Wild Things Farm

I'm not a big fan of New Year's Resolutions, but just so happens that this year I'm determined to cut out as many chemicals in my life as I possibly can.  It's really harder than you think, in today's world.

Our skin absorbs most anything that touches it--just like if you swallowed it.  YUK!  If you think of the skin that way, you'd be more careful about what you came in contact with.   This makes one think about everything that we use each day to keep ourselves "beautiful" and "presentable".    Read the labels and if you wouldn't swallow it, don't put it on your skin!

First I got rid of the antiperspirant deodorant.  This has been a little challenging, but I'm managing.  I haven't made my own deodorant yet, but am using Tom's brand until I get the time to make a batch from several recipes I've gathered.  The antiperspirant part of deodorant isn't good for us, nor is the aluminum, so I'm doing something different.  It doesn't keep you from sweating, but if you keep your pits clean it's not that difficult.  

Shampoo.  I've made a batch of shampoo bars.  A little more difficult to use, but I really like how my hair feels when I wash it.  It's just a recipe with coconut, palm, kukui nut, olive oil, and a few other things in it.  At least I can pronounce everything that's in there.

Next comes the conditioner.  The last bottle of conditioner I had, I threw the bottle away.  Now I just rub a squirt or two of sweet almond oil into my hands and work it through my hair and it works just fine.

I have naturally wavy/curly/thick hair and I don't curl or style or color it so these natural remedies are perfect for me.   Really, I'd say they would work for anyone who wanted them to work, whether blow dry, hot curlers, or curling iron.

Body lotion went away as well.  I found a recipe for solid lotion bars that I could scent with my most favorite smell in the world---Patchouli--and that's what I've been moisturizing with.  The bars work really well because it melts with the heat of my skin (lotion was always cold) and it feels really good!

Handmade soap has been a staple in my household for about 20 years now, and patchouli is my favorite.  My kids, although grown and gone now, still appreciate a gift of homemade patchouli soap for birthdays and Christmas.  I can also pronounce everything that is in the soap recipe.

The latest addition to my anti-chemical arsenal has been a reverse-osmosis water filter for the kitchen sink.  Many years ago I had one and loved it.  The filter makes water taste like....well.....nothing!  What water is supposed to taste like.

The next target is homemade toothpaste and deodorant.  It's really scary when you start looking at all the ingredients that are put in the things we eat/use every day.  It almost seems like a plot against the health of the human race......

Cabin fever?  Not me!  I am ready for spring, but there's lots to do indoors.  I had taken a bunch of neat pics of the snow all around the farm, but somehow they got lost in between the camera and the computer--I'm sure you know the feeling :-(  Just imagine everything around covered with about 5 inches of snow.

After tending to "the girls" this morning, I collected almost 2 dozen eggs.  They've begun laying more and more each day.   During December and January I was only getting a half dozen or less.

And there were no green eggs during the winter.  I mumbled something about "soup pot" with an Amerecauna in my arms last week and suddenly they started laying!  (haha)

With the back porch stocked with firewood, (thanks to my boyfriend) I'm all warm and toasty for a day's worth of piddling.  A couple of weeks ago my sister gave me her stash of jewelry-making supplies......oh my....she created a monster!

I did have a few things of my own, and of course I had to go purchase things I didn't have, but it's SO MUCH FUN!  Here are a few things I've put together so far.....

A bracelet made with memory wire and a pair of earrings to match.  I gave these to my sister for sharing all her goodies with me.

Here are a couple of wire bracelets I'm working on, and of course I need another size wire to complete the design in my head.  Another pair of earrings is in the top of the photo and a necklace pendant (just above the beaded bracelet) is in progress.

It's amazing how time flies when I'm fooling with beads and wire.  Another batch of blackberry wine was started this morning and of course Pinterest grabbed an hour or so of my time :-)  What's the old saying "Make hay while the sun shines".....I say "make jewelry when it's nasty outside"!

One thing on my "winter list of things to do" was to tie dye a Wild Things Farm sign for the farmer's market.  I came across a nice piece of heavy fabric last summer that I've been saving for such a use.  This afternoon I tied up and dyed the background for the sign.

It's a rainbow, grass, and a big sunshine....can't you see it?  Well, it has to sit in plastic for a day or three then rinsed out and washed and THEN we'll see if it worked.

The snow is melting quickly and tomorrow's weather forecast is for rain.  I'll be in the high tunnel harvesting greens for a Saturday "crop drop" as my youngest son has affectionately named my veggie deliveries.

Stay warm and keep busy.

Sunday mornings are usually spent in the depths of Pinterest but this morning, after I got through with my chores at the chicken coop, I was wondering if the groundhog saw his shadow--I'm not superstitious, just curious :-)

Well, he did see his shadow, and I saw something on the website that mentioned Candlemas.  Okay, "google, what is candlemas"--it was a Christian tradition to bring all the candles that were to be used in the church during the year into the building and bless them.

ALSO, February 2 marks the midway point between Winter Solstice and Spring Solstice.  Farmers are supposed to have half their corn and half their hay left at this point in the season.  

ALSO, February 2 is celebrated as the day that Jesus was taken to the temple and offered to God (abbreviated version).

An excellent explanation of all these different celebrations of such a strangely named holiday are on the website:

projectbritain.com/year/candlemas.html?

Who would have thought?  By the way, the resident groundhog at Wild Things Farm DID NOT see his shadow today :-)

OK, it's that time of year, when a lot of us make new year's resolutions and attempt to improve something about our lives.  The way I look at it is that we have "tomorrow" to improve, or "next week" to start something new--maybe "first of next month"--oh what the heck--new year's-----"I'll start taking control of what goes in my mouth".

 It's a real comfort knowing where your food comes from.  I was with my best friend at the grocery store the other day and I couldn't believe how stressful it was trying to decide which of the produce to encourage her to buy....the conventional spinach was--well, YUK!  not fresh...the organic wasn't much better and I thanked my lucky stars that I don't have to worry about where my produce comes from.  (If I had known she needed spinach I would have brought her some :))

Now's the time to decide how you want to nourish your body this year--join a local CSA and know where your food comes from, go to the farmer's market and get local produce (ask if it's organic) or continue to paddle along with convenience foods whether frozen or canned.  It's your choice.  Our bodies are using what we put in them to build new cells every day.  Junk in--junk out, as the old saying goes.  

I went to an "open house" yesterday at the home of one of the farm members.  They had prepared salad using greens from the high tunnel and they were really excited to share that information with the guests at their party.  It was exciting to me to be eating veggies that were grown on my farm but prepared by someone else--I knew where those veggies came from.   I know everyone isn't to that point in their consumption of food, but it's a really good feeling, and if you can't grow your own veggies, belonging to a CSA is a good foundation to taking control of your diet.

Any of you that grew up when paper grocery bags were the only option at the store knows just how handy the plastic bags are that we get now.  I know they are annoying and they have a bad habit of multiplying in the cabinet, BUT could you imagine being able to carry in 9 paper bags of groceries at one time?  Nope.

Plastic grocery sacks are recycled here on the farm to hold veggies, bag trash, and even stuff floating row cover in and mark the bag with a marker as to which garden bed it fits.  The latest "aha" moment came when I was wearing lace-up boots and wanted to come in the house without tracking garden debris everywhere........

Voila!  I have hundreds of shoe protectors...........and my floor stays a little bit cleaner :)

We all could use a little help getting our minimum daily requirements of vitamins, fiber, minerals and all that stuff that our bodies need to thrive.  Recently, during a surfing adventure, I ran across a new website published by the USDA.  It's called ChooseMyPlate.gov and it's a wonderful resource for finding out exactly what's in the food you're eating AND there's a free daily tracker where you can input what you are eating AND it computes your daily intakes AND tells you what percentage of your daily requirements you have eaten.  The miracles of modern technology continue to amaze me......here's the super secret (jk) link     http://www.choosemyplate.gov/ click on "Supertracker" and get started.

Healthy New Year!

Do you remember where you were when JFK was shot? I was in Mrs. Watson's 2nd grade class, probably spinning my wooden chair around on one leg, when the announcement came over the loudspeaker.

Do you remember where you were when the terrorists struck on 911? I was in a stress management class. Yes, a STRESS managment class. Imagine that! We didn't have access to TV until late that afternoon but I'll never forget that day and WE need to never forget that day........

I'm sure every die-hard gardener has their most very favorite gardening hat.  Mine is a Scala hat, very wide brim, that has perched on my head going on three seasons now.  It's made of palm leaves, but very tightly woven and durable.  Margaret the Mantis ( a pin) guards the hat against insect predators.......

Anyway, I've been noticing that the hat was getting pretty funky looking from sweating in it every day, adjusting it with dirty gloved hands, laying it aside while doing something in the garden that warrants the hat being removed, and just three years of constant use.  I bought a new hat, but it just isn't the same.  Sooooo, I began trying to figure out how to wash the hat without destroying it. 

I sprayed the entire hat with Shout laundry pre-soak, really soaking the sweatband inside and the dirtiest spots on the hat.  I then placed the hat upside down on the top rack of the dishwasher and I put a coffee cup inside it to keep it from moving around in the dishwasher.  I don't have my dishwasher set on  what I call the "nuclear cycle" where the washer heats the water so hot it melts plastic, but if yours is set to destroy plastic items I would suggest putting it on energy saver or whatever cycle cancels the water heater.  I set it on a short wash and it came out really pretty clean.  There is still a very faint spot in the front where sweat soaks through, but now I can once again wear my hat in town without being embarrassed, and Margaret likes it too.

Kale is a number one nutritious green.  I'll have to admit that I'm not much on cooked greens--story time.....Several years ago...well, about 10 years ago, my family and I were eating supper one night.  Supper was the typical Southern supper which consisted of pinto beans, cornbread, and greens.  Believe me, I've tried to eat cooked greens for years and I really don't like cooked greens, but...anyway, back to the story.  My two sons (young at the time) and their father and I were eating supper, and I announced to all of them that I was 40+ years old, never liked greens, and I thought I was old enough to not have to eat them anymore!  The kids laughed and kept on eating (I was glad for that). 

Kale is a very nutritious green and I have learned to eat it when sauteed lightly and not canned or cooked for hours!  Kale is high in carotenoids, vitamins and minerals such as calcium and magnesium, and like most veggies, it's low in calories.  Kale also shares all the cancer-fighting properties of the brassica family.

Kale is rich in lutein and zeaxanthin, which protect the plant from UV damage.  They protect your eyes in similar ways.  Studies show that a lutein-rich diet will reduce your risk of developing age-related eye disorders, such as macular degeneration and cataracts (my former mother-in-law has macular degeneration and it's not fun at all). 

Like its relatives broccoli and cabbage, kale releases  sulforaphane when sliced or chewed.  This stimulates the liver to make enzymes, and these enzymes break down cancer-causing molecules. 

Kale is also loaded with vitamins, especially vitamin K.  This allows the blood to clot and also keeps your bones strong.  Our bodies can't store vitamin K real well, so we need to eat it more often to make sure it's available.  This helps defend against osteoporosis too.  Sidenote:  My great grandmother "Granny Wilds" had a hump on her back and that used to scare me when I was a little girl.  Now I know that osteoporosis caused it and I don't want to be scary to my great-grand kids, if I'm lucky enough to live that long!

Kale also protects your lungs.  Vitamin A protects those exposed to either first-or secondhand smoke from developing diseases like emphysema.  One cup of cooked kale provides more than 300 percent of your recommended daily needs for A. 

Cooking kale releases healthful carotenoids but can also destroy the anticancer properties.  Avoid this by slicing kale, then letting it rest for five minutes.  Then lightly steam the sliced leaves for exactly five minutes.  This is just the right amount of time to release the caretenoids while preserving the other health properties.

Sautee'd kale is great with chicken, rice, pasta, and beef, and probably pork too.  I just add it when I need something "green" to go with supper and kale is around--sautee' and toss; it has a really good flavor!

The "vegucation" info for this article was gleaned from the February/March issue of Organic Gardening.

I know that things are going to “get wild” around here pretty soon, so I’m getting a head start on “vegucation” about the vegetables grown on the farm.  This article is about cabbage.

It's been raining here in Tennessee for almost the entire gardening season so some ioffice  work seems appropirate.  The Wild Things website is being relocated to another host, and rebuilt to keep everyone informed as to what is going on at the farm.  Check back often though--it should be up and running this weekend (we'll see just how "user-friendly" the website building software really is!).  In the meantime if you do have a question, e-mail the farm.  If you live near Crab Orchard, Tennessee, Keep your umbrella handy.

Anyone who lives on a farm knows about projects.  There's always something to build, tear down, fix, add-on to, move, clean up, or paint.  The latest project here on the farm is a greenhouse.  The greenhouse came from a dear friend who got it from someone else about 12 years ago, carefully stored it in their barn, and never could come up with a good place to reconstruct it until now--here on the farm.   It's like putting together a life-size puzzle with no directions and not all the pieces.  It should be ready for use in a few weeks, though--just in time for seed-starting for the year!

Now for Presidents.  I've never been one of those moms who would bore other people with "My kid did this" stories, but every President's day I recall what happened when my youngest son (now 21) was 4 years old.  He attended day care at the time, as I had an office job.  I went to pick him up at day care on President's Day and the day care worker told me to ask him what he had colored that day.  I asked him and he said very casual tone, "Everhead Naked".  I looked at the day care worker with a puzzled expression, and turned back to my son and said "Show me".  He pulled out a picture of Abraham Lincoln and proudly said "See, Everhead Naked"......priceless!