I am listening to Kim Hill interviewing Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma, a book on different food systems. It is fascinating and I will definitely read it. He is an American (ex Harpers editor) and I still get shocked at the American attitude to food, and their naivety, or ignorance as to where their food comes from. (Not Pollen’s, he has seen the light!). He describes industrial, organic and forage food systems and talks about Wholefoods, America’s fastest growing supermarket which claims to be organic. So what is organic? According to Wholefoods, and I think American law, it just means no pharmaceuticals and feeding animals organic food. However they still grain feed, keep animals in crowded feedlots and ship food all over the country AND you can buy organic junkfood from them and, get this, organic coca cola is on the way Duh!! Not quite what many of us would call organic. Did you know America only spends 10% of their income on food? No wonder they eat so much of it. They need all the money they don’t spend on food to pay their health bills they incur because they eat so much junk! I have always aspired just being sensible about what we grow/eat (my waistline testifies that I'm better at the grow rather than eat side of things!). We grow food because I want my family to ingest as few chemicals as possible and I like to know that our meat is ‘happy’ meat grown as meat is supposed to be grown. I am not a flag waving greenie (I drive a huge 4x4 and put bleach down my toilet) but come on, we must be able to feed the planet in a more sustainable, safer way than we do now. According to Pollan, organic food production is only 10-20% less productive than full scale industrial production and, there has been almost no research into this method, compared to that that goes into non-organic means of producing food. I am now trying to persuade Eric that we need to tow a chicken coop round the paddocks to follow the cows to eat the maggots in the cow pats (you need to read the book)!!
It’s 6th January, time to take down the Xmas decs and start to get back into the swing of normal life. It’s a bit harder her than in the UK as everyone is in summer hols mode. Eric still has another week off work and the girls have another 5 weeks off. There seems to have been a mass exodus to the beach, the weather has been gorgeous (at last), and in this context I have been trying to work since Wednesday! Not easy! Yesterday Eric took the girls fishing on Lake Rotorua. Eric texted me, ‘We’ve caught nothing but the sun”
He wasn’t wrong. He looked like this when he got home.
I was furious, I had told them about 6 times to put suntan lotion on and none of them did. Harriette has ¾ pants on so only caught it on her face, neck and shoulders, Alice of course was bored and so stayed in the covered bit of the boat sleeping/reading so she wasn’t too bad but Eric! That was his face, you should see the front of his thighs. How stupid can a 40 year old be???
The following day Eric was taking no chances!
Only 40 for a few more days though. Eric’s birthday is on Monday and Sarah’s is on Sunday so I am doing a BBQ for them with the Philips (the Zimbabweans), the rest of the Scotts, and Angela and Rob. 16 of us in all. Gosh I hope the sun shines. The pool could do with some use. I think only H and E have been in so far. As you know it has to be 24 decrees C before I’ll get wet and it is struggling to get to 21 at the moment.
Juliet’s baby is due on the 20th. It feels like the shortest pregnancy ever. Probably because of all the trauma in their lives in the beginning of the pregnancy, and the fact that I am getting older (well aren’t we all) and time is flying past these days. It has been a long time since I have done cooing over baby stuff and I am really looking forward to it. Just hope I can keep the broodiness at bay. It still overwhelms me at times and I struggle with the notion that that era of my life has passed. I always had this deep-rooted conviction that I was destined to have 4 children (boys at that) and still can’t quite believe that I was wrong! Don’t get me wrong, as I have said many times, we have 2 healthy children whom we love desperately and that is 2 more than many people can have, and for that I am eternally grateful but….
I really ought to get up. My veg plot has some gaps in it and I have decided we need more courgette plants so I am going to plant up a bit today. I have spent the week trying to get on top of the weeks which seem to grow 10 times faster than the veggies! Eric is planting fence posts and seems to have planted a random forest of them outside the barn. Some of the planking will go up today which should give it some semblance of order.
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