Food For Thought.....or thinking about food....

So, I thought the clover in the run would last a lot longer than a few days....apparently not!  They have eaten every green leaf in the area....

This is another of our momma hens, setting on a clutch of 12 eggs, she's doing a great job since you can't see an egg in sight.....

Our Meat Chickens are finally in their room in the new barn.  This is just a few, the others were in transport from the run at this point.....

The barn is far from finished.  We have another room to build and prepare for our 40, yes FORTY, meat chicks that arrive in August.  I am determined NOT to run out of home grown chicken this winter.

I attended a First Aid course today and she discussed articles and studies about how unhealthy Nova Scotians are.  This was to make us aware of what we may come upon as far as emergencies go - heart disease and diabetes being top on the list.  Our children are maturing earlier than "normal".  Our CHILDREN are having heart attacks.  What is causing this? Is it the air we breathe?  Or the food we eat?  Is it the type of food we are eating, ie fried foods, or is it also what is in our food we are eating?.....  That is the million dollar question.....  Many people don't understand how I can "raise a chicken and then eat it".  I tell them "I can eat it because I know how it was raised.  It was raised happy, relaxing in the sunshine and fresh air, eating green grass and foraging for bugs.  It was raised for the purpose of nourishing my family but at the same time had a happy life until it met its fate".  And, I might add, the taste of a home grown chicken is absolutely amazing!  When you raise your food yourself you know what it has been fed and how it has been treated.  Or whether it has pesticides or not.  Sadly we can't have our own fresh garden produce all year long in NS but we can for at least 1/2 the year and that's 1/2 the year you can eat true organic produce from your own garden.  We have become too trusting, thinking the government actually takes care of us and makes sure what we eat is safe (pink slime comes to mind right now).  To some point we don't have a choice but on the other hand the time may have come that we have to take our nourishment into our own hands and raise everything we possibly can in our own backyard.  Whether it be as extreme as meat chickens or as simple as a window box garden of fresh greens.......  This is just an opinion of a Wife and Mother hoping to put the healthiest food possible on the table to nourish her family.......And determined that most of that food be grown in our own back yard.  Free from hormones, pesticides, herbicides and any other chemicals......It takes a lot of hard work and is sometimes extremely frustrating when the bugs seem to be eating more of your greens than you are.  However, it is also very rewarding.  When you put a salad on the table you know it hasn't been sprayed with pesticides, your tomatoes have ripened on the vine by the sun, not sprayed with some sort of ripening agent, your cucumbers are natural green, not died emerald green and coated in wax..... Supporting your Local Farmers Market is also a great way to find natural grown food.