Day Two of Eating What I Grow. Caffeine Withdrawal.

I made it to day two.  I can't believe it.  Yesterday was hard.  But not in the ways I thought it would be.  I thought I'd have sugar cravings, or carb cravings.  Something.  No, I was too busy with my caffeine withdrawal headache to think about anything else.  

I really could only imagine what it was going to be like.  I didn't realize how much my life revolved around food.  Not just food.  Food from stores, restaurants, gas stations.  I had about a million choices yesterday just leaving my house and going to Medina to take down fall stuff at Filomena's.  I drove by my favorite Amish store on the way there.  All food.  I had to put gas in the van.  The gas station is full of food.  And coffee.  I went to Filomena's.  Danette had food out for all the vendors working on their space.  Plus, she always has cookies and coffee for the customers.  I had to get cat food at Tractor Supply.  Food all over the check out.  Then I had to go by every fast food and food place on earth on my way home.  I'm going to buy myself some of those blinders the Amish put on horses so cars don't freak them out and I'm going to wear them myself.  

I never thought of myself being a food dependent.  I mean in the way that I reward myself with food.  Don't want to get out of bed?  Well, coffee is waiting.  Had a rough day?  Well, maybe I'll just eat cheese cake for dinner.  I know I was doing that with wine.  Especially with the stress from when I had the store.  I quit drinking 2 months ago, and it was the best thing, because I was definitely rewarding myself with wine on my bad days.  And I had a lot of stressful days.

So, I got through my first day and I'm about an hour into the second.  Yesterday was not what I expected.  I woke up tired, and then I drank no coffee so I was really sleepy all day.  But the time I got to Filomena's in the afternoon, I had a headache.  By the time I got home, my brain exploded.  I couldn't function.  I knew it would go away eventually.  I just had to wait it out.  So I slept most of the night.

My breakfast was completely fresh stuff out of the garden.  Broccoli, mustard greens, zucchini, and a few cherry tomatoes.  I cooked it slightly with a little salt.  Surprisingly, I wasn't starving all day or anything.  When I got home, I thought carbs might help my headache so I ate a baked potato with salt.  It was really good.  I drank some of my grape juice I made and that sort of lifted my spirits because I was actually feeling a little sadness.  Weird.  Another thing that was weird is that I wasn't really hungry during the day.  Actually the thought of eating made me a little nauseous, but I ate what I could and made sure I drank lots and lots of herbal tea to get my vitamins.

So, that was my first day.  The headache seems to be pretty much gone, but I can almost feel it coming back.  I'm drinking some dandelion & calendula tea for breakfast and I am going to go on with my day.  I got through my first day.  I'm feeling a little proud of myself, but I know there is more challenges to come.

Until tomorrow then.  Have an enchanted day and thanks for reading!  Now go eat some vegetables!

Day One of Eating Only What I Grow

Well, my last night of eating whatever I want is over.  Seems fitting that it was my favorite holiday, Halloween!  But I didn't really go crazy with food or anything.  I ate some candy of course.  It was Halloween, after all. And I drank a small can of Pepsi.  I don't drink soda very often, but it was my last night.  I had to try being bad.  I was carving pumpkins and roasting the seeds so I ate lots of those.  I didn't really even eat dinner.  I guess I was just excited for this adventure to start.

Mike is in the kitchen cooking something that I can't eat right now.  Oh, I think he's making tuna or something.  He must be finished though because Little (the cat) is watching me type.  

My morning so far has been uneventful.  I am drinking blackberry leaf and plantain tea instead of coffee.   No sugar.  No milk.  I really like it.  Blackberry leaf is most similar in flavor to black tea.  These are some of the leaves I dried during the summer.

I'm going to eat fresh stuff from the garden today.  I don't want to break in to my stored food until I have no other alternatives.  I have celery, parsley, turnip and beet greens, broccoli, onions and garlic in the garden still.  I also have oat, lentil and sunflower sprouts.  My breakfast this morning will be some of those things.  And what ever wild food is out there still.  

So here I go.  I'll update you tomorrow.  Have an enchanted day everyone!

Thank you for the rain!

I don't know about you, but I was totally energized by the rain we received this morning.  It feels like the sticky summer heat was washed off of me and I feel like I can go out and plant my midsummer plants now.  I wasn't even going into the garden the last few days because the grass was crunchy and it hurt my feet and it was so hot, I'd pull a few weeds and come in the house and collapse from heat exhaustion.  (I'm exaggerating a little...)

Ruby snores when she sleeps. 

I woke up this morning around 4am.  Over the sound of the fan, I could hear grumbling.  I thought maybe Ruby was snoring, so I turned down the fan, and yep, it was thunder off in the distance.  Possibly over the lake...  I was so excited.  We haven't had rain in what feels like months.  And what came in the hours after was that raging thunderstorm of my dreams!  How I have missed thunderstorms!  We got so much rain that both our rain barrels (which have been empty most of the summer) were completely filled and running over! 

Cali watching out the kitchen window for the rain to come...

So thank you to all of you who were praying for rain too.  I'm sure the farmers were happy this morning too.  It was everything I hoped it would be. 

The gardens are smiling.

Nature and all it's practical usefulness

When I first started little gardens, about 20 years ago, I started with flowers, herbs and houseplants.  I just relished my time with plants.  But as I got older and busier, I began growing as income and my priorities changed from ornamental to "useful" plants.  That meant I didn't grow anything that couldn't be eaten, used as medicine, or cut as a dried flower. 

Ruby with the bleeding hearts behind her, encroaching the stairs.

 

Now that I am even older, and I get further into permaculture and sustainable organic living, I am realizing that ALL plants are useful in one way or another.  For instance, my porches around my house are abundant in both pink and white varieties of bleeding heart.  In my "useful" plants period, I'd have dug them up to make more room for hydrangeas so they'd be useful as a dried flower.  It may be that I have more space than ever, also.  I have come to enjoy these plants far beyond what I expected.  They are the one of the first flowers in spring in my gardens.  They bring me so much joy.  They are prolific and spread all over the place, giving shade to the toads, and shelter to the beetles, and beauty to the front walkways.

me, a few years ago harvesting hydrangeas

The huge pines that line our driveway are ugly, but robins love them for nesting and all sorts of other birds do too. 

 

The large pines by the drive.  I find a nest or two from these trees every spring. 

 

Hosta, which is simply ornamental, has a place in my garden now for it's benefits in shading large patches of soil so it's more drought tolerant.

 

The point is, it's so much better to live with abundance and abundance in it's usefulness.  It's just better to "get" nature.  Everything that is in nature has a purpose.  You just have to be open to see it.