Organic Harvest

I had no idea that "going organic" would impact so many areas of my life and thinking. First it invaded my shopping and eating patterns. As part of a new eating plan I started last January I began a committment to buying organic foods to bump the nutrient density of what went in my mouth and to reduce chemical exposure. It's expensive yes! So I started slowly adding more and more organic foods each shopping trip while our budget adjusted.

Then it impacted my gardening principles. As I continued to purchase organic foods this conviction started brewing: "how can I buy and eat organic foods while at the same time loading my lawn and garden with chemicals?" So off to Barnes and Noble I went to find some books on organic gardening.

Applying organic gardening principles to my vegetable garden wasn't so hard, after all we were going to eat the harvest. We had utilized mostly organic principles for many years, it was just a matter of taking it to the next level: a firm conviction to add no chemicals. I knew the hardest areas would be pest and weed control. Well we did it. We made it through the entire growing season without using any chemicals on any part of our yard. There have been moments of doubt like when the squash bugs were attacking our pumpkins and zuchini. I scoured the shelves at the gardeners supply for an organic remedy for squash bugs. The salesperson sounded pretty doubtful when he said "this one is organic". We handpicked larva and bugs and sprayed the organic soap on the backs of the leaves. Admittedly, I was surprised when the effort saved our plants!

As far as the lawn goes, it looks terrible. It's full of weeds. We have a huge lawn so handpicking the weeds is, well, unlikely. Thankfully it will go dormant soon and we can take another whack at it next year. There are some good ideas in the organic gardening books that we can implement next time around, but for now, I'm choosing to live with the weeds, the look of not perfection, because I'm sticking with my convictions. If the chemicals are bad I can't contribute to the chemical mess by using them.

I guess going organic is contagious, or perhaps it's just that deep personal convictions tend to invade every arena of our lives. When I first started my business occasionally I would meet someone who was looking for organic soap. In my mind I thought that I might some day go organic or I might make a few organic soaps, but only if my customer base was looking for it and willing to pay for it. Even in this my thinking has shifted. I can't just create what I think people are willing to pay for. The things I create and bring to the world must be consistent with my own personal convictions. So I'm starting slowly in this as well. I've made a shift in two major ingredient players in my soap:coconut oil and palm oil. Now they're organic! And so far I've been able to do this without a shift in pricing. The net result is that my typical soap recipe is comprised of a minimum of 56% organic ingredients. And I have a yummy organic cocoa butter, so in the recipes that have cocoa butter: Orange Chip, Mint Chip, and Candy Cane (coming back for the holidays very soon!) almost 60% of the total ingredients are organic! Quick disclaimer: this is a go forward decision, and some of the soaps in my current inventory were produced pre-thinking shift. So bear with me as I complete the conversion.

Going organic has been an adventure well worth the effort. We're enjoying our garden's all organic harvest. Everything in the photo (above) is from our garden.

A Place Called Home

Recently we took a ten day vacation that was just pretty awesome. Spent six days on the beach playing, reading, and sleeping, then another few days visiting friends in our old stomping grounds. It was all great fun and so relaxing. But this body of mine is not so adaptive to travel so when day ten came around I was ready to embark on the long drive home. We got a late start and ended up driving late into the wee hours of the morning. I dozed off several times. We were dropping out of the foothills into our valley when the familiar aroma hit me and wow did it smell good.

There's an irony in the "wow". I can only describe the aroma as a combination of cow manure, rotting mint, onions, and farmland dust. I have grown to love that smell and it evokes the sweetest memories. Of course I live in Idaho's treasure valley year round and I don't "smell" it. But when I leave and come back it's like this aroma pleasure every time I do. Who would ever have thought that cow manure, rotting mint, onions, and farmland dust could smell so good? Well it does and here's why: I've found this place I call home. It's not perfect, it just a place where we've put our roots down and we're raising our kids. There's trial and error, just as there are ups and downs, but it's where we are, it's home, and wow does it smell good even if there's a little cow manure thrown in there.

This post inspired by Switchfoot's song "This is Home" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwa8-3GXbuE. Yeah, I borrowed my teenage son's ipod while he was driving. I needed something to distract me!