Our home school collective went on a field trip to a dairy farm yesterday. The excursion was illuminating, to say the very least. I certainly don't feel like an uninformed person when it comes to understanding where our food comes but seeing things up close and personal really brings the details into the blaring light. From my perspective, it was a sad, sad place to be. The cows live under a roofed concrete floor that is fashioned with water mattresses for them to lie down on. They walk around in their urine and feces. Their legs are and sometimes their sides are caked with their bodily fluids. And if you haven't been a round a cow in a long time,  their is a lot of urine and poo. The children marveled at the copious amount of waste issuing from the backsides of these black and white dairy maids.

I'm sure the waste is hosed out a few times a day and it probably wouldn't have seemed as awful to me if I hadn't asked the question, "When do they go out to pasture?" The answer: "Only when they are about 2 months from giving birth." Other than that they live on concrete floors. They are inseminated by humans (with bull sperm , of course), their calves are born, taken away and fed formula. The calves live in little plastic huts called "Calf-tels." Some of these structures  have the word HUMANE imprinted on them.

On the flip side, the farmers aren't rich. I don't mean this to be some sort of expose on dairy farms. My understanding (from a friend who has dairy farming family)  is that dairy farmers are not financed by banks unless they farm a certain way. The "certain" way is the the path to the most profit. The path to the most profit does not include pastures and exercise for the cows. The path does not include a natural diet for the cows but rather corn. Cows normally eat grass. Funny, we grow lawns and mow them like it is a religious ritual but cows must eat corn. The path does  include antibiotics, chemicals, water beds and aqua cow rising systems for downed cows.

So then, the farmers barely eek out a living, the cows live a life on concrete, corn and three milkings a day, we consumers imbibe denatured milk containing who knows what (really), and who reaps all the benefits from this mess? The big milk companies, chemical companies, agribusiness and banks I guess. I'm sure I'm missing something here but it all adds up to me thinking our family needs to change its eating ways. Reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle along with my continued readings of Wendell Berry has enlightened me but the path to eating in a just and sustainable way is a windy one. Our family lives on a very modest income. CSA's, buying shares in cows, buying local and organic foods and are prohibitively expensive for us. I held back a gasp the other day at our local organic Market, Ellwood Thompson's, when the clerk informed me that ONE organic red bell pepper cost $8. Again, who is REALLY profiting from those prices. The farmers? I doubt it.

So, I'm growing bell peppers and tomatoes and lettuce and peas and beans and basil and squash. But it won't be enough to get us through a year. It'll help though.

I've also been peeking through a book called Food Not Lawns. It has some radical ideas. I always like a sprinkling of radical. Food Not Lawns also has some fantastic ideas on how take control and ownership of our foodchain here and now. I'm pretty sure I'll be owning this book soon!

Clean Food. Pure Air. Clean Water. We, the living beings of this planet, need them all to be healthy.

Are we healthy? That is the question.

____________________________

Other suggested reading: Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals 

photo: Shy Calf. Kimmy Certa 

I'm on day three of my moonblood cycle. And yes, I actually talk like that in real life. Ask anyone  who knows me:) This is always the day when I feel utterly drained. My feet are cold. I'm still in my pajamas and I've sent the kids to watch Peter Pan in our bedroom so I can crank up the music and mess with photos and blog. A little Radiohead, a dab of Low, some Ralph Stanley & Gillian Welch, Benevento and Russo Duo (who we will be seeing March 5th in Richmond) creates an interesting mood on this cold and wet day.

Ya know,when I write, I don't always know what is going to come out. Sometimes I go back and read what I've written and it doesn't even sound like me. Of course, its hard to know what you sound like.

I've started two entries to day. One I deleted and the other I'll save for another time. THIS one though , I decided, should be positive. 

POSITIVITY is my new challenge. I've conquered the tobacco, I'm succeeding in taking care of my body and now I need to care for my soul. 

"Can you please ask your brother (or sister) that in a more positive way?"

"Um, Kimmy, can you try and approach this upcoming event with love and high expectations?"

"Boychild, can you rephrase that in a more caring tone?"

The answer is "Yes, yes we can."

Can we start making it our habit?  

"We will give it our all. "

__________

So this month has been filled with moments of bliss. We spent time with friends who moved to Flagstaff 2 years ago. There was a magical time when our lives were all intermingled. Our lives were changed when they left but it is comforting to know that they are very happy out there in the West. We tried to spend every moment we could with them. Crux was best friends with their son and it was heartwarming to see that they still enjoyed each other's company.

________ 

Another highlight of our lives lately has been the wee potluck circle that has developed between us and 2 other families. Not only has my food rut disappeared thanks to the amazing food Debbie and Nancy delight me with but it has also inspired me to explore the amazing healing properties of communal eating. Food sustains us and , I believe, has the ability to heal our bodies and our communities. I wonder if our Neighborhood Resource Center would host a monthly neighborhood potluck?....

With Debbie's permission, I will post her recipe for the delectable and incomparable AMBROSIA !!

_________

Bliss. You know what bliss is? Moon Journaling is bliss. I bought a wonderful book about 2 years ago called: Moon Journaling: Writing, Art and Inquiry through Focused Nature Study by Chancer & Rester-Zodrow. I've been waiting for an opportunity to do it with my kids and thought February would be a good time. I then volunteered to do it with one of our co-ops and I've been leading this project (along with the fantastic Debbie) for a few weeks now. We have 12 children ranging from 5 to 8. Debbie and I are also journaling along with the children. We plan on continuing through March and I feel we could do this for at least two more months!! I highly recommend the book. The opportunities to explore art, math, science, astronomy, poetry, seems endless.

To top it all off, we were able to view a full lunar eclipse. I roused our boychild from sleep, dressed him, wrapped him in a blanket and dragged him outside to catch sight of the moon being eclipsed by the earth's shadow. I eagerly tracked an arctic front all day and predicted it would clear in time for the viewing. Indeed, the clouds lifted in the nick of time. Occasionally, a few would race by obscuring our view but they were fast moving and we were not disappointed. At the peak of the eclipse the moon appeared to be a light brownish orange color. I called it the Hazel Moon.

I have two pictures from the night before my camera battery called it quits. 

_______________________________________

Bliss moment:

I spent two night and three days with Five women from one of our homeschool learning co-ops. We dearly missed the other half of our contingent but made the best of it with wine, pedicures, dining out, a hike, a trip to Trader Joe's and endless storytelling, processing and sharing!

It was an unforgettable and much needed respite from everyday life.

Thank you to all of the people in my life who are there to share the bliss along with the trials.

I was going to write a long list of all the things I've been doing this month. I decided to spare you. However, I will tell you that we were computerless for a few weeks (gasp) because I filled up the hard drive and this, I believe, killed it. In many ways , being without a PC was a blessing. It caused me to realize that I spend too much time using it.  It is hard to  admit that since I love the "inner nets". For me, it is like living in a library. For me, that is nearly nirvana. A library on a beachside forest, a yurt with moss carpet and a bowl of chocolates might be my dreamland.

Nevertheless, we now have the biggest hard drive Chris could find and I am being more mindful of my sedentary time (the phrase I'm using as a tool to pare down computer time).

Life is full of love , broken things, and more love.

 And now for a word to the homeschooling commmunity. Are you freaking out that your child knows nearly nothing s/he "should"? Are you wringing your hands over whether you are "doing" enough? Or are you paring down your activities because you have overscheduled? I just wanted to remind you that this seems to happen every year around this time. It is a pattern with us homeschoolers. Take a deep breath. Relax.

Chances are you are crashing from the holiday high and  have a touch of cabin fever brought on by the cold weather. Don't worry. Spring will be here before you know it. Your child will somehow learn multiplication and will definitely survive another year without knowing all there is to know about George Washington.

Fortunately for me, I have not had many moments of self doubt when it comes to educating my children. But there is still time. After all, my oldest is only 8. However, I think my cool head is mostly arises from my intuition. Something tells me that this is the right path for us. That, and whenever I get this crazy notion that I need  to sit down and "teach"  my kids something, they either already know it or quickly teach me that they are busy learning something more important.

So, I don't know about you but I'm already looking out for the crocus. I wonder what Punxsutawney Phil will do tomorrow? We're  planning for some great springtime activities. My son and my father will be building a treehouse in 7 weeks. We plan on having a spring equinox/treehouse warming party! Oh and we're learning our multiplication tables too. Really we are.....

COMING SOON: More photos from my new and much adored Nikon D-40.

You'd think I would have found some time to journal lately but our life has taken on a pace wholly different from my imaginings and it is not leaving me much time for scribbles on the web.

However, today, while the No Pudge brownies are baking and my children are outside chopping down Poke Weed with friends, I'll take  some time to ramble.

As I've already mentioned, life is busy. We've got Itty Bitty Ballet, Lego League, History Co-op, and Roots and Shoots/Spanish/Art co-op as weekly events. When you throw in play dates, theater, parks, pumpkin patches, weight watcher meetings (me), co-op planning meetings,  trips out of town (all), working out (both tall people), soccer (Chris) and mix it up with one full time job (Chris) and one part-time job (me), well....any additions to the schedule can get hairy.  

This weekend we took a weekend trip to Staunton, Virginia in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Our dear friends, Courtney and Bill (and their two darling children) moved there earlier this year. It is a lovely town and the butcher was right when he said Staunton was "all the things you like about Richmond but smaller." And I would add, crime didn't seem to be a big issue. Crime is becoming more and more of a problem for us here in Fulton Hill. All in all, our neighborhood is safer than it was when we moved here 7 years ago but we still deal with drug dealing in front of our house, frequent gunfire, gangs,crackheads and local alcoholics roaming up and down our street.  I have stopped taking my children to our neighborhood park on Powhatan Hill or for walks in our neighborhood because of a lot of sketchy stuff....so, while we adore our yard and our bungalow and our neighbors, we don't have the benefit of enjoying the greater community or feel like we have as much freedom of movement as we once did. That's a bummer and it wasn't as apparent to me until we left town and experienced what a neighborhood without those issues felt like.

I'd VERY much like to live somewhere where I can feel safe walking around. I'd like to walk to the butcher for hormone free pork and fairtrade coffee. I'd like to know my grocer by name and enjoy some great public transportation. When I wasn't a mother, living in a "rough" area didn't bother me but one feels (and is) more vulnerable with two small children in tow. I used to be heavily into community activism and our local civic association and while I applaud those folks who work in those organizations, I've found most of our local community organizations don't offer the kinds of activities our family likes or needs and working with city, state and national government has officially become too Kafka-like for me to find intrinsic value in it. I certainly haven;t given up, I'm just taking a different approach to creating change. I don't know maybe we just need to find a city that more closely reflects our interests and needs ?

...but I digress 

We fell in love a little bit with the whole area of Staunton and it didn't hurt that the trees were in full autumn glory.  On Sunday, Courtney & Bill took us to Lake Sherando, a captivating little lake nestled in the mountains. It was so quiet. It seems that there is a lot of headspace to be had in the Shenandoah area....not to mention, plenty of Universities. So don't be surprised if we pull up roots and high tail it to the mountains.

However, THIS Saturday, we're buggin' out of Richmond and heading for our beloved Thanksgiving week long retreat in North Carolina's Outer Banks. That's another place that is good for the soul. There is nothing quite like the beach in autumn.

Upon our return, I promise lots of lovely photos and an essay.

 The earth. The sky. Grass. Air. Drinking Water. Rivers. Recycling. Oceans. Trees. The soil. Animals. The Insects.

These are all subjects that have been a part of our family conversation since we called ourselves a family. The most challenging part of this conversation has been answering the why from our son. He is eight years old now but he asked this question four years ago and we have never given him an acceptable answer.

 "Mommy, if grown ups know that pollution is hurting the water and air then why don't hey just stop doing it and find better ways?"

Good question. 

...........................

I consider myself to be hopelessly optmistic but not long ago there was a buzz about the honey bees. It was asserted that cellphones were something that could possibly be contributing to there disappearance. I wondered to myself...if cellphones were the cause would people give them up in order to save themselves? I was surprised when a voice inside me said, "Don't count on it."  I don't want to be a cynic. I don't want to believe that dollars, profit, apathy and politicians will kill the planet that gives us life and I certainly don't want to try and explain THAT to my son.

What are we going to do? How are we going to do it and why aren't we doing it no. Mr. President? Representative Robert C. Scott? Senator Warner? Senator Webb? Governor Kaine? Mayor Wilder? 

Individual citizens can do a whole lot. Small groups can accomplish amazing things but this is a task that requires cooperation from top to bottom and all the way around.

I'm willing to give up the phone, the car, and I'd even erect a wind turbine if I thought we could power the house up on it and not get a ticket for it.

What can you do as a family to reduce your environmental impact? First, know where you are and then have a family meeting and decide what you can do. We plan on stepping it up a notch and start writing to our representatives again...but what else?

I believe that we are all connected and being the optimist that I am (even with a few backsliding moments) I still cling to the hope that the little pebbles of goodness we chuck into the world will be like rings on still water and we will heal ourselves.

** I JUSt realized that the essay I wanted to write for BLOG ACTION DAY isn't done but I still wanted to participate...the above was scribbled out as I chug down some coffee and head off to work.**