Our winter was long, summer is here, and everyone’s talkin’ about vitamin D. Are you getting enough sun on your skin? Or are you sun-phobic and slathering on the sunscreen, of which many are toxic and full of chemicals?
We made quick work at the farm today. Lettuce is getting a break for a couple of weeks or so and it was too wet to harvest basil. The chard is still gorgeous, the green onions are plump as all get out, and the kohlrabi look like purple and green balloons about to burst. But they’re still delicious…not woody.
I’ll keep this short and sweet. The mosquitoes were vicious yesterday. Even with bug spray. I hate to say it, but the natural stuff doesn’t work as well as Off. I’ll just have to suffer, as I ain’t sprayin’ Off on my skin.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll probably say it again. It’s amazing how the fields change in a week. Last week, no broccoli or cauliflower flower heads. This week, broccoli and cauliflower went into the CSA boxes. Joey gave me a whole extra bag of broccoli and I came home, roasted it, and ate it all.
It was a hot one on the farm yesterday – quite the antithesis of last week. And I loved it. Hot blazing sun? Bring it. (A nice breeze doesn’t hurt.)
Because of the forecast for a heat index of 107, we got started early and the greens were the first to get harvested, bathed, and into the coolers. Talk about some dense, hearty heads of lettuce. Oh my gosh, gorgeous. And I was excited about adding a new kind of kale to the bouquets going into the CSA boxes. It was a fatter, wider leaf with a very purple spine.
One way to test for potential hypothyroidism is to do a basal body temperature (BBT) test at home. According to Dr. John Douillard, “Before blood tests were available, the thyroid was evaluated by basal body temperature and the signs and symptoms presented by the patient. Today, these traditional tests have been replaced by modern blood tests. It has now become clear that these blood tests alone are not accurate enough.”
If you experience several of these symptoms listed here, you may have an underactive thyroid, including adrenal dysfunction. (Many integrative and functional medicine doctors now claim that the symptoms of hypothyroidism and adrenal dysfunction are largely indistinguishable.)
“What’s that? And what’s that?” I want to know what it all looks like as it’s coming up, you know? Joey, our ever-so-patient leader and owner of Cramer Organics is so sweet and enthusiastic about educating us. It’s June in Minnesota, so it’s still early in the growing season (and muddy) and while we harvested a lot of stuff today, many crops are mere leaves, like eggplant, tomatoes, and potatoes. So after cleaning our harvests, she took us on a walk through the fields and pointed out what all the “thats” were.
Today was my first day working at Cramer Organics, our CSA farm. We purchased a CSA share from them last year, and enjoyed every bit of our weekly bounty. (My husband would say, “…except for the kohlrabi.”)
A few months ago, when they asked who would like to work one day a week in exchange for a share, I leapt at the chance. Think Horshack in Welcome Back Kotter. (I’m dating myself with that one.)
After three years of reading and research about natural, drug-free ways to jumpstart my sluggish thyroid, which meant putting a stop to my weight gain, relieving my afternoon fatigue, facing my day alert versus feeling like I’d been beaten up the night before, and helping many of my clients do the same, I am developing a teleseminar series that is going to be the best of my thinking and personal experience with getting this gland in gear.
It’s nearly impossible to be attuned to the Minnesota local and sustainable foods drumbeat and not know chef Jenny Breen. I met this veteran good food advocate at an Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) local foods event a few years ago. When it comes to the local and sustainable food movement, she’s no Jenny-come-lately. Jenny was local when local wasn’t cool. She’s a petite powerhouse, a no-nonsense visionary and entrepreneur who will undoubtedly continue to be on the front lines, educating her students, customers, and the rest of us about the importance of real food.
