Moses the water dog

Moses loves to swim! Here Martha was trying to get him to go out and actually swim. He did it for quite some time until he got mowed over pretty good from a wave. Then he paid closer attention to the size of the waves

 

Raw Vacation

Martha and I have been in the outer banks since Tuesday. We are staying until Tuesday night June 1^st. This has been a raw/vegetarian fest since we got down here. We have tried a few recipes that have turned out real nice. Chocolate truffles were really nice, as was the carrot cake! Wow was it good! Guacamole humus, flax crackers, sweet potato chips and raw spaghetti to name just a few of the dishes we made. It has been a super fun time cooking with our friends Mary Kay and Denny.

We had raw spring rolls tonight that were just awesome! Nice weather and good friends! What a nice vacation this is!

Square Foot Gardening

Well Saturday turned out to be pretty nice! We finally got the raised bed filled and we got it planted! The bed was sectioned off with string so the 4’ x 10’ area made up of 40, 1 square foot sections. One plant was planted in each section, hence “square foot gardening”. I have never done that before so it will be interesting. You can see how it is laid out in the photos. Plus you can see my “Bucket of Carrots” that goes with my “Bucket of Beans”.

Tuesday night we leave for vacation. It is about time and much needed! We are going to stay with great friends that live in the outer banks in NC. The weather looks like it should be hot. And after a spring of cold rain, hot will be good!

Our mastiff pup Moses will have his first experience at the beach. He loves water so it should be fun seeing his reaction! Now when I say pup I am referring to an 11 month old that weights in at about 90 pounds. So he is not a small fry. I will drive at night so he will spend most of the trip sleeping. Always seems better that way. Plus I like the reduced traffic.

Tough week

It has been an all around tough week. Martha is away yet this week teaching. Her residency is going very well! You can read about it on her blog. I have been working my IT job and also working in our business. So I have 8 hours a day with computers and another 6 – 8 hours a day designing or cutting steel. Gross Brothers had been particularly needy this week. I still have a bunch to cut for them in the next few days.

While Martha is away I have been Mr. Mom for the dogs J  They also can be a challenge. And it is hard for them because they are not getting a whole lot of play time because of my schedule. I am sure that will change this weekend. They are however being pretty good.

Eating health, eating raw for the most part has been going well. Today is the first day this week I did not juice for breakfast. I just ran out of time. We are however going for a nice dinner at a friends tonight and will be eating a nice healthy meal. Plus I brought my normal basket of fruit for lunch that I will compliment with a salad.

Can’t wait for Martha to get home. Miss her.

Making good choices

I have read a lot on the internet about Green Smoothies, Raw Foods and so on. There are a lot of people that try to go 100% right out of the gate and then seem surprised that it is a struggle. I am sure that some people can do that, but not many. More of us exist that are so conditioned by how we have been living that these changes can be very difficult.

For us, right now, it is more about eating less processed foods, less chemicals, less garbage and more real food! You will notice in Martha’s post that she mentions us making bread. We do make bread, home made bread. We try to use less and less processed junk and as much organic ingredients as we can. Hence we make nice bread that we know what it’s made of. And it tastes so much better than store bought bread.

I am sure in time we will even steer farther away from even the bread. I have been making some Raw flat breads (or trying to). The point of this for us is making changes we can actually do, at a speed we can be successful at. With an ultimate goal of being as healthy as we can be.

I would say we are somewhere around 95% vegan and 85% raw. And it has been pretty easy so far. In my book that is better than good, it is great!

We are on the right track, and we both feel better to prove it. One day at a time…

My husband's health is changing noticeably

After being out of town for four days, much to my surprise Rick is already looking and acting more healthy.  The dark circles that are notorious for him are fading and his entire energy level is so much better.  He is excited to try new food things and is hooked on the juicing and green smoothies.  I am trying not to get over excited myself at the changes because I was vegetarian before meeting him.  My own energy levels and concentration and better mental outlook is noticeable to me too.

I made yogurt, fresh berries and banana smoothies for breakfast and then we had a great all fresh greens, sprouts and veggies for dinner along with homemade sunflower bread.  Rick made that~!  I am still happily full and did not get sleepy on my drive here to Clarion.  I will make the most of fresh fruits and veggies this week while I am away!

New raised bed and hoops

Today Martha and I finally got the new raised bed built. I finished welding the corner brackets and then we put it together. Looks pretty nice…

Of course I will need to get the soil in it this week as well as some compost. I added the hoops so that we can make it a green house next year so we can plant this bed early. The hoops come out pretty easy. Here is a shot of how they are installed…

You can see that the hoop just slides in to the mounted PVC tube. Pretty easy to pull the hoops.

 

 

Some chives are blooming….

And here is some lettuce that is enjoying it’s new home…

We continue to juice and eat as raw as we can. Both of us feel a huge contrast from a day we eat totally raw and a day we don’t. Most often when we don’t we feel tired and sluggish. I have to admit that I never thought I would notice such a huge difference. But it truly is a major contrast.

Stopped at a Mennonite greenhouse and store today. Picked up some herbs and some produce. Unless you shop at a Mennonite owned shop you can not understand the price difference. We saved a bunch of money. For example if you buy apples in the store right now they are $1.79 a pound. I bought over 5 pounds of apples (was a basket full) for $3.50. Save money and eat better!

Bucket of Beans

We are experimenting with growing some of our pole beans in a bucket. I posted an instructable on how to do this. These are the same beans we started in a cup that we show in the "Our Garden" section listed at the top of the blog. I will post updates showing progress. Stay tuned!

Another sunny day

Here we are with yet another sunny day. Temps will be in the low 70's with some clouds here and there. All in all pretty nice day. This mornings juice was lettuce, carrot, red beet, endive and apple. Only used 1/3rd of a baby beet. I did not want to push the beet juice to hard. It is truely powerful stuff.

Happy to report the onion bread turned out pretty good! In fact a have an onion bread sandwich with humus and sprouts for lunch! My home grown sprouts are coming along. They should be done Friday.

Raw start and onion bread

Martha is away for the week working at a school in Clarion. So today (actually yesterday) I started a 4 day raw fest. Nothing but raw food until Saturday. Should be pretty easy since we have been doing a lot of raw foods anyway.

To spice things up a bit and have a bit of variety, I am making some onion/flax bread/crackers in the dehydrator. They smell awesome! Hope they taste that way also! More to come….

Sprouts and more...

We received our sprouting stuff from Sprout People the other day. Should have sprouts in a day or so. Martha and I are eating increasingly more vegetarian and actually more RAW vegetarian. Not 100%, but we are leaning way over to that side of the boat J We actually both feel better and feel like we have more energy. Martha has noticed her acid reflex has been almost nonexistent and her allergies have been way better. Those are the kinds of changes that help one stick to this sort of lifestyle. Plus it has been fun learning all the Raw things we can do.

This mornings juice was red lettuce, endive, carrots and an apple. Oh and some fresh ground flax seed just for good measure! Not bad at all actually. Yesterdays included turnip greens and Martha was not thrilled with it. Sort of strong. I need to look at some recipes on the web and see if they mask turnip greens with anything. I have to admit it could have used some masking.

Sunshine and formats

The sun is shining! That is like two days in a row! And the forcast is calling for at least one more day! Sorry for the sarcasm, but all this rain has been getting to everyone. Here in western PA we have a very low sunny day count to start with. But this spring has been worse than most. Hope we hit the turning point soon. It has also been pretty cold. I seen frost on a roof this morning on the way to work.

On another note I have been playing with the format of the blog. I am not thrilled with bloggers built in layouts. I have been trying to tweak this one and see if I get something I like. This current layout is not to bad. Oh well....

Burgundy Okra

As you can see our Okra is doing well! I planted 5 seeds and got 4 plants. Not to bad for a beginner!

Had a nice green drink this morning and then this evening we went shopping and got some more greens and veggies! Our frig has never been so full of healthy food. And I have to admit it is great. We can not wait to be eating our own food that we grew!

Here in a week (once I get some time) I will post a write up of a pole bean experiment. We grew some last year and wished we would have grown more. They were awesome pod and all! So we will plant some the traditional way but then also with the experiment. Stay tuned!

How well does your garden grow?

It grows well! Mostly inside still in pots, but it grows well! The rain has just been crazy. We have been so afraid to plant things yet. Temps have not been to bad so I don’t think that would be an issue. Rain needs to back off, we still have another raised bed to build.

Drink today was nice, collards, red lettuce, kale, carrot and apple. So we seem to be leaning more green already. Odd, I would think it would take more time.

Veggie Market you must see...

This is awesome! WOW, have a look at this short video of the market beside the train tracks.

Market

hmmm love Pineapple

so with two ripe pineapples we ended up with lots of scrap to juice tonight.  Our spinach was looking tired as was some celery plus carrot.  The combination was almost too sweet but we downed it anyway.  I am finding that my taste buds seem to be changing too as does my fading desire for junk food and processed foods.

Rick made bread today and although he forgot to put in the regular amount of salt, he did manage some raw almonds, sunflowers and wheat bran….for me any homemade bread is a bonus!

What’s for Breakfast?

Today’s juice consisted of red lettuce, celery, collard greens and gala apples.  The color of the drink today was a glorious Oz green and did not taste bad at all.  We are juicing again at dinner but for now, this will hold us until we meet again….

Happily my dill that I planted is coming up as is a hopeful Okra sprout.  It is overcast today but too soon to plant, so our potted herbs etc are outside for a while.