Persistent Herbicides Contaminating Animal Manures Making them "Killer Compost"

As an organic gardener, I'm concerned about the increased use with inadequate labeling of persistent herbicides such as picloram and clopyralid.  To read more on this issue, see this excellent article from Mother Earth News.

If you want to take action as suggested in the article, you could send an email to the EPA at this address: keigwin.richard@epa.gov

Here is a letter that I wrote to the EPA that you may use as a template.  I'm sure you all can tailor it better.
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Mr. Keigwin,

I am an organic gardener who is trying to garden vegetables at home to improve the health of my family and reduce our environmental impact by eating very locally.  I was surprised recently to learn that I can no longer compost horse manure to reuse as a fertilizer for our garden as it may be contaminated with persistent herbicides such as picloram and clopyralid.  Since these herbicides can persist through the animal ingesting the sprayed food product, get into the manure, and even remain after composting, they may still be present in the composted manure.  It is so sad that we as a country are allowing a potentially reusable resource like animal manures to become contaminated with herbicides that make it into a true waste product rather than a reusable resource.  These herbicides are too harmful to our farming cycle to continue to be legal.  I hope the EPA will change its policy toward these herbicides.

Sincerely,

Gluten-Free, Grain-Free, Egg-Free, Dairy-Free Bread

Using the Grain-Free GF Flour Blend I just posted, I use it in my bread machine to bake a "Large Loaf (1.5 pound)" .  And in my new bread machine I use the "Gluten Free" setting.

1.5 cups water
2 Tbs olive oil
1.5 tsp salt
2 Tbs sugar
4 cups GF flour blend
1 tsp guar gum
1/4 tsp gelatin
2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast

Rachel

Grain-Free Gluten Free Flour Blend

Here is the flour blend I use to make yeast bread, quick breads, cookies, cupcakes, etc.  It is my all-purpose baking flour since I'm allergic to almost all grains.  I blend it ahead of time using a whisk to get it evenly distributed, then I store it until I use it.  I do it by weight with a scale so I don't know the cup measurements but here it is:

Potato Starch 24 oz
Gar/Fava Bean Flour 13 oz
Tapioca Flour 5 oz
Coconut Flour 2 oz (I like the lightly sweet scent this adds)
Mesquite Flour 1 oz (I like the slightly chocolatey scent this adds and the color)

Sometimes I used to also add one of these GRAINS, but I no longer do:
Amaranth Flour 2 oz
OR Wild Rice Flour 2 oz

When all the eaters are able to use nuts, sometimes I'll use about 2/3 volume of this GF flour in recipes and the remaining 1/3 volume I'll use almond meal.  I've done this in yeast breads, quick breads, cookies and cupcakes.

I hope someone finds this useful!

Sarah's amazing hair

Sarah's preschool has had a lice problem, so we've been advised to put her hair up and, ideally, put hair "product" in it, to discourage lice.  Last week, I gelled her hair and braided it up.  On the way to school, I could see in the car that the braids were sticking out like Pippi Longstocking.  Not having any bobby pins on me, I coiled up the braids and attached them with paper clips.  In the afternoon, I took out the paper clips and this is the resulting hairdo.  She was having a blast with it.

Hot Fudge Sauce that is SOOOO good!

Long time, no post!  Today I made this hot fudge sauce.  I did it as directed except it didn't seem chocolatey enough, so I added 2 Tablespoons of cocoa powder.  And when it was done, I blended it in the pan with a stick blender until it was super smooth.  It was SOOOO good!
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Ingredients

• 1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
• 4 (1 ounce) squares semisweet chocolate
• 2 tablespoons butter (no substitutes)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

1. In a heavy saucepan, combine the milk, chocolate and butter. Cook and stir over medium-low heat until chocolate is melted. Remove from the heat; stir in vanilla.

Slow Down!

As a person who multitasks yet constantly feels like I'm being spit off the back of the treadmill of life, I found this article really interesting.  I try to simplify, yet I also find myself doing things that complicate.  Blogging, for example.  Web surfing.  Various garden projects.  Isn't it just easier to buy stuff at the store?  Faster.  Wait - that's the point.  A lot of my projects (which can be overwhelming in their number and scope, especially for my life phase, as I mother little ones) are simplification projects.  Growing food is a slow process, a labor of love, a developing oneness with the food.  And yet it is also watering, weeding, planting, composting -- translation -- time.  It is slow.  Yet it is also a time sink.  One in the same, I suppose.  There is this tension between wanting to get things done so you have time to move on to the things you want to do vs. just slowing everything down and enjoying the process.  Being mindful. 

Where do I waste time?  Web-surfing, email, reading news.  But is it such a waste?

We don't really watch TV, so the time isn't being sunk there. 

This article points to agreement about increased speed of life now.  We get places faster (cars, airplanes) and get information faster (internet, phones), so why aren't we overwhelmed with leisure time?  Doesn't that sound nice?  Being overwhelmed with leisure time.  Yet I don't know anyone who feels that way.  Why not?  Longer hours at work?  Greater expectations for ourselves and our families?  More scheduled activities for kids?  Multi-generational care across suburban (and global) sprawl?

Some of the ways we try to simplify in our home are:
- almost no TV
- minimal cell phone use (so we aren't getting calls everywhere we go)
- growing some of our food
- preserving some of our food (but again, is this just complicating things?  It would be faster to buy a jar of applesauce than make it.  But I guess that's the point - SLOW DOWN!)
- I don't like to run errands all the time, so I postpone trips like going to the grocery store (in the article he discusses the merits of skipping a bookstore trip that he doesn't really have time for anyway).  But this ends up with less frequent trips.  The ones I do make are time-consuming and feel like a marathon!
- intentional reduction in consumption.  Freecycle and Craig's List are not only cheaper, but also greener - by reusing stuff.  They are more of a process - than the quick accomplishment of just buying something new.  So does searching for a pressure canner for a year on Freecycle, Craig's List, garage & estate sales, and thrift shops count as "slowing down"?  Or is it just a complication and I should have just bought a new one and got it over with?

I'm afraid that I'm a long way off from having the answers.  I'm open to suggestions.  How do you simplify your life?

Sign the Petition for Corn Allergy Alert

Please consider signing the petition for getting the FDA to require disclosure of corn on the primary allergen list.  It hides under so many names: natural flavors, citric acid, ascorbic acid, tocopherols, maltodextrin, etc.