 per load)! I have been using them on my diapers for over a week now and I'm impressed! My diapers come out clean and soft and I have no leaking problems. My laundry smells clean...no not the "fresh" scent so commonly associated with cleanliness, but actually clean. And if you really like your laundry to be scented, you can throw a towel with a few drops of essential oil on it into the dryer with your load.

What's even better is that NaturOli offers 50% off their soap nuts and Extreme 18X liquid concentrate in honor of Earth Day. Unfortunately, the sale ended Tuesday at midnight, so you can't take advantage of this deal (yet another example of how I need to be more on-the-ball about getting posts up quicker). But it's still cost-effective, even without the sale. I was able to purchase a 2 lb. bag before the sale ended at $19 with $10 shipping, which works out to $0.09 per load! Hooray for natural and cost-effective!

Now if only I could hang my diapers out in the sun to dry...

I mention that merely as a segue into my next topic, which is, of course, RAIN.

Lots, and lots, and lots of rain.

Normally, rain is a good thing for a gardener. Unless, of course, your soil is mostly clay and it pours buckets for a week straight (or longer, I don't know. I've lost track). Our lawn looks like a prairie, which is not in and of itself a bad thing if you're going for that look. The weeds next to our shed have grown nearly a foot since this all started (and no, I'm not over-exaggerating). My garden beds are now more suited to rice paddies than anything resembling a vegetable bed. Had I known this deluge was on its way, I wouldn't have planted my lettuce seeds. My neat little rows have been scattered all over the bed, so I'll have to wait until they get their true leaves to figure out which variety is growing where. Ugh!

I would have taken a picture of what basically amounts to a bird bath in my backyard, but it was too depressing at the time (and my camera ran out of batteries).

It looks like my tomato and pepper plants will have to wait for the soil to dry out a little before they can be planted.

Got [Raw] Milk?

I recently drove 45 minutes for a gallon of milk.

Yup. I did.

And it was worth it.

Some of you may be wondering, "But Amy! You're lactose intolerant! Why would you go through all this trouble for milk if you can't drink it?" Well, here's the thing. I can drink this milk.

"But Amy! How can this be?!?"

Alright, enough buildup. I'll spare you the rest of this quirky vignette and get to my point. The reason I drove 45 minutes for the only gallon of milk in the world I can apparently drink is because we are now getting raw milk straight from a local farm. It's an awesome setup because the milk comes from 100% grass fed Jersey, Guernsey, and Normande cows (all cows known for the high quality of their milk) and it costs no more than the store-bought organic milk we were purchasing previously.

Now before you bombard me with the dangers of drinking raw milk, let me just say that this was not a decision made on a whim. We weighed the risks and benefits thoroughly. The risks seem to be greatly exaggerated, and are far outweighed by the benefits:

• Raw cow's milk has all 20 of the standard amino acids.
• Raw milk contains lactoferrin, which is an iron-binding protein for improved absorption of iron and also anti-cancer properties.
• Contains CLA, or conjugated linoleic acid, a polyunsaturated omega 6 fatty acid which has many health benefits such as raising the metabolic rate, strengthening the immune system, lowering food allergy reactions, and is also a cancer-fighting agent among other things.
• Contains vitamins and minerals including calcium which has many benefits in itself including reduction in cancer, lower risk of osteoporosis, higher bone mineral density, strong teeth, and lowered risk of kidney stones.
• Sixty-plus fully intact and functional enzymes.
• Contains beneficial bacteria.

This is a rather simplified list that really just scratches the surface concerning the health benefits of drinking raw milk. Pasteurization destroys most of these factors or greatly diminishes their effectiveness. Enzymes are the best example. Raw milk contains phosphatase for calcium absorption, lipase for fat, lactase for lactose, and many others. One of the tests to confirm pasteurization was successful checks for the absence of these enzymes! Not to mention the loss of many of the heat-sensitive fat-soluble and water-soluble vitamins: up to 66% for Vitamins A, D, E and F, 50% or more for Vitamin C, and the total destruction of Vitamins B6 and B12.

So if pasteurization is so bad, why is all our milk pasteurized? Simple. It allows conventional diary operations to continue producing thousands of gallons of milk daily. Without pasteurization these operations would have to change their farming practices drastically in order to assure the quality of their milk. As it stands right now, they don't have to worry about contamination or disease because their milk will be pasteurized anyway. Nevermind that pasteurization doesn't prevent contamination.

This is why, as is true for much of our food, it is so important to know where your food came from. If Horizon Organic started selling raw milk at Kroger (a highly unlikely event given the current food climate) I would most likely pass it up considering I have no idea how they feed and care for their cows, whether they are allowed to graze or kept in confinement, if they've been screened for tuberculosis and brucellosis, and how often they're milked. Which is why we're going to a local farm for our milk.

I can't tell you how excited I am about this! Before we committed ourselves to a cow share we were able to visit the farm and see where the cows are milked, housed, and grazed. As a matter of fact, the day we went was the first day the cows were sent out to graze, so we went out to the pasture to "meet" the cows. Two of the younger, more curious ones came trotting up to us to investigate. Dominic kind of just looked at them, non-plussed, and proceeded to stare at the ground (which was apparently far more interesting than the large ruminant sticking her nose in his face).

The owner introduced us to all the cows, including some cute tidbits about the temperaments of a few of them. They were all happily munching on some the greenest, most lush looking grass I'd seen in a while. As I told the owner, "This makes me wish I ate grass!"

After we saw the cows, we made our way to the other end of the pasture to see their herd of mama sheep and their brand new babies (squeeeee!!!!!!). The lambs stayed safely behind their mothers and most of the mothers kept their distance, but the owner was able to get one of them to come over so we could pet her. Nick was kind of obsessed with the one spotted lamb and kept trying to get a picture of her, but she kept hiding behind her mama. He ended up getting some cute ones though.

Then she took us to see the brand new calf and the milking stall. They only milk one cow at a time to minimize the likelihood of contamination. She showed us the stainless steel tank where they keep the milk chilled, explained how they sanitize the equipment (very thoroughly was my impression) and showed us where they keep the bottled milk for pickup.

And then...

...we got to taste the milk!

Think back to any time you've ever had a craving for something, let's say French fries (I craved them a lot during my pregnancy). In your mind they taste exactly as a French fry ought to taste: salty, starchy, with just the right ratio of crispy exterior to soft interior. Then, when you finally have a pile of fries in front of you, you're disappointed to find that they're too crispy/mushy, too salty/not salty enough, too thin/too thick, etc, etc. Your expectations find no match in reality. So you resign yourself to sub-par potatoes and hope dousing them in ketchup will make up for it.

That has been my experience with milk (and, really, all dairy products) up to this point. I would think about milk and imagine something creamy, slightly sweet, full bodied. I was always disappointed by the store-bought variety and had resigned myself to the fact that there was no such thing as what I was expecting.

No more!

This milk tastes exactly how I always thought milk should taste. It is divinely delicious, rich and creamy. We signed up for a share on the spot. Now, I get a craving for a glass of milk...and I have a glass of milk. It is extremely satisfying, especially since it is not only delicious, but also health promoting.

I highly suggest looking into finding fresh milk and trying it yourself. Make sure you're getting it from a good source, one that keeps healthy, disease-free cows (no hormones or antibiotics), feeds them an organic, grass-based diet, is meticulous about the cleanliness of their milk and has it tested for contamination regularly. Clean, raw milk is highly nutritious and just as safe, if not more so, as its pasteurized counterpart.

Raw milk. Does the body good (really).

Raised (Ish) Garden Beds and Seedlings!

And so it begins...

There's no way out this time. My seeds are here (and some are started), my plants are on their way, my beds are dug, and there's nothing left to do but start planting and hope for the best. This has the potential to be a stunning success, a moderately satisfying achievement, or a crushing failure. I can live with a moderately satisfying achievement if it means at least ONE fresh tomato still warm from the sun. A stunning success is too much to hope for considering my dearth of experience with horticulture, so if I find myself in such happy circumstances, I will be pleasantly surprised. Crushing failure? Well, I'd rather not think about it.

And now it seems I will be having a gardening buddy this year! My brother-in-law is growing a small crop of corn in our yard since he has limited space in his own due to a rather large tree shading most of it. Fresh corn? Win! The downside of this arrangement is that I now have an impartial witness to any possible failure on my part. Note to self: Don't fail.

Yesterday was warm and sunny so we took the opportunity to get our beds dug and ready for planting (good thing, too, as it has been rainy steadily all. day. long.) My dad and sister helped us dig the beds while they were here looking for rental properties, so the initial digging had been completed already. That made things a little easier. What we did yesterday was edge the beds with cedar planks, rather like a raised bed, but not so raised. Why go through this rigmarole, you ask? Well, I was recently informed by my dear neighbor that our yard is full of bermudagrass, a particularly hardy and invasive species of turf grass. Let's put it this way...one of its many names, according to the referenced Wikipedia article, is Devil's Grass. Fitting, no? My neighbor claims the roots go straight to China.

The beds from my kitchen window.

In order to keep this grass from invading my beds, we dug a trench about 3 inches deep around the beds and stuck the cedar frame into it, leaving a gap around the outer edge so I can see the stolons and cut them off before they get to the bed (we hope). This may be an exercise in futility, but it's worth a try. The unframed bed is where the corn will go.

And speaking of gardening, I finally got to starting my seeds! Not very many of them required indoor germination, but those that did (including my German chamomile, English lavender, and Greek oregano...sounds like a meeting of the European Union) needed significant time to do it. There's nothing more exciting than placing a tiny seed in some soil and watching it grow. The day I first saw sprouts in my seed starting tray basically made my week (second only to the day we visited the Indiana dairy farm where we will be getting our milk from now on....but I digress).

Some basil sproutlings (Genovese to the left, Cinnamon to the right).

German chamomile sprouts.

The only seeds that have yet to germinate are those of my English lavender. It has been pointed out to me, however, that lavender is a very picky herb to grow from seed and may take a day and an age to do so. I really hope it sprouts, because I love love LOVE lavender.

Once it stops raining, I'll get out to the beds and hopefully get some lettuce planted. The tomato and pepper plants are scheduled to arrive on April 25. I can't wait!

Spring Is Here! Spring is Here!

Life is Skittles and life is beer! Tom Lehrer anyone?



Ahem, anyway. Remember my escapade from yesterday? Today has already made up for it, and it isn't even noon yet!

Some of you may already know that I'm planning to start a vegetable and herb garden this year. We just moved into a house with a great yard (if you didn't already know that, don't worry. It was under wraps until recently for some very complicated reasons) so I have tons of space to plant and plant and plant some more! I'm really excited, and a teeny bit scared as I've never really grown anything apart from a Chia Pet when I was 10. I'm really hoping I inherited my father's green thumb...

So why is today so very very awesome? My seeds came!

Top, from L-R: Crisp Mint, Bronze Arrowhead, Forellenschluss, Susan's Red Bibb, Amish Deer Tongue, Red Velvet, Cinnamon Basil; Bottom, L-R: Greek Oregano, English Lavender, German Chamomile, Giant From Italy Parsley, Cilantro, Genovese Basil.

And that's not including the tomato and pepper plants I bought, which will be shipped to me after the danger of frost has officially passed. I'm getting Amish Paste, Cherokee Purple and Brandywine tomatoes, as well as Ancho Gigantea, Traveler's Jalapeno, and Sweet Chocolate peppers! I purchased all my seeds and plants from Seed Savers Exchange. They sell heirloom varieties and certified organic seeds, both of which I prefer. I think heirlooms are just plain awesome and I'm all about doing what I can to preserve biodiversity.

So I know the first day of Spring isn't until Monday, but this totally means Spring for me! Time to get dirty!

The Resurrection of the Starter

This is Wilson.

Wilson was my beloved sourdough starter before I got pregnant.

Yes, I said was, for Wilson has since passed on. He was hidden in the back of the fridge during my first trimester and neglected for so long that he eventually turned grey and went into extreme hibernation. When we moved from our apartment, I wasn't in the mood to try and revive a clearly troubled starter so I let him go to Sourdough Heaven. Besides, he was starting to smell like potato chips (not a good smell for a starter).

Why am I telling you about Wilson? Because I am going to reincarnate Wilson! Yay Wilson!

I'm following the "recipe" for a wild yeast starter here. I'm using Hodgson Mill whole grain rye flour and R.W. Knudsen organic pineapple juice.

Why pineapple juice, you ask?

Mixing just flour and water creates an environment that is almost neutral pH, but the yeastie beasties we want prefer an acidic pH. The neutral environment is good for other organisms in the flour that produce acids as a by-product, thus lowering the pH to a level where the yeast can grow. But this takes longer and can be very frustrating because the starter will look like it's doing awesome around day 3 and then appear to "die" on you. This is because gas-producing bacteria cause the starter to grow and then die out when the environment is no longer to their liking. It's only after these bacteria die out that the yeast is allowed to grow. By using pineapple juice, we bypass that initial phase and go directly to an acidic pH favorable to the yeast. The yeast get a foothold right away and don't have to do battle with the gassy bacteria.

Make sense? If not, don't worry. You don't have to know why something works for it to work (thank goodness!)

So last night I mixed 2 tablespoons rye flour with 2 tablespoons pineapple juice in a mason jar.

I will continue adding 2 tablespoons each flour and juice for the next two days until it starts bubbling and then I will start discarding and feeding (if I didn't discard some of it every time I fed it, Wilson would take over my kitchen in about a week! First stop kitchen, next stop...WORLD).

Stay tuned!

You're Not In Kansas Anymore

Fun Factiod: I've actually never been to Kansas. Which is probably a good thing because I'm deathly afraid of tornadoes. And yes, I do realize that Kentucky sees the occasional tornado (my town tests the alarms weekly...to my chagrin), but Kansas is so much worse! Didn't you watch Twister?

Anyway, you may or may not have noticed that some things have changed around here (and if you are in the "have-not" camp, I highly suggest corrective lenses and/or a literacy course), most notably the very blog title itself. I realized, after typing my own blog url into the address bar several times, that "Chestertonian Paradox" was just too damn difficult to spell, and probably even harder to remember. That and I think it's probably a bad sign when one has to dedicate an entire page to the explanation of said blog title. I decided I needed something simple and easy to remember (and easy to spell!)

I chose "Home-Grown Catholic" because A) I'm Catholic, B) I was raised Catholic (or you could say "home-grown"), C) I was homeschooled and plan on homeschooling my kids, and D) part of living naturally and simply is either growing your own food or buying locally.

I also altered the design to reflect these changes (that and Blogger has some cool new features I wanted to play with *nerd*).

I know this doesn't really count as a blog post, but hey, it's something! Look forward to some new posts soon, though!

How to Eat Responsibly

There's an excellent article by Wendell Berry (who is from Kentucky...RAWK!) over at Organic Gardening about why it's important to understand where our food comes from. He says that eating is an agricultural act that begins with planting and ends with consumption (no not tuberculosis), and the modern person considers themself a "consumer" of a product, and not a participant in the biological reality of farming and the land. This particular excerpt caught my attention:

The passive American consumer, sitting down to a meal of pre-prepared or fast food, confronts a platter covered with inert, anonymous substances that have been processed, dyed, breaded, sauced, gravied, ground, pulped, strained, blended, prettified, and sanitized beyond resemblance to any part of any creature that ever lived.

Sound familiar? I am convinced McDonald's has ceased to serve real food, and is instead serving some sort of synthesized "food product" created in a lab. Yummy.

Here's where it gets real interesting (emphasis mine):

[I]n the food industry—as in any other industry—the overriding concerns are not quality and health, but volume and price. For decades now the entire industrial food economy, from the large farms and feedlots to the chains of supermarkets and fast-food restaurants, has been obsessed with volume. It has relentlessly increased scale in order to increase volume in order (presumably) to reduce costs. But as scale increases, diversity declines; as diversity declines, so does health; as health declines, the dependence on drugs and chemicals necessarily increases. As capital replaces labor, it does so by substituting machines, drugs, and chemicals for human workers and for the natural health and fertility of the soil. The food is produced by any means or any shortcut that will increase profits.

No wonder our country struggles so much with obesity. The quality of our food has surrendered to the demand for quantity...just look at the meal portions at Applebee's! And they're always getting bigger.

Ever since seeing Super Size Me I have become more and more aware of how what we eat affects more than just our health (and our pocketbook). Then I saw Food Inc., and never wanted to look at a cheeseburger ever again...for the rest of my natural born life (pregnancy cravings overrode that sentiment a few times, but I blame that entirely on the hormones). My options weren't particularly appealing, either. Pay $1 for a cheeseburger, or $15 for an organic sandwich. Well, my money tree died, so either I needed to find some sort of middle ground, or we were gonna live on beans for the rest of our (very smelly) lives.

Then I became acquainted with people who grew their own food...and even raised their own animals. They weren't starving...far from it. And they weren't spending their life savings on chichi overpriced organic frozen dinners from Whole Foods. I began feeling a peculiar pulling sensation in the region of my chest, which I eventually identified as longing. I wanted what these people had. Unfortunately for me, I am not in possession of the quantity of land that would allow me to accomplish this goal in the near future.

But I can still grow things.

A book called The Bountiful Container helped me come to this realization. Apparently, you can grow most of your own produce in pots on your back (or front) porch (or in our case, a cement patio about the size of a postage stamp). I had completely planned on doing this exact thing at the beginning of this year...oh, I had plans. Then I got pregnant...and hadn't the energy nor the wherewithal. Sad story.

I definitely plan on a garden next year, which will be an adventure since the last thing I grew was a Chia Pet. Shenanigans will undoubtedly ensue.

The pleasure of eating should be an extensive pleasure, not that of the mere gourmet. People who know the garden in which their vegetables have grown and know that the garden is healthy will remember the beauty of the growing plants, perhaps in the dewy first light of morning when gardens are at their best.