Moo

Last week our family was able to fulfill a longtime dream of ours of purchasing livestock. Granted, Cara didn't come to us in the traditional way, but she is ours nonetheless. Well, at least 1/14th of her.

Meet Cara

Cara, blog readers. Blog readers, Cara.

She's a little camera shy. But isn't she beautiful?

We purchased what is known in the state of Indiana as a "cow share". You can also purchase a herd share, but at this particular farm there are only five such "Dairy Queens" so for now, a cow share it is. In purchasing a cow share we became legal owners of Cara, and we pay for her upkeep and boarding.

All five ladies, doing what the ladies were made to do. Cara is in the middle.

Cara comes to us from This Old Farm, located in the rolling countryside of Darlington, IN. Cara lives on a beautiful, expansive farm of 22 acres and is quite spoiled by farm owners, Erick and Jessica Smith. She thrives on acre after acre of beautiful, nutritious, fresh green grass. As you can see in the above pictures, she quite enjoys her feast. She is living the pampered life, as a cow's life goes. She has lots of freedom and plenty of room to move and live and breathe...and gestate. That's right, Cara is also going to be a mama come fall.

Entrance to "This Old Farm". I love how the robin so nicely posed for us.

Cara is a dairy cow and as her owners we are blessed to share in the bounty of her silky smooth, fresh, raw milk. We also enjoy skimming the cream off the top and making homemade butter and buttermilk. The taste is incredible, the health benefits are plentiful and it sure doesn't hurt that we know where our food comes
from and that we are supporting an incredible, local, sustainable farm and more importantly, farm family.

Yummy goodness.

A proud, raw milk family

Each Sunday, we travel to the farm, which is about 35 minutes one-way, to visit Cara and pick up our milk. Cara is milked Sunday morning for us and we like to go directly after church. This means there are approximately 2 hours, give or take a few minutes, between the time of her milking and the time we pick-up our milk. It doesn't get much fresher than that! In fact, this past week, we got there so close to her milking time that the milk was not even completely cold by the time we got it. We take it home immediately, put it in the coldest part of our refrigerator and it is ready for us to enjoy in just a few hours.

Enjoying a fresh cold one.

We are so thankful for the way God has provided this resource for our family. We are taking baby steps toward a more natural and healthful lifestyle and teaching life's valuable lessons along the way. This isn't necessarily how we saw the dream of livestock ownership taking shape, and as much as we would love to have Cara for our very own, we recognize and accept God's provision and blessing no matter the form it takes.

So long, Cara. See you next Sunday!

In future weeks I plan on sharing how we came into cow ownership and why we feel it is important to drink raw milk. In the meantime, share in the comments how God is blessing YOUR family these days? And I'm curious, have YOU ever had raw milk?

I'm linking up over at Raising Arrows' Simple Homemaking Link Up.

What does it mean to be healthy?

Ethan enjoys his green smoothie-yum!

Our family has been on a quest of sorts for about 3 years to become more healthy and physically fit. It all started when I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes with my third child.

At that time I was sent to a registered dietitian for a meal plan that was intended to help manage the diabetes without pharmaceutical intervention. The result of the appointment was me counting carbs and limiting all carbohydrates during my pregnancy. It didn't work, despite me following it religiously, and I became dependent upon self-injected insulin to manage my blood glucose levels.

Thankfully, everything worked out fine and Brady was born perfectly healthy with no ill effects whatsoever.

One positive result of this process was that I began doing a lot of research. A LOT a lot! I began to learn more and more about what it meant to be truly healthy.

News flash: the key is not a low-fat, low-carb, super restrictive diet. Sure you could lose weight that way, but would you really be HEALTHY? And who would want to?

My weight and dieting have been something with which I have always struggled. Shocking, I know. Even when I was skinny (yes, it's true-I should post some pictures sometime so you'll believe me) it was a constant struggle and a constant source of hardship and pain for me (think starving myself for a week at a time to get to where I thought I should be-yeah, not good). I used to think I had to count calories, eat a bunch of stuff I didn't like, deprive myself of foods I loved, and eat low-fat, low-calorie, low-flavor food.

However, over these past few years as I have learned more and more, my thinking on what it means to be healthy has changed. My basic, simple philosophy on food and diet now is this: the closer a food is to the way God created it, the better it is for you. That's it, in a nutshell. I figure God knew pretty well what He was doing-why mess with it?

So, how has that changed the way we eat? Well, no more fast food for one. The thought of a McDonald's hamburger totally disgusts me now. That one seems pretty obvious though-we all know fast food is bad for us right? RIGHT?

I also have cut out most forms of processed foods (I will buy the occasional box of healthy cereal for convenience sake). If I don't know what an ingredient is or I can't pronounce it, most likely it will not go in our shopping cart.

There is nothing low-fat about our diet, because most foods that carry that label are full of preservatives and man-made fillers and sweeteners that are way worse for you than natural fats. I REFUSE to count calories and fat grams. We simply eat good, wholesome, almost always made from scratch foods, and lots and lots of raw foods.

One way I have started helping my family increase their intake of fresh fruits and veggies (preferably organic, in-season, local produce) is by making smoothies. Smoothies are so awesome because you can put just about anything in them and they taste great.

Some of my favorite smoothie ingredients are bananas, mango, strawberries, blueberries (any kind of berry, really), clementines, grapes, apples, spinach, kale, avocado, carrots, tomatoes etc... Pretty much any combination that sounds good to you will work, but you want to get to the point where your veggie content makes up the majority of your smoothie.

You can make some pretty colorful, flavorful, interesting combinations. If your kids are particular about color, you probably want to go heavier on the berries as they tend to do a good job of masking the green/brown color of the veggies you want to add. I also add homemade yogurt and kefir (a natural probiotic).

I think he likes it!

Here is a link to The Green Smoothie Girl, who first got us started on this idea-well after a sweet friend referred me there. There are a lot of awesome resources on her site if you are interested in pursuing a more whole foods kind of diet.

I hope to blog about our food choices a lot more in the future. We are venturing into the world of gardening for the first time this summer-wish us luck!!! Hopefully, I can remember to blog about that adventure!

What about you? What do you think it means to be healthy? Have you been successful at making dietary changes in your family?

Menu-Plan Monday

One of the best ways I have found to stay organized as a homeschooling mom is to menu-plan. I cannot live without my menu plan. All sorts of bad things happen when I don't menu plan. I have found that we eat out more often, we eat fast food (blech!) more often, my kitchen stays messy and I am generally grumpier when I don't menu plan. It's true!

I think the reason why menu-planning affects my mood the way it does is that making healthy, yummy meals for my family is an extreme passion of mine. You might say I am a bit obsessed with it. I get highly irritated when I can't get some time in my kitchen. I love cooking from scratch. I love coming up with new recipes and finding ways to stretch our budget in the kitchen. I love knowing that the work I do in my kitchen is one major way I can show my family that I love them.

But, I am not one of those fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants type of girls. I HAVE to have a plan. I cannot look into my fridge at 5 p.m. and wonder what is for dinner. That is a recipe for disaster in our household. I need the comfort of knowing I have everything I need rather than realizing at the last minute I am missing a vital ingredient and trying to get 4 kids out the door and to the store and still have time to get everything ready. I do try to have a few back-up meals that I can whip up on the fly for those days when things get crazy-hectic and my schedule falls apart, but for the most part I like to stick to my menu-plan.

I also have found that I save more money at the grocery store this way. Plus, it just gives me piece of mind knowing in advance what we are going to have. I can plan for leftovers on our busy evenings where we won't be at home for long. I know when to take out meat for thawing. I can throw stuff in the crock pot in the morning on days we are extra busy and I know that my family will have a nutritious, yummy meal ready for dinnertime.

I will let you in on a little secret. My grocery budget for our family of 6 is $100 per week. This budget includes all types of toiletry items as well as all food items. With the rising costs of foods, this budget can be a bit difficult at times, but I am grateful for it because it also requires me to be creative in the kitchen.

So how DO I plan my menu? I have a process that I go through every Sunday to plan my meals for the upcoming week. I plan for three meals a day, plus sometimes snacks/treats, for Monday through Sunday. Some like to plan by the month and just rotate many of the same meals on a monthly basis. While I like this idea in theory, I have found it hard to implement because I like to take advantage of weekly deals to make my meals for the week. So here are the steps I use, which can be adapted to suit anyone-there is no one right way to menu plan:

1. Rick brings home the local Sunday paper each week. I sort through all the ads, making notes of things we need and ideas for meals planned around the good deals. Most supermarkets have what are called "loss-leaders" which are items that are deeply discounted, that they are taking a loss on, in order to get you into the store. I have done this long enough that I know what the best prices are, when things are likely to go on sale, and how much I am willing to pay for certain items. I also clip coupons and like to pair coupons with sales to get a good price on certain items. I am not an extreme couponer because a lot of the things I buy (mostly perishables) you can rarely find a coupon for.
2. After I have made a tentative list, I will then go to my recipe books, box, or my favorite online resources and round out my meal list. If I am using a recipe book (which I rarely do anymore) I will make note of the book I found the recipe in and the page the recipe is on so I can find it quickly. If I am getting recipes on-line, I will write them on a 3 x 5 index card. All of the recipes for the week will be brought to the front of my recipe box so I can find them very quickly. If I try a new recipe and we like it, I add it to the box permanently.
3. Then I expand my grocery list based on my recipes. I check my refrigerator, freezer and pantry to be sure I have the items I need for a particular recipe and whatever is missing then gets added to the list. This helps me avoid buying things that I already have in the pantry and helps me stay organized. Plus it ensures my fridge and pantry get cleaned out once a week-BONUS!
4. I get out my calendar and pencil in what I want to make for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day that week. It helps me to use my calendar because I can see at a glance days that will be particularly busy or evenings where we have something planned and I might not need to make anything that night.
5. Then I go shopping on Monday. Rick is home on Mondays and we like to shop together, or sometimes he goes for me-what a relief! Have you ever tried to drag 4 kids in and out of several stores in one day-it's not a pretty sight! I do shop at multiple stores to get the best deals on particular items. If you don't have the time or desire to do this I suggest shopping at Aldi if you have one in your area, as they tend to have the lowest prices on just about everything. Wal-mart is not my favorite store but they do price match and we have one very close to our house, so if I am in a hurry and don't have time to run all over town to the different stores, I will just take the ads into Wal-mart and get the same price. If you do this, make sure to clearly mark what you want and read the fine print carefully for sizes of items. This will help you get through the line faster and is courteous to those who may be behind you in line. I also like to shop at Meijer, Payless and Marsh as well because they double coupons.

And that's about it. I post my menu calendar on my fridge and check it every morning and evening so I can see what is coming up next. It's not a perfect system and I don't always stick to it but it helps keep me sane.

I don't know about you, but dinner-time in our house is chaotic. Daddy is coming home, we are picking up and finishing up schoolwork, and I am trying to get dinner on the table for 6 hungry mouths, one of whom is usually a VERY vocal baby! So anything I can do to help myself accomplish this more efficiently is great for me. I can chop veggies for a salad while the baby is napping, throw oatmeal in the crockpot the night before so breakfast is ready in the morning, assemble the ingredients of a casserole in the morning before the kids get up and pop it in the oven before Rick gets home. It's what works for us!

This week's Menu Plan:

• Monday: B ~ bagels; L ~ peanut butter and honey sandwiches, cottage cheese, celery; D ~ dinner out
• Tuesday: B ~ crock pot oatmeal; L ~ ham and cheese quesadillas, fruit; D ~ pork roast, sweet potato casserole, green beans
• Wednesday: B ~ cereal; L ~ peanut butter and banana sandwiches, carrots & dip, fruit; D ~ spaghetti & meatballs, salad, homemade garlic bread
• Thursday: B ~ breakfast cookies; L ~ ramen noodles, fruit; D ~ leftovers
• Friday: B ~ homemade granola & yogurt; L ~ PB&J, cottage cheese, banana/mango/blueberry smoothies with homemade kefir; D ~ beer-battered fish, baked potatoes, steamed broccoli, beer bread
• Saturday: B ~ cereal; L ~ black bean, corn and cheese quesadillas, fruit; D ~ linguini with clam sauce
• Sunday: B ~ muffins/bagels; L ~ lunch out (we usually eat out after church but not always-if we come home we usually just munch on whatever we can grab or leftovers from the week); D ~ leftovers

What about you? Do you menu plan? How do you do it?