The bat

About an hour ago we took down this old dead oak tree for firewood. After we hitched it and the tractor dragged it away, I was going back to the car when the dogs got my attention. They were all staring at something on the ground, somethings small and brown that was making a strange hissing noise. It was a little bat, lying flat on the dirt and screaming his head off in panic. I shooed the dogs and picked it up gently with my leather gloves. Its mouth was wide open and it was panting, evidently frightened. I talked to it soothingly for a few moments and it stopped hissing, then closed its mouth. It really seemed to be listening, looked at me and moved its ears with the sounds..Its face was the cutest, CUTEST little puppy face I ever saw! He had a wise expression and really looked like he understood what I was telling him. We drove together back to the house, just as it was getting dark. I was really afraid that he had been hit in the fall of the tree, and he would just die like all the other hurt wild animal you pick up...But I checked his little body, his wings and legs seemed whole, even his little tail was ok, no scratches, no blood....just a scared little bat trembling in my hand...
And then suddenly he flew! He took off from my hand and flew three circles above my head...hovered for a moment then took off into the woods...
Finally a story with an happy ending!! What a fascinating, lovely little creature!!! I miss you already!!

MIA ?!

If any of you friends, family and strangers in cyberspace has ever followed this little blog and wondered: "What happened to her???"...
Well life took over again and even the few minutes needed for a blog are now occupied with things that need to be done.
Maybe the real reason is that I feel like I still have so much to learn before can say anything of my own...And sincerely there is enough people out there that just write just for the sake of having an audience.
Well I am about to go back to being a student again, and very very excited about it!
I am about to start the "Certification in Whole Food Nutrition" program from the International Foundation for Nutrition and Health. This is what I have been looking for for a long time, and can not wait to dig in!

So in the meantime the blog will probably suffer....but then again, I will have so much more to write about...

Do you have allergies??? Read this!

This is an article from the Weston Price Foundation Website, see the bottom for link to original page.

Allergies and Hay Fever
Holistic Healthcare - Ask the Doctor
Saturday, 01 January 2000 16:37

Question: I am a 34-year-old male and basically in excellent health. However, ever since I was about ten years old, I have had hay fever so bad that I feel like I almost miss Spring. From early May to mid June my eyes water, my nose runs and my throat itches. I get short of breath and every year I end up with a sinus infection. I have been treated with allergy shots which helped for a while, decongestants which made me drowsy, the new allergy medicines which just made me feel funny and homeopathic medicines which only gave very temporary relief. Do you have any advice for me?

Answer: Allergies and hay fever are among the most common maladies suffered by modern Americans. Allergy medication every year is among the top five best selling drugs and if you count asthma, eczema and food allergies, almost one out of three Americans has some sort of allergy. Surprisingly, this condition is of relatively recent origin as even the homeopathic doctors in the early part of the century rarely described allergic diseases or hay fever. As I have discussed in this column, many changes in our life-styles and habits have occurred this century which probably account for this rising incidence.

Specifically, the best theory on the etiology of allergies is that they are related to an imbalance in the functioning of our adrenal gland. More exactly, when the adrenal cortex – that part of our adrenal gland that makes various hormones (such as cortisone) that mediate the inflammatory response – is weak or underactive, then a variety of symptoms occur. Besides inflammation, which can manifest as asthma, weeping skin or hay fever, depending on the site of the inflammation, these adrenal hormones also regulate such functions as sugar balance (via glucocorticoids), mineral balance (via mineralocorticoids) and sexual development (via the sex hormones.) A key point in understanding the therapy for supporting adrenal function is that all of these hormones are synthesized from cholesterol, and that the adrenal cortex is the organ in our bodies with the most need for the vitamin C complex to maintain its function. Also, it seems as if the adrenal cortex is very sensitive to blood sugar levels and that consumption of refined carbohydrates is at the bottom of many cases of allergies for both humans and in animal studies. The natural therapy for all allergies, therefore, is not cortisone – the conventional therapy for allergic disease but which suppresses and eventually weakens our adrenal glands – but a nutritional and supplemental program which actually rebuilds and rebalances our adrenal cortex.

The first step in this therapy is to absolutely avoid all refined carbohydrates including bread, pasta and sugar, as well as most sweet foods such as maple syrup and fruit juices, while any allergic symptoms are present. The diet should be rhythmical, that is you should eat three meals a day with no snacks in between. At each meal eat about 1/3 animal food, 1/3 properly prepared whole grains and 1/3 vegetables in a variety of ways, and with plenty of good quality butter. To aid in mineral balance, use only Celtic sea salt. I also suggest people include zucchini daily in their diet and to make liberal use of bone broths as the minerals in these foods seems to lessen allergic symptoms.

To help "immunize" yourself against pollen, eat 1 tablespoon of really raw honey (locally produced if possible) with the addition of about 1/2 tablespoon of fresh bee pollen. With the bee pollen, start with a few granules and gradually increase to the full dose. Eat foods high in the full vitamin C complex such as sprouts, sauerkraut, raw milk and fresh berries. Also, take a supplement with these components such as Cataplex C or Collagen C from Standard Process, or acerola berries, about 250 mg. three times a day, from Schiff, or from Springreen (816-221-3298).

Often with my patients I add either sublingual or intravenous adrenal cortical extract to augment adrenal function. Your physician can obtain the adrenal cortex preparations from Apothecure (800) 545-9960. They also make a product called Adrenal Cortex Support which is a combination of desiccated adrenal gland, vitamin C, magnesium and licorice root, an herbal medicine well known for its ability to strengthen adrenal function.

Most people get significant relief from this regimen after about three to four weeks, so don't forget to start early next year!

Copyright: ©1999 Tom Cowan. All Rights Reserved. First published in Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation Health Journal

http://www.westonaprice.org/ask-the-doctor/204-allergies-and-hay-fever.html

my garden

Moving to Forest Ranch has brought one major advantage to my life! Now I have time and space to keep a vegetable garden. So for the first time, since the days of helping my beloved nonno (grandpa) with his garden on the Como lake, I got my own little piece of soil to try my green thumb!
It happened almost by accident....as I was digging an old pile of soil left on the propriety I saw a bunch of earthorms in there....mmmhhh that is the sign for a place that plants would really like! So decided to put there one of my watermelon starts that I germinated in April, and had to rush indoors into a pot when it froze again...
then I put an okra that had had the same troublesome beginning...both baby plants looked very scrawny and miserable when I transplanted them. then I decided to throw in a bag of TJ organic potatoes that were germinating like crazy...

As things started to look better I got excited and decided to add some more....a tomatillo and a cucumber brought by our friend Aaaron, planted a few more watermelon seeds and some beans for good measure....well long story short the pile of dirt got colonized!
Now I watch the melong get bigger every day, and I had the great pleasure to eat the arrugola and few cucumbers....

I feel like I literally going back to my roots....to those long summer days in Tremezzo, when I was helping my granfather harvest hay....
So I come home every night, with very dusty feet, after checking on the garden, with a tomato or a cucumber in my hand and I feel happier that I have been in a long time!

Before and After

Lettuce and Tomatoes from our garden, Olive Oil from The Isern family in Chico and Celtic Sea Salt.

gardening feet!!

Sustainable Beef

There is a lot of talk of healthy sustainable food around. Fantastic authors like Michael Pollan and Barbara Kinsgsolver bring us a wealth of information about our food sources and the "American Diet". Yes, the information is all out there, there is no more excuse for ignorance, but how many of us actually take a proactive approach and decide to control what food comes into our body?

I know a lot of people choose to be vegetarians as a humanitarian choice for the rights of animals. I am sure most people would not want to eat the meat, milk and eggs from factory farms if they were really confronted with what goes on behind those walls.
The logical alternative seems to just do a 180 and turn your back on that awful reality and stop supporting it. The problem is that being a vegetarian does NOT stop supporting the factory farm / industrial agriculture system. Every time you open a package containing food you have done it again. Be it tofurky or soymilk, they are just as much the products of a NON SUSTAINABLE system as a feed lot cow is.

So what is the alternative?

Thank goodness there is one and its easier and less expensive than we imagine! Its LOCAL food. Best would be LOCAL ORGANIC food!!!

Local food means get to know your farmer! Means supporting small family farms versus the big multinational corporations. It means keeping money and resources in your area, saving fuel, pollution and packaging materials.

"But I live in Los Angeles (New York etc..)" you will say "and I have NO time to take trips to look for farmers to buy food, I barely even have time to eat!!!"
Well even in the big city we have choices now! There is farmers markets everywhere, on almost every day of the week. There you can really meet your farmers, and if you can basically shop once for the whole week.
You can order a CSA box. (Community Supported Agriculture) That will make it even easier, as you will not have to spend time thinking about what to buy, it comes packaged for you, fresh, plentiful and seasonal. They also include recipes for the veggies they include.
At the farmers market you can also meet small local cattle and poultry farmers. They are usually able to take orders and you can buy a whole or partial steer that will then be processed and delivered to you neatly packaged and frozen.

That is what Deb, our mentor and landlord here did. She purchased half a free range organic steer from the Book Farm, the same one where we get our raw milk.
The animals are grown on free pasture, never confined (except to the barn when is cold) and never fed grains. When the time to process them comes they are humanely slaughtered then brought to a small facility in the nearby town of Durham where the meat is cut and packed.
From there we pick it up and bring it home neatly vacuum packed and frozen.

From the farm to our table the meat did not travel more than 40 miles. We know that the animals we are eating led peaceful, stress free lives on the pastures, eating what Nature designed a cow to eat. Their manure did not pollute the water ways and the ground as it was composted and used in a vegetable garden. They were not injected with antibiotics and hormones, as they were a healthy breed eating healthy food from a healthy soil free of pesticides.

This is a sustainable cycle.
One that could continue far into the future, like it came from a far past. Humans have lived in harmony within natural cycles for thousands of years, until they decided to start taking shortcuts....

Well enough moralizing, the bottom line is that we had a delicious meal healthy for us and for our Earth, and with just a little step outside the comfort zone of the usual, we can all do that!

RESOURCES AND INFORMATIONAL LINKS:

Joel Salatin, the guru of sustainable farming.
http://www.polyfacefarms.com/

A great photographic story of the process of buying an organic steer:
http://www.minnpost.com/galleries/organicsteer/

All about local sustainable food:
http://cookingupastory.com/

A farmers market locator
http://www.localharvest.org/farmers-markets/

Michael Pollan
http://michaelpollan.com/

Barabara Kingsolver
http://www.kingsolver.com/