"Shay" <sha### [at] nonenone> wrote in message news:4795278e$1@news.povray.org...
>
> Then maybe I can do some good (do you remember the topics of these 
> conversations?), but I need to start by setting a better example.

In my case, a lot of them had to do with "girls".  The two uncles with which 
I felt comfortable, were about 10 years younger than my parents (about 20 
years older than me), had lived "interesting lives", and certainly had a 
fairly well-balanced perspective on things.

> I have been feeling pretty bad about something that happened a few months 
> ago. I was a real food Nazi when I worked in an office, but since moving 
> to outdoor employment, I have started to relax a bit, relying on my job to 
> keep me lean.  <snip>

Since getting married, my diet became horrible.  It's not because my wife is 
a bad cook, or I'm a bad cook, but mostly, we just got lazy, and quickly got 
into the habit of fast food.  Only in the last 4 years have I started to 
take control of that part of my life again.  Additionally, I've started 
growing some of my own food (gardening, raising chickens, etc.) and in the 
process, I've come to recognize HOW DIFFERENT my home-grown food is from 
anything at the store.

I read a book called "Pastured Poultry Profits" when I decided that I wanted 
to raise a few chickens for meat last year.  That book probably changed my 
life forever.  All I was curious about was how to raise chickens on 
grass/pasture because it sounded better than keeping them in a poopy chicken 
coop*, but the author really opened my mind to the concept of "buying local" 
and WHY.  I live in an area where I'm surrounded by cows, pigs, chickens, 
corn, you name it, and yet I never realized that most of the livestock 
around me IS NOT what ends up at the grocery store.  Now, we buy a lot of 
our meat (beef/pork) from local farmers, eat our own eggs and chickens, and 
for a few short months, we get our own fresh vegetables.

I'm not into organics, per se, because I don't think there's truly much 
difference.  If a chicken is fed organic grain versus non-organic, is it 
going to be any different?  I doubt it.  But put the chicken outside, on 
pasture, and there's a difference.  I gave a few chickens away last year, 
and this year, I'll probably raise 50-100 meat chickens, just because now, 
so many people want one (or 2 or 5 or 20).  Next year, perhaps even more.

Here's an interesting article discussing pasture-raised chicken eggs:
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Whole-Foods-and-Cooking/2007-10-01/Tests-Reveal-Healthier-Eggs.aspx

But more than that, this entire process gives my life more meaning.  Going 
outside in the morning to service the chickens puts a completely different 
perspective on the entire day and takes away a lot of "the drag" before 
going to the office.  I've spent hours sitting outside in the summer just 
watching the chickens, or collecting grasshoppers for them (they LOVE 
grasshoppers), or whatever.  It's that whole feeling of being connected to 
the land, I think.

LOL, I guess that kinda turned into "Jeremy Praay's 2007".

* They are cooped up for now until the weather warms up (probably in March).

Post a reply to this message