Cultivating My Inner Tree

And what does your food really cost? I found a nice video online that shares some of the stats and points around why eating locally is a growing concern in our oil-dependent economy. You could read Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Delimma or his other books. Or, just watch this quick video slideshow to understand some of the basic points.

I woke up to a relatively warm and relatively sunny Seattle winter day. It actually got to 50 degrees and the sun keeps winning the battles with the clouds.  Being behind on my winter garden clean up has been driving me crazy for the last several weeks, so I bundled up, grabbed my tools, and attacked the most bothersome areas for about 3 hours today.

I love gardening this time of year because I find it one of the easiest times to get a lot done. Yes, its cold. But, many branches are bare, so seeing what needs to be cut is easy. And, perennials are either fully dormant or just getting ready to rise up for late winter blooming. So, cutting them back is also really easy. Now my garden looks much better.

After getting out there for several hours, I also know that my hellebores are starting to slowly push blooms up out of the soil, my witch hazel is about ready to blast into mid-winter yellow fire, my Yuletide Camellia is a little late for Christmas, but its starting up. My sarcococca too is about ready to release sweet winter fragrance as is my winter daphne. Who says you can’t have a beautiful, fragrant garden in January?!

To celebrate the work, I cut a small branch off my blooming Witch Hazel and the first (hidden) blossom off my red and yellow Camellia. Together, they are a small Ikebana arrangement in our living room.

After I finished up outside, I decided to take Shiloh for her walk while it was still nice out. I’d let myself get too hungry outside, so I was craving (badly) a Dick’s Cheeseburger. (Un)fortunately, there’s a Dick’s (often referred to as “the hidden Dick’s) near my house, within walking distance. I go there about 2x/year. Today marked #2 for 2007. (If you’re not sure, doing this = “the bad”. Walking there and gardening for three hours = the good.)

So, what’s the “not too ugly”? Well, that would be opening my greasy Dick’s bag to see they’d given me the wrong order. Not just one cheeseburger and fries, but that plus a Deluxe. I was so hungry I contemplated eating it all, as Shiloh gave me starving puppy eyes hoping for just a bite. Instead, I enjoyed the cheeseburger and ate about 1/2 the fries. I brought the rest home to Bob (or the garbage; we’ll see what happens.)

So, all in all, I had a great day of exercise. I got lots of fresh air and sunshine. I got a ton done in the garden. Shiloh got a good walk. And, tho I gave into a rare greasy craving, I held back in the face of temptation. Since I didn’t overfill on the junk, I think I’ll rest up for a couple of hours and then practice my headstand, mid-room, a little later. Plus, tonight’s dinner will be healthy — grilled saki-marinaded black cod, steamed brown rice and baked kale with soy. Sometimes a little junk gets me excited about a forthcoming healthy meal!

(If you’re interested in more on the plants and work I did there, check gardenhelp.org. I hope to do a detailed write up later today or tomorrow on my frustrations with the lack of absicic acid in my witchhazel and other things I ran into in my garden today.)

Workout:

• Type: Other
• Date: 12/30/2007
• Time: 14:00:00
• Total Time: 3:00:00.00

I had the opportunity yesterday to share my new-found knowledge about cattle farming (and the entire related food web) with several people yesterday. No, I didn’t give a lecture or go to a dinner party where the topic of food came up. Instead, two completely different conversations emerged that were entirely surprising to me.

First, I received an email from a friend who had heard me talking about The Omnivore’s Dilemma a few weeks ago. Actually, she’d cooked dinner for me, and after a few glasses of wine, we started talking about the way the food was raised. I managed (I hope) to not insult the great meal she and her boyfriend had put together — flank steak, grilled vegies and mashed potatoes. I guess she was more intrigued than anything. (We’d finished dinner by the time I’d opened my big mouth.)

Turns out, she had gone on to tell her brother, who farms and ranches in the midwest, about our conversation. He’s raising a steer on his ranch that he has grass fed and planned to “finish” with corn. They started talking about what this means, and she got him interested in the ramifications of finishing with corn. So, she emailed me for more information. I shared what I knew and provided them with a few more qualified resources for additional information. I hope they will share with me what he ends up doing. I believe he’s a relatively small farmer (that’s the farm that’s small, not the guy). If I can share this information with just one small farmer out in the middle of nowhere, perhaps he will share it with his network and work on improving our food supply in a grass roots way. (Pun very much intended!)

Next, I was talking with my very conservative and skeptical father yesterday evening. He’d just been in for a barrage of regular health tests. He’s doing fine, but mentioned that cholesterol and high blood pressure continue to be issues for him. He shared with me that his doc recommends taking in high quantities of potassium to offset salt intake. So, I shared a recipe for roasted kale that I’d read about in The Omnivore’s Dilemma, which got the topic of that book into the discussion. This opened the door to talk about Dad’s love of red meat, which his doctors have been getting him to reduce eating over the years. Tentatively, I brought up  what I understand about the fat differences in grass-fed beef (Omega-3 fatty) and corn-fed beef  (Omega-6 fatty), and the implications of these differences in our diet.

Boy…he listened up when I got to this! Could this be a chance to not raise his blood pressure in fear each time he took a bite of steak? Clearly, he was taking me seriously and planned to investigate it more. Maybe tonight he’ll have a grass fed steak and roasted kale for dinner…who knows?!

So, two completely different discussions that may have wider impacts. I realize I understand only a small part of all of this, but I definitely seek to share it, if only to inspire others to learn more about what they’re putting into their bodies. When I explained to my father that if you put corn verses grass into a cow, you are feeding them something that aren’t evolved to digest. His comment was, “Well, that’s no different that us eating foods we shouldn’t.” He didn’t say, “Garbage in: Garbage out” but the tone and sentiment were the same.

Will Dad change his diet? Will my friend’s brother choose grass over corn? Will my friend buy some of her brother’s slaughtered steer and pay the petrol price to have it shipped to Washington from the midwest? I don’t know. What I do know is they’re more aware and listening, and that’s a start!