Taking Responsibility For Food

Is there anything that inspires more hope for the future than a sprouting seed?

The simplicity of soil, seeds, water and sunlight that result in flowers, fruit and vegetables are truly an artistic expression.

This past summer my patio railing was home to some excellent successes, a couple failures, and also gained me the go-ahead from the apartment complex managers to take over the small planting bed in front of my patio.

This will allow me to solve the cause of a couple of the failures. My apartment faces north, and the direct sun is only on a portion of the patio for a couple hours in the morning. The small bed in front of the patio gets much longer direct sun, which will allow me to have more space and get enough sun for the tomatoes.

If there is a greater taste treat than that of a fully-ripe, sun-warmed tomato you grew yourself, I don't know what it would be.

I won't have anything to do with GMOs as I do not believe that the agribusinesses creating them have any more idea of the whole picture than the blind man describing an elephant after only touching the trunk. Tales of such blind arrogance creating disaster go back to the dawn of recorded history.

I currently use two seed catalogs. Neither Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds or Pinetree Garden Seeds sell or have any connection to companies that sell GMO varieties.

Baker Creek also is now publishing a 364 page behemoth of a seed catalog. Somewhat reminiscent of the Whole Earth Catalog , it offers up articles covering the history of some of the seeds they offer and dozens of recipes. The images are incredible, and make me long to grow many more varieties than I can possibly handle.

Pinetree's catalog is much more modest, and to be truthful, their prices are also far more modest. I do purchase most of my seeds from them. I have to admit that Baker Creek has many varieties they don't, so Baker Creek will get a good share of my business this year also.

Last year I had good results with herbs, beans, some flowers, and a few pepper plants. With the bed in front of the patio, I hope to get a couple good size tomato plants going, far more spinach and radishes, and some summer and winter squash.

 This picture shows the beans, flowers and upright peppers. These were described as an ornamental pepper, and though they look like they'd be incendiary, they were actually quite sweet. I've saved seed, and we'll see how they grow out.

Looking down the front of the patio, you can see the petunia with the ginger plant in the same pot. I particularly enjoyed this combination, and will likely have some fun with it again.

You can also see a number of the white plastic containers that I reused after I used up the cat litter.

 The tomatoes barely survived, but there just wasn't enough light on the patio for them to produce. Getting them in front of the bushes will handle that.


Since I'll be planning on moving in October, I want to have much of the garden movable as well. I've been making a practice of reusing the white plastic containers that the cat litter comes in.









The package with the resistance bands arrived today from MP Pro-Products. My next post will cover how I plan to proceed with them.

What Are You Drinking? Regarding Water

Water. Roughly two thirds of this planet is covered with it. It makes up most of our bodily tissues. In Colorado history, while fights and murders did occur over gold, more people died over contests over water rights than ever happened over gold.

We can die in a very few days without it, and good quality water is key to our health.

The marketing of bottled water gets pretty intense, as Bruce Wiseman's "Water Wars" article shows. However, the expense and hassle of dealing with innumerable plastic bottles (and the prospect of the waste of resources involved) make other options of ensuring high-quality water more attractive.

In doing a little bit of research regarding our municipal water supply, a laundry list of contaminants became a rising source of alarm.

The link to the report I read is here.

I'm not going to get into a Chicken Little The-Sky-Is-Falling panic, but I'm not happy with drinking heavy metals with my ice tea.

While boiling and cooling can kill microbial contaminants, boiling water does not remove inorganic contaminants. In fact, because evaporation reduces the water volume, boiling water will actually concentrate inorganic contaminants.

I've been told by some of my acquaintances in alternative medical professions that I exhibit symptoms of reduced thyroid effectiveness. One of them characterized it as Functional Hypothyroidism. A quick online search returns many articles and resources covering this idea in depth.

One of the ones I read, "Fluoride And The Thyroid: The Controversy" does cover the fact that the level of fluoride added to municipal water supply in an attempt to reduce cavities is the same level that was used to cut down thyroid action in over-active thyroid patients.

With the fact that I have been exhibiting symptoms of lower functional thyroid activity, depressing it further is not something I want to do.

Given that reducing intake of these contaminants is a good idea, the question becomes how to go about it effectively?

Two methods that will result in pure water are distillation and reverse osmosis filtration. While a DIY solar distillation setup is on my project list, it isn't practical for my current living situation. Reverse osmosis systems are not practical from a cost standpoint at present, and reverse osmosis systems for home use generally waste several times the amount of water that is actually produced.

Most filter cartridge systems do eliminate or reduce chlorine, lead and some other compounds, but not the fluoride. I have found one combination filter system that while it is not certified at removing fluoride, it does state in their FAQ page that it can be presumed to do so. I have ordered one, and plan to use it until I can do the DIY solar still mentioned above.

Next post will cover some of my current sources of non-GMO seed, my small patio garden setup and plans, and my plans for clean, healthy food.

A Bit Of Clarification

In re-reading my first post of this new blog, I realized that I mentioned weight and exercise.

I want to clarify my goals a bit. Weight loss is not my main goal. My feeling is that weight is just a number. I know that in doing what I want to do physically, a fair bit of weight loss will occur.

My main goal is to be able to regain my physical ability, resiliency, and basic health. This main goal of regaining my use of my body will allow me to be more creative and effective as an artist, and explains the title of this blog.

My planned path toward this goal does include attention to the following:

• Eating high-quality, non-GMO, non-processed foods
• Increased exercise
• Improving the air quality in my current home
• Moving to an area that does not have as much air pollution
• Growing a good deal more of my food
• Obtaining a water filtration system that does remove fluoride as bottled water is expensive and wasteful
• Finding and using herbal and vitamin supplements to handle high blood pressure and edema 

In a conversation with a family member, he brought up the point that if I exercised multiple times a day, I could build up to a substantial amount of exercise even if I exercised for five minutes every hour I was awake. 

So, there is some clarification. 

In my next post, I'll give some coverage as to why I'm putting attention on the fluoridation of water, and what I plan to do about getting it handled.

Starting A Personal Journey

2013 has been a challenging year. 

It has been defined by illness and physical issues that have only gotten harder to deal with. 

The so-called "Health Care Law" is imploding. My hope is that it ends fast enough and hard enough that our health care system can be rebuilt into a more sane open market framework. As far as I am concerned, this socialist framework that we've been getting force-fed is obscene and has dire consequences.

My doctor quit rather than continue under this system, and I was unable to get a new doctor before I was informed that in order to keep what coverage I did have, I would be required to sign up for medicaid.  I looked at what that would have as consequences for me, and decided that the risks were unsupportable. 

Then there is the fact that the more treatment I got, the worse I felt and did physically. That tells me that the medicos have the wrong "Why" and I should look at how and when I went downhill physically, and reverse the change that was made then to start repairing the damages. 

The healthiest I've ever been was in 1996 when I was living in the Rockies. 

Granted that was seventeen years ago, and bodies do age, but the fact was that I had clean air, non-fluoridated water, non-feedlot meats - including quite a bit of wild game - and I was doing a lot of daily exercise in just the course of daily chores.

When my husband at the time couldn't be at the altitude and we moved to Oklahoma, I was able to keep in a fair amount of the non-industrial meats, and was getting clean food from our own large garden. I still had lots of exercise, but the health really went downhill when I was exposed to some pretty heavy air pollution at my job - epoxies and solvents. I got out of that job and started doing better for several years. 

I moved to Texas and was having some ups and downs. A stint in Florida saw some marked improvements, but that ground was lost again not long after I moved into my current apartment three years ago. 

This has been the most dramatic slide. The largest difference? Air quality. This complex is directly under the landing pattern for the DFW airport, and I am pretty sure that the building has a mold problem also. 

I've attempted to make other changes to get back in healthier eating, exercise, even going to bottled water to get away from fluoridation, but I've had more difficulty breathing, high blood pressure issues, and I've gained weight. A lot of weight. 

In Hartsel, CO 1996

In Denison, TX 2013

I am told repeatedly that I should lose weight, and if I do, I'll feel better physically. I think that this is the wrong way around. While I have always been heavy, the health issues predated the largest amount of excess weight gain. Since the weight gain did not cause the health issues, I do not believe that weight loss itself will reverse the health problems. 

My plan is to turn this thinking on it's head and start by deciding to feel better. I believe that by doing this, I can start to reclaim my body as my own, and not the medical establishment's.

I plan to move out of the DFW metro area as soon as my current lease expires. This will be in several more months, so I plan to start by getting some exercise back in on a gradient that doesn't cause more shortness of breath. 

The doctors have said that I need to be on home oxygen - which I can't afford - and walk more - which the shortness of breath makes nearly impossible.

I just purchased an exercise product from MP Pro-Products. I should be receiving it in the next couple days. I will chronicle my experience with them on this blog. 

So, the current scene is that I am a middle aged obese female with high blood pressure, heart failure, edema, shortness of breath on even mild exertion, and I am fed up with it!

My goals include - 
Physical: 
Regain the ability to walk long distances, work in the garden, shop without need for the electric carts, carry loads, hike in the outdoors, dance, ice skate, and sleep without snoring.

When I get my body doing what I want, I feel that I'll be able to do more creative activities and live art in my life.