What Summer Looks Like

The sun is setting, someone’s for a hot air balloon ride over Niverville, and my hubby’s on the couch, waiting for me to finish blogging so that we can watch the first episode of the Canadian Amazing Race. (He’s sad that he’s not on it – it’s one of his lifelong dreams!)

I could go deep and spiritual here, but there’s something about a golden evening that makes me feel as though the words are few, and all I want to do is enjoy the beauty.

Let’s catch up on some summer photos – the ones I took during the last two months, but couldn’t share with you because I was always writing about favorite things.

So, for everyone who’s up for the deep thoughts I’m chewing on – they are coming. Slowly.

In the meantime, here’s a little bit of what summer is looking like around here:

We have decided to only have salads or something barbequed for meals around here. I wish I could leave my oven off until September.

I am waiting for my next chance to shop at the farmers market. Maybe tomorrow??

We’re spending more time at the lake than we have before. (Not counting when we lived by it. We weren’t vacationing then!)

Our garden is growing like mad by now. I run out to pick lettuce, and feel like we’re all “living off the land”.

The girls keep going to bed later and later, because nobody wants to go inside on these beautiful evenings.

What are you soaking in this summer?

35 Days of Favorites: Movies and Meat

Ben and I have decided we must be getting old, because we are no longer willing to stay up late for the sake of finishing a movie. We much prefer watching a 45 minute TV episode instead of a two hour movie.

As a result, I have never watched as few movies as I did in this last year. I had a really difficult time even remembering what I had watched, but when I thought really hard about it, I realized there was one movie in particular which impacted me enough to remember it a year later.

It’s called Food, Inc., and it’s a documentary about how food is produced. It’s described as “…An unflattering look inside America’s corporate controlled food industry.” (source)

I would not describe it as pleasurable viewing, but if you want something to change your life, then you’ve got the right movie.

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to feel the same way about grocery shopping again. Especially about buying meat.

It came at the perfect time, really, because I’d known for awhile that we should start buying different meat, but nothing had motivated me enough to take the plunge.

My body does not deal well with antibiotics, and so it makes sense that I should also be avoiding meat which has been pumped full of antibiotics. Knowing this, and actually doing something about it were two different things.

But then Ben and I watched this documentary, and saw a lot of things we had never wished to see. It was so eye-opening, we never ate regular meat again. I cooked meatless meals for a few days, until we could figure out where to get our hands on some organic meat, and we’ve never gone back.

If you are like me, and you would like to be eating healthier meat, but don’t know where to buy it, I can tell you what I know:

Chicken: Make connections with a Hutterite colony and buy a bunch of whole chickens. Apparently that’s the cheapest option. It’s the only one we’ve tried so far.

Beef: We love getting beef from Bouw Farm. We’re about to get another big box of delicious beef, and I can’t wait to start barbequing!

Other: While we’ve been waiting for our cow to get butchered, we picked up some beef, as well as a few chicken breasts for barbequing this summer, from Marcello’s Meats. It’s more expensive than the other two options I mentioned, but it’s convenient, and you don’t have to buy large amounts.

Vita Health also sells organic meat, but I’ve never tried any.

Along with encouraging us to change our meat-buying habits, this documentary also motivated me to think more about gardening and farmer’s markets – knowing where my food comes from, and buying stuff close to home. I took Anika and Kaylia to the St. Norbert Farmer’s Market for the first time a few weeks ago, and everybody had such a good time. There wasn’t a lot of fresh produce at that point yet, but I was able to pick up some lettuce, spinach, rhubarb, and honey. We all want to go back again sometime soon!

That’s a lot of change from one documentary. Watch it at your own risk!;)]

Any good movies you’ve seen recently? Something good enough to stay up past my bedtime to watch?!