The first warm days of spring are there is so much to do in the yard and garden that it is overwhelming. I feel all the penned up day dreams of the winter have to be done in the first five days.

My tomato starts look so sickly compared to the nursery's that I have started giving them a booster. I have been taught not to use Miracle Grow. The long list of reasons, mentally, I understand but then I have to consciously think about my home make magic. The easiest and quickest is from the grocery shelve, Brer Rabbit Molasses. Some say that is all one would need. I add also from the nursery a liquified organic kelp --seaweed extract and Superthrive. I have had the same small bottles for three years now but this summer I will be using it more as I feel my soil is in need of much.

Potatoes have not interested me until this year. I have a narrow side six foot area along a side fence not seen or used. This is the year to experiment. Since potatoes and strawberries are the mostly heavily sprayed with pesticides I want to see if the difference in taste is as great as it is in strawberries. John and I have moved miles away from potatoes as we have aged but part of that is we have developed a taste for dried beans. It is said a home grown potato is so good you don't need that butter and sour cream, we'll see.

The other thing I am trying this year is a Peruvian ground cherry plant, well, two of them. They are related to tomatoes, very easy to grow spread three to six feet in two directions and have small yellow cherry like fruit that taste a little like strawberry or pineapple. Can be eaten fresh or dried for winter use. The Peruvian man that sold the plants to me also explained about saving sticks the plant to start next years. I am going to try making my grow up a sunny fence.

just thoughts

My gardening tells my brain the age of my body. This season, I have found it necessary to visit my chiropractor a couple times a week for a few weeks. My lower plate or hips get tilled to one side because of the constant up and down and the favoring of one side, repeating movements that finally bring on pain and totally stoppage of everything. This lovely woman has start the balancing and realignment of my lower back and encourage me to do a few minutes of excises first time in the morning. Miracles in life some times are so small but change the whole lookout of the day.

John's truck is very important to the gardening we do. We haul loads of saw dust, organic garden mix and sand to the area behind our property and slowly during the year work from these piles. John is going to have his 76th birthday shortly and the new tires he put on the truck yesterday will last until he's 91.

I wonder if there is a person that goes to the dentist and hears a comment like you bush your teeth so well there will be no cleaning this year. The lecture I got from a woman last week made me feel like I flunked second grade. I do believe she belongs to the Nazi party in a past life.

The main problem with the pharmaceuticals is that the synthetics they give us never leaves the planet. It leaves our bodies but it goes into our water systems. Too bad we can get the original herb or mineral that we need in the original form.

Last night I took a walk with two of my grandchildren and the family dog, Daisy. We went on a public trail that was created from a logging spur in the last century. We took a short cut back though a field and I pointed out an animal trail. I told the children how the people settling the West used the trails that the buffalo used. Buffalo moved from one source of salt to another traveling about the plains and the early scouts often used the same paths for the cover wagons going west. Lewis and Clark wrote in their journals about the sight of not seen any land because it was solid with brown with that animal.

MINERALS FOR THE GENETIC CODE by Charles Walters continues to teach me the importance of trace minerals in our diet and in our soil. It takes so little to throw off the balance of one of our functions. Surprisingly, the book discusses the overlay of mineral involved in degenerative diseases and spell out the what is needed to right the situation.

The current use of aspartame and Splenda as a sweeter in soda and gum is very dangerous. It is related to a 30 to 50% loss of the thymus function which means immunity if being canceled out quickly.

Other quick facts I found. White spots on fingernails denote a zinc deficiency.

People and animals consuming selenium either diminish or eliminate cancer.

Nuts and seeds offer a constant healthy source to trace minerals.

Deficiency in copper maybe white hair along with a long list of conditions including arthritis.

We get some minerals and vitamin from the air and sunlight as in vitamin D, which has three parts to it. The sun gives us energy from its light and some of vitamin D can not be consumed though supplements. Maybe that explains winter colds and flu and poorer health that season of the year.

Probiotics are the good bacteria, all 400 different ones in our stomach, that fight off bad bacteria. If the AMA and the Food and Drug promoted probiotics more than antibiotics, we would probably live in a different world today. Probiotics are as simple as yogurt and fermented foods and we all have to remember our stomach is our second brain. Enough on minerals today

I have my own pray flags! They are flying on the support fences that I put up for my tomatoes. This year I started my own varieties of tomatoes and yesterday I transplanted them. I want to closely follow what varieties I will continue to plant so I wrote their names on a bright pink plastic tape and tied it to the top of their support. The eight inch tapes blowing in the wind reminded me of the pray flags in all of Asia.

My chickens roam the yard much more than I would have thought. The most comical aspect of the it is that John some times sits in a chair and watches that they do not hop onto my raised beds. He has a long stick and tells them to move along. It is a scene out of China where the elders have a full time job watching the ducks in the courtyards.

The simplify of my garden is one the keys to my sanity in world where the daily news is so depressing.

The square dance of minerals

The square dance of minerals in one's body, our soil and the bigger world is so interconnected it is a science that holds the story of health and illness. The music may play but unless there are enough dancers/minerals in one's body to interact the party doesn't happen. One hand is off to the front while the body circling in formation and going under the arm of the third, it is all part of the beauty movement of rebuilding cells.

Currently, our food lacks so many of the common minerals that were presence in top soil when people farmed in a permaculture manner, one has to be conscious of what is needed.

The food growers in the Yakima valley in Washington are now discussing planting flowers that bloom all summer on the tractor trails in the orchard so the bees stay. On the edge of the field they are encouraging wide stands of grasses so the beetles and spiders winter over and take care of the aphids during the summer. Bluebird houses are being placed all around the fields of fruit. These people have found that the spraying of chemicals is killing their family members and destroying the soil.

Boron is a mineral for the brain and arrives though the blood. Yttrium arrives though intestinal tract, an ocean mineral, rarely talked about and is one of the links to increase in lifespan. They work as twins. Lou Gehrig's disease, Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis and Parkinson's are related to their deficiency. Boron is easily consumed by the spice of turmeric. This spice used in India and northern Africa is part of their daily diet. Alzheimer is uncommon in India as a result of the use of turmeric. A long list of fruits have boron in them including plums, peaches, strawberries, apples and quince. Also on the list is dandelion leaves. Signs of deficiency include ADD, osteoporosis, arthritis, fatigue and decrease of brain functions.

Needless, to say, I have started to take serious the health of my brain want to feel the sharp energy of clear thinking therefore, I am taking turmeric in pill form but will find ways to incorporate it in recipes. For a month I am also taking boron in pill form to experience any difference. I am not sure if the music is fast, slow, loud and faint.

Iodine is so key the brain can't develop without it. Iodine is the thermostat for the human body. Iodine is essential for the metabolism of fats. Iodine is the salt in our blood, our tears and our perspiration. If one don't live near the sea one probably need to figure out in what form one are getting your needed share of Iodine. The bleached out of minerals, white table salt that is popular is a poor second to the mineral rich sea salts are that are multicolored and tasty. The dance continues because Iodine doesn't work unless our bodies have selenium.

Ingenious peoples ate over a hundred and fifty foods in a year gathering bulbs from the earth, berries from bushes, leafs from plants. The average American eats less than 50 foods in a year. Americans are not coming to the square dance, they don't know the steps, in many cases they don't realize the music is playing. Minerals are the story of health.

I am going to start a journal of foods that I eat. I want to see where I stand on this scale with my ancestors.

Mother's Day 2009

I think of my mother when I hang laundry on the cloth line.

She is beside me as I look at a rack of flower seeds.

My heart is imprinted with her love of children, the less importunate and the forgotten.

I catch my casual conversation with a stranger, a copy of hers.

The strong need to have scheduled alone time for myself and a place of silence were taught to me by her.

Skills of cooking, using simple, fresh ingredients and serving meals hot reflect all the years of observing her.

My Mother valued curiosity, discussions of ideas and the talent of being an artist.

She was with me every time I travel around the world and touched beautiful fabrics, admired ethic clothing or jewelry.

She is not as far away to as she use to be, for I occasionally now catch a glimpse of her in the mirror, the one passing with the grey hair.

A friend of mine from the fruit society who taught me the basics about raising chicken called today. His starts of tomato plants are deformed and some are dieing.

He recalled that in the soil workshop Sunday it was mentioned not to use straw anywhere near our vegetable beds if it comes from the eastern part of the state because Atrazine is allowed as a weed killer and it is toxic to some vegetables. Well, guess what they use for in the chicken coop and then throw in the compost pile and then mix in their potting soil.

The EU have banned the product along with Iowa. The groundwater is contaminated in WI and along with many state across the nation. The list of problems is well known including cancer which currently one of the lead cause of death among farmers. Frogs like the canary have warned for years about this week killer but the chemical company have friends in dark suits that make the laws.

Small things in the food chain affect our health but I never thought the example would be so close for me to observe.

With the rain and the windy condition I made a carrot soup. The standard carrots, onion and chicken favoring in the pressure cooker was quick and plain. The ordinary turned delightful when I added a teaspoon of buttery olive oil, a sliced hard boiled egg and some fine hard Italian cheese.