Destressing in the morning, growing vegetables to lower your carbon footprint, etc

Yep, I know it's been awhile since I blogged.  Life gets in the way.  But this morning is another beautiful day.  The wind has kicked up and my scarecrow is leaning sideways.  (I'm keeping him up til Thanksgiving.  Or maybe I'll put a Santa hat on him and leave him up til January.  That is, if this wind doesn't blow him into the field)  It's getting cold and the leaves are almost gone.  This morning I gave myself permission to be still.  I have a stack of my favorite magazines that I love, GRIT, Mother Earth News, Countryside and Mary Janes Farm to name a few.  Some of the articles are redundant but I can't learn enough about gardening, homesteading, natural health, etc etc etc.  I will never call myself an expert or a "master"of anything because I am always open to learning more.  If you're a master, you already know everything and aren't open to learning.  I have talked to some of these people, master gardeners and the like, and they are closed minded and elitist.  That is more ego than anything else.
     But here, I've gone off subject...  What was the subject?
Oh, yes, permission to just "be" for a few minutes.  My little kitty Zuzu sits with me in the morning like a little angel and her presence calms my soul.  I can sit and reflect, read a few pages, talk to Zuzu, you know...  It's my favorite thing about the air turning colder.

Zuzu

    Today, tomorrow, don't wait until next week, take a few minutes to reflect and listen to the wind, pet an animal, read a magazine that doesn't have a Kardashian in it.  Reflect, learn, recharge, be.  I know with the stresses I have in my life, it helps me enormously to practice this.

Green beans are SO easy to grow, people!

   After thought for the day...  As I was reading Mary Janes Farm an article jumped out at me that I want to share.  I love statistics for some reason and this article was about a study that was done on families growing a garden. The study was done in California, but it can be adapted to anyplace I suppose.  The study determined that if 50% of the families in single family homes grew vegetable gardens that supplied half of their own vegetables for the year, the carbon emissions would decrease.  Without writing the article word for word, I can't really give you the exact amount because I am bad at math, hee hee, but you get the idea.  Just think of all the things contributing to emissions having to do with those carrots you bought yesterday.  First, the seeds the farmer buys from whatever poisonous seed company it uses and sprays it with fungicide so it will germinate in poor soil conditions.  Then, the diesel tractor the farm uses to plant, spray with chemicals, and harvest that carrot.  Then it goes on a truck to the winter storage facility and gets sprayed with another chemical to keep it preserved.  Next it goes many many miles to a store where it sits for whoever knows how long.

My grapes this year.  I had so many I got sick of eating them.  And of course I made wine.

I ate a carrot from the store last night and it was bitter.  Carrots are not supposed to be bitter.  Next, you go to the grocery store in your car that uses gasoline and they put the carrot in a plastic bag for you.  I don't need to go into the journey the plastic bag went through, you get the idea.
  The way I see it, growing some of your own vegetables is a win win.  You get really clean, nutritious produce outside your back door.

Zucchini and Summer squash is another super easy thing to grow.

  (80% of the nutrient value in most produce gets lost in 10 minutes after it is picked)  And there's a little less of a carbon footprint hovering over your pretty little head.  (Did that sound like a guilt trip?)  I'm no carbon footprint angel, believe me.  I drive 40 minutes one way to work everyday.  But I try.  And I get better all the time.  Also, growing a garden in some of the area you now mow grass also helps and if you compost your kitchen scraps instead of throwing them into the landfill, etc etc etc.  Now, that seems like a very small step, but put that in a bucket full of all the other people composting and growing veggies, then we have something...
   Baby steps.  "Be the change you want to see".
Thanks for listening to my rambling.