Maggie Strikes Again...

We spent the week at my in-laws cottage and hosted my husband's colleague Jeff and his family from Tuesday to Friday of the past week. We brought Maggie and Edwin along because we didn't want to leave them alone for too long and because they both enjoy the view from the screened in porch. It's almost like being outside for them, without the worry for me about where they are, what they're into if they were actually outside. All through the week Maggie was trying to escape every time the screen door opened.

Near the end of the week, Maggie escaped a few times outside when people left the screen door open, or were too slow shutting it. Then on Saturday morning, we noticed Maggie was outside. We couldn't remember seeing her slip out the door, but there she was, prancing around on the porch. So we caught her, and brought her back inside the cottage. About five minutes later Maggie was out again. At that point, we started to get suspicious. We went outside to catch her, and she bolted around towards the back of the screened in porch. As we chased her, I looked up and noticed a gaping hole in the screen, and Edwin's nose sticking out the hole. Tim caught Maggie, and I rushed inside the porch to stop Ed from jumping. It appears that Maggie had torn her way through the screen of the screened in porch. Bloody claws and all. I guess she really wanted outside!
There was no way for us to patch up the hole at the time, so for the rest of the weekend during the day the cats got to roam about outside. And they actually did very well. They came back to eat and believe it or not, Ed came back to use the litterbox!

Adventures in Baby Food Making

So far I'm really enjoying making Sam's food. It's great knowing exactly what he's eating, how it's been prepared, and there's a certain satisfaction in seeing him enjoy it. I've been doing some reading on and off about how good it is for your baby to consume organic foods, mainly because their systems are so susceptible to the toxins that can linger in foods that have been grown in environments that use pesticides, chemical fertilizers etc. So I've been making an effort to seek out locally grown and/or organic foods to make Sam's baby food. Sometimes I'm successful, sometimes I wash his food really well and pray the toxins wash off. :P

Anyway, a couple days ago we introduced carrots, which Sam really likes. I'd only made enough servings for about 3 days, and I'd used organic carrots I'd bought at the farmer's market. Since I won't be able to get more till the weekend, I went to the Sobeys here in town because my mom had told me they had a decent organic section. Sure enough, I was able to pick up a 2 lb bag of organic carrots. (They have a pretty decent selection of organic produce, as does Zehrs, however both are lacking in the LOCAL produce department)

This evening I peeled the entire bag of carrots, and then left Tim in charge of cutting and cooking the carrots as I was going out for a workout. When I returned from the gym, I found out Tim had had his first adventure in baby food preparation. I guess he didn't realize how quickly water can boil off a pot of veggies, and he had put the carrots on to boil and then set about doing some other things around the house. When I got home, there was a funny smell in the air which I couldn't identify. I went into the kitchen and on the counter was a small pot with only a small portion of the cut up carrots. Then I noticed in the sink that there was a larger pot with a very burned bottom....it turns out when Tim came back to check the carrots, they had completely boiled off and were cooking to the bottom of the pot. My sweet husband had picked through all the carrots to find the non-burnt ones and kept them while discarding the rest. Unfortunately the ones he kept still tasted burnt, but it was the thought that was sweet. And in the long run, he learned a valuable cooking lesson that I think all of us discover at one time or another. :P

Community Supported Agriculture

When we lived in Hamilton we used to receive a fresh veggie basket every week as a part of a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program that friends of ours had gotten us involved with. The idea behind a CSA is that you (the consumer) pay a set price to the farmer to buy shares in their farm for a season. In return, you receive a share of the harvest throughout the growing season.

It's a great way to get fresh fruits and veggies and to get to know local farmers. And it's great for supporting a vital local industry. Anyway, when we moved to Barrie we were really missing our veggie basket, and last summer I did what I could to get stuff from the farmer's market. But I missed the convenience of a basket every week, and the creativity required to cook with whatever came in your basket.

Happily, I discovered a website about a month ago, the Ontario CSA Directory which has a list of all the farms in Ontario that offer this option. We were able to locate an organic farmer here in the Barrie area that still had shares available for the season! We've been getting a veggie basket every week for the past month, and really have been enjoying it! You should check it out to see if there are farmers available where you live! :)

Goal Accomplished

Well, Tim and I made our way down to Grimsby this weekend and today we both participated in a triathlon. In the morning Tim took part in the sprint triathlon (which was 750 m swim, 25 km bike and 7 km run) and he set a personal best! He did his race in 1 hour 44 minutes and 42 seconds. YAY Tim!

In the afternoon I participated in my first triathlon, called a "Try-a-tri" which is basically a mini triathlon. It included a 375 m swim, 10 km bike and 2.5 km run. I was hoping to do the race in less than an hour, but I didn't think I would. However, when I crossed the finish line, the official clock read 57 min, 15 sec!!! It felt so great to finish. :)

Five Years

On August 6th, 2005 I was a part of a wedding that has lingered in my mind......It was a glorious day, everyone says that the bride was beautiful, but all I can remember is how handsome the groom was. The food was great, the dancing was fun, heck they even partied on a local cruise boat! It was quite the party. :) I haven't been to a wedding quite like it since.


Happy Anniversary honey. :)

The 100 mile diet

Have you ever stopped to consider where your food comes from? Like, how far did it travel to arrive on your plate? Or in your cupboard? Or fridge? How much of our food is imported from abroad? These are questions in previous years I hadn't put much thought to. But in the past couple years, the idea of trying to eat locally, to eat more whole foods and to have a better idea of where my food comes from has been a more pertinent thought in my mind.

I've been doing a lot of reading online about this topic, and came across some references to the "100 mile diet" - which is a book written by a Vancouver couple that decided to eat only local foods (as they defined, grown within 100 miles of their vicinity) for an entire year. Think about that for a minute. No coffee. No bananas. No mangoes. Nothing that needs to be imported. So if you can't find locally made baking soda or baking powder, you're out of luck for baking for a year. Or it becomes a lot more challenging. Same thing for wheat, yeast, tea, peanut butter (gasp!)....the list goes on and on. When you start to think about all the items that fill our cupboards that are imported from the US, Mexico, South Africa, China - it starts to make you think about the gallons and gallons of fossil fuels fuels that are burned up for our eating pleasure. It also makes me wonder what kind of growing rules the farms in China or Mexico or California follow. Do they have the same rules and ethics that our farmers have?

I don't think I can give up my tea, or peanut butter. But it does make me feel motivated to start researching local things - like flour, meat, dairy - I don't even know if there are farms that supply flour in this area. But I'm going to find out. And I'm going to get out to the farmer's market more often!

A goal

I haven't posted an exercise log in a while, but not because I haven't been exercising, moreso because we have been at our parent's cottages and not frequently in front of the computer. Gotta love summer holidays!

Tim has been encouraging me to try doing a mini triathlon (try-a-tri or give-it-a-tri they're called!) this summer. And for quite a while now I have been exercising regularly, running, biking and swimming, and considering the possibility of attempting one. The "idea" of doing a triathlon is a great motivator, it keeps me exercising, because if I were to do one, I'd need to be in shape. But to actually take the plunge and register for one, well that makes it real. That makes the idea become a goal.

This Friday will be Tim and my 5th Anniversary, and in honour of 5 years of marriage, we are heading down to Niagara region on Saturday to *gulp* do a triathlon on Sunday. It will be in Grimsby Ontario, here is the link if you want to check out details.

Hoping it will go well, and even that maybe a few friends/family members might come cheer us on. We'll see.