The farmer’s market hours are Friday and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

This week’s selection will include…

Strawberry
Bok Choy
Broccoli
Collards
Brussel Sprouts
Cabbage
Cauliflower
Diakon
Eggs
Green Onion
Kale
Leak
Lettuce
Mustard Greens
Potatoes
Radish
Spinach
Turnips
Tomato

A link to their website with location and map can be had here:  Matt Family Orchard

We concern ourselves with the quality of their education, the school they are going to, the safety of the buses, the classes, their fellow students.  We pay for tutoring when they fall behind or to help them have a leg up for grades or sports.  Phones, computers, T.V.s.  Helmets to go with bicycles, gear for football, elbow pads for skateboards, lessons for pools, hand and head gear for martial arts.  Protect their teeth and skulls and knees and elbows.  Our cars need airbags every where and anchored in car seats, seats to boost them so the shoulder straps fit.  From the day we bring them home from the hospital we utilize baby gates and cabinet locks and monitor their sleep in their safe baby beds.  These kids are padded from life and protected from harm in every way but one.

When it comes to what they eat, to what they are building their bodies with, we give them what is convenient for us and not necessarily what is best for them.  This isn’t with intent on our parts but it is what happens based on “conventional wisdom”, what our doctors guide us to, what parenting magazines sell and big agri-business marketers tell us is, at the minimum, okay to do.  It’s not okay.

What more and more studies are finding is that the imbalance in fats and the inclusion of modified foods to our food supply is negatively effecting our kids in so many ways that if we gave it premeditated thought we’d be sick at the thought of feeding our kids anything that would harm them.  Literally thinking about what goes into their mouths, what their bodies are built on and what we’re NOT feeding them takes some time and the effort to build the base of acceptible food sources but it is doable.   Just like what you and I need to eat, our kids need clean, basic foods with plenty of healthy fats.  I will be adding more and more articles to back this up but a lack of fat in the diets of our kids is leading to a giant problem with kids today in their emotional and cognitive development and bigger problems down the road for them in everything.  A start in that direction is this article discussing the food changes at a high school in Appleton, WI and the resultant behavioral and grade improvements that followed.

http://www.wanttoknow.info/050520schooldietchange

More information is better and you know what needs to and should be done.  Raise them up in the direction they should go.  You’re the parent.

http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

I can hardly believe its been 15 years.  Its been a blink…and its always been so.  Some things have not gone according to our best laid plans (corporate job) and others happened without being in the plans at all (kids, our gym, all these animals!) and the best thing of all has worked out beautifully (Matt and me).

Cleaning up files and my desk yesterday, I happened across a piece of paper that we got on our honeymoon in Florida.  On a boardwalk in Daytona Beach there was this arcade and in the arcade there was a machine where you could input your birthdates and see if you were compatible with the person standing beside you.  We laughed at the time and still do.

“This relationship will be intense to say the least.  She bases everthing on emotions and he bases everything on logic.  She is moody and his sense of logic will make her sulk.  Although, initially, this relationship will kindle a few favorable sparks, for the most part, consider it to be one that you are just passing through.”

Nice.

Within that first year of marriage we found out that there were actual bets being placed during the service on whether we’d make it.  Also nice.  We’ve laughed at that, too.  I think some folks need to pay up.

Some of the things I’ve learned in 15 years of marriage.

• Don’t say hurtful things.  They may only be words but you can’t take them back and apologies don’t erase memories.
• Note the good stuff  right away and out loud.
• Hold off on noting the not so good stuff until you can do so in a nicer way and do that quietly.
• Take every opportunity to tell him you love him.
• Appreciate his efforts even if they’re not exactly what you were thinking.
• Don’t assume.
• He manages to drive perfectly fine without you in the car so don’t help him when you are in the car.  (still working on this one)
• Put your energies into your marriage.
• The grass is not greener anywhere else.
• Be grateful he puts up with your issues.
• Get over yourself.

The next 15 years will be the best ones yet!

I love you, Matt!

Pumpkin Muffins

Add dry ingredients to a bowl:

½ C tapioca flour
¾ C coconut flour
¼ C almond flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp nutmeg
¼ tsp sea salt

Add to another bowl:

1 tsp vanilla extract
1/8 tsp cinnamon
2/3 C honey or agave
1 C coconut oil
4 room temp eggs
1 ½ C pumpkin

Beat with electric mixer. Add dry ingredients and beat again.

Optional:

1 C raisins or chopped walnuts.

Bake at 350 deg. F for about 20 minutes.

Banana Blueberry Muffins

In the cookbook, this is a recipe for Cherry Banana Muffins, but we had blueberries in need of use so…

Set oven to 350 degrees.

2 mashed bananas
4 beaten eggs
1/2 C honey

Beat with electric hand mixer.

Then add:

1/2 tsp. sea salt
1/4 C tapioca flour
1/2 C coconut flour, sifted
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
3 tbsp coconut oil

Beat with electric hand mixer.
Fill unbleached paper cups 3/4  full.
Drop 5 – 6 blueberries on top.
Bake for about 30 minutes.
Makes 12.

The recipes variously call for brown rice flour and we replace with almond flour.  We’ve found that we like a mix of coconut flour and almond flour for better mouth feel.

Enjoy!

Pros of Dachshunds -

• Comes in a variety of sizes (all smallish)
• Comes in a variety of coat types and colors
• Is comical and entertaining
• Doesn’t need a lot of exercise
• Makes a keen watchdog
• Is sociable with other family pets, especially other Dachshunds
• Lives a long time

Cons of Dachshunds -

• Suspiciousness or sharpness toward strangers when not socialized enough
• Scrappiness toward strange dogs
• Stubbornness
• Notorious housebreaking difficulties
• Digging holes
• Barking
• Regular brushing/combing (Longhaired)
• Regular clipping/trimming (Wirehaired)
• A distinctive doggy odor
• Serious back/spinal problems

Matt and I started dating in college, way back in ’93.  Believe it or not we broke up regularly.  We obviously got back together more regularly.  That first Christmas together had Matt and my roommate conspiring to get me a puppy.  What they got me was a teeny little weenie dog.  We’re pretty big fans of the book and movie Lonesome Dove.  Chris is right that any book that’s really good will get made into a movie though the fine details, I believe, are only picked up in the book.  This is beside the point.  The point is that when we were considering names for the teeny little leaky dog we decided on Augustus McCray, shortened to Gus, from the book and movie.  That started a dog naming theme for us.  Matt, obviously, has a heavy hand in the naming process.

Gus was supposed to be a mini but turned out to be a tweeny.  Miniatures are supposed to top out (lean and healthy) at 10 lbs.  Standards are in the high teens and 20s.  Tweenies aren’t mini or standard.  Gus, lean and mean, came in at 16 lbs.  He was 16 lbs of fast and tenacious and stubborn and drive me crazy!  He was obsessed with chasing racket balls.  OBSESSED!  We didn’t have a video camera back then but I wish we did.  He would sit at the edge of the carpet, eyeball the distance and angle to your position at a chair on the hard floors, set the racket ball down and tap it to you with his foot or nose.  If you ignored it he’d breath-whine for a couple minutes and then go get the ball to do the whole routine again.  Optimistic.  He was that also.  Sure that you’d eventually see how fun throwing the ball for him endlessly was.  We started with Gus pre-kids and by Nov. ’95 we had Alyx.  He was never sure of her but seemed ok until she got mobile.  Then his obsessive personality kicked in and he took to chewing his own hide off.  I mean that literally.  We tried lots of different things and ended up finding him a home with a retired military couple – no kids and the time and interest in throwing the ball endlessly.

Rocky came next in 2000.  (named for Rocky Balboa <–Matt’s influence seen here.  He was supposed to be Matt’s dog.)

This dog was sooo my dog it isn’t even funny.  He was seriously attached which was cool and very not cool.  As anyone who dog-sat for us can attest, he could and would make life difficult for those with hearing when I was gone.  On the pros and cons side he sat solidly in the suspicious of strangers category (not far off of myself outside of the gym).  He was scrappy and stubborn and tried my patience to the n-th degree and I loved him.

Rocky was mine during some of the toughest times of my life and the biggest personal struggles.  There were days he was one more thing than I could handle but mostly he was a huge comfort.  There wasn’t a more perfect heater on cold nights or for sore muscles.  He played with our cats and chased squirrels and barked endlessly.  No meant nothing if he was outside of swatting range.  He could sit (if he felt like it) and he could roll over, which was hilarious to us given that he was tube-shaped to begin with.  I don’t remember his drawbacks right now though I know there were plenty.  As a handful of our CrossFitters know, Rocky developed a brain tumor that expressed itself in the fall of 2007 with his blindness.  He didn’t adapt to being blind like folks with blind dogs said they do – effortless…you can’t even tell they are blind…they switch to using their other senses.  He didn’t.  By Feb. 2008 the tumor had affected his ability to move and within a week he went from mostly mobile to unable to walk.  We had to put him down on a Saturday.  It was a horrid day.

On that note, though, Dr. Matthew Taylor with Prestonwood Animal Clinic was and is wonderful!!  My experience over the years has been that not all vets care to deal with weenie dogs.  We’ve had some rough and mean vets over the years in our quest to find someone patient enough to deal with our goofball dogs.  I’ll refrain from listing them here.   Dr. Taylor, however, is so good with high strung little dogs that they are actually calm during visits.  He made Rocky’s last months and expecially that last day as calm and peaceful as they could possibly have been.

That brings us to Bosco.  From day one Bosco has been mine.  He is named after a character from Third Watch that I totally crush on…Maurice Boscarelli.

Bosco is beautiful and funny and goofy…and he pees.  You and I say hello.  Bosco piddles.  I’ve heard other folks say its common with this breed.  He’s the first I’ve met or seen that does it.  It’s his only major flaw.  He would go with us everywhere if it weren’t for this one thing!  It’s not a constant.  He’s 99% good with us, but if someone else comes over and even reaches down to pet him he’s leaking right away.  Dang!  Oh well.  He’s not supposed to be shared then.  He’s mine, leaks and all.  As I told Dr. Taylor last week when we went in for his yearly check-up, I want one that makes it into little-old-man-ness.   Just one.  That constant gauge of my own sanity and Richter scale for patience.  Weenie dogs have been driving me batty since 1993 and I wouldn’t have it any other way.