“Don’t touch that, it’s HOT!” — ever heard that before? Brings back old memories… While watching a friend prepare lunch for us, I was taken aback by how she ruled the kitchen. She had 2 things cooking on the stove, something delicious in the oven, and she had the food processor whipping up the most amazing salad dressing I had ever eaten.
When her 4-year old daughter — who was also watching her mother with amazement — walked over to the stove to stir the pot, her mother scolded her. I had to bite my tongue because I’m sure whatever I was going to say would not have been well received.
As much as I wanted to turn that into a “teachable moment”, I didn’t have the right to critique. But I DO have the right to blog about it later!
Creating delicious meals or even tossing together a quick salad will be a mystery to children if all they do is sit at the dinner table when meals magically appear. While it will take a little longer to prepare meals when you’re teaching a 4-year old the safety precautions of stirring a hot pot of stew or using a food processor, they’ll learn more safety by DOING than by being told not to do something.
When children want to “help” and be part of the process, they get to own their meals. They’ll be more inclined to taste new ingredients and learn how to combine them to create new flavors or textures. Here’s a secret: this is a CHEMISTRY LESSON. Besides, they’re part of the family and they SHOULD take part in preparing family meals.
When my girls were young — 10 and 6 years old — our family routine included having each member of the family cook one dinner per week. The only rule was that there needed to be a protein, veggie, and starch (pre-carb diets!). Nicole made Chinese Chicken Salad with garlic bread every Monday for months. We loved it and enjoyed having a predictable, delicious meal each week. Jaclyn, on the other hand, learned how to read our family recipes (PRO TIP: ENGLISH LESSON) and even created entrees on her own! At 6 years old, she once made chicken pesto pasta and salad. She even lit candles!
This also taught them how to prepare ahead of time. They needed to plan their menus and get a shopping list to me by Saturday the week before. At first, this invoked complaints, but they jumped on board when they realized they could get ANYTHING from the grocery store, as long as it was part of a recipe! This of course immediately led to the inclusion of DESSERT in their meal prep, and we all really enjoyed the meals!
“Don’t touch that, it’s HOT!” — ever heard that before? Brings back old memories… While watching a friend prepare lunch for us, I was taken aback by how she ruled the kitchen. She had 2 things cooking on the stove, something delicious in the oven, and she had the food processor whipping up the most amazing salad dressing I had ever eaten.
When her 4-year old daughter — who was also watching her mother with amazement — walked over to the stove to stir the pot, her mother scolded her. I had to bite my tongue because I’m sure whatever I was going to say would not have been well received.
As much as I wanted to turn that into a “teachable moment”, I didn’t have the right to critique. But I DO have the right to blog about it later!
Creating delicious meals or even tossing together a quick salad will be a mystery to children if all they do is sit at the dinner table when meals magically appear. While it will take a little longer to prepare meals when you’re teaching a 4-year old the safety precautions of stirring a hot pot of stew or using a food processor, they’ll learn more safety by DOING than by being told not to do something.
When children want to “help” and be part of the process, they get to own their meals. They’ll be more inclined to taste new ingredients and learn how to combine them to create new flavors or textures. Here’s a secret: this is a CHEMISTRY LESSON. Besides, they’re part of the family and they SHOULD take part in preparing family meals.
When my girls were young — 10 and 6 years old — our family routine included having each member of the family cook one dinner per week. The only rule was that there needed to be a protein, veggie, and starch (pre-carb diets!). Nicole made Chinese Chicken Salad with garlic bread every Monday for months. We loved it and enjoyed having a predictable, delicious meal each week. Jaclyn, on the other hand, learned how to read our family recipes (PRO TIP: ENGLISH LESSON) and even created entrees on her own! At 6 years old, she once made chicken pesto pasta and salad. She even lit candles!
This also taught them how to prepare ahead of time. They needed to plan their menus and get a shopping list to me by Saturday the week before. At first, this invoked complaints, but they jumped on board when they realized they could get ANYTHING from the grocery store, as long as it was part of a recipe! This of course immediately led to the inclusion of DESSERT in their meal prep, and we all really enjoyed the meals!
Well, when I say “we”, I mean that I didn’t actually get the bees. I can think of a thousand reasons why driving in a van with 10,000 bees doesn’t sound like a good idea. My husband Rob and friend John did the honors and picked up the bees from a local beekeeper and carefully drove them across town. Unbeknownst to me, they placed the bees in the greenhouse to stay overnight. Oh, and they forgot to tell me they were in there.
The bees were housed in wooden boxes the size of a large shoe box with metal screens on either side. When I finished working in my office that day, I went out to the greenhouse to water the plants. Which is a normal thing that people do. As I was spraying the seedlings, I was surprised to discover that I was face to face with 5,000 bees about 6 inches from my nose! What happened next is kind of a blur, but it involved screaming and spraying both hives with cold water. Moral of the story: SURPRISE BEES are not a thing that should ever happen.
Luckily, I didn’t knock the hives over or I might not be here to document it. I did, however, invite our friend and beekeeper, Andrea, to coach the guys as they installed the 2 hives the following day. When they were all dressed up in their “costumes” as I called it (bee gear), I ran outside to take photos of them. They were giddy with excitement but intentionally poised (beekeepers need to be CALM). As they headed down the hill to install the bees in the hives we assembled, Andrea asked me if I would like to join them – she had apparently brought an extra bee suit! Ummm, no. That’s what telephoto lenses are for. My position is that bees are best observed from a nice safe distance.
I was surprised that the bees didn’t swarm around when they opened up the boxes. Rob just scooped them up with his glove-covered hands and placed fistfuls of bees into the hives. When he started knocking the wooden box against the hive to get the last remaining stragglers, I was sure he was going to turn into a screaming, running man-shaped bee swarm, but … nothing happened. The installation of both hives went smoothly, and there was no screaming or running around.
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After they installed the bees, they placed the queens (one for each hive) right into the hives. The queens were kept separate in tiny little boxes with screens on one side – very clever contraption.
Because the honeycombs were bare, the guys bought feeders that hold the sugar-water mixture and poured the solution in so the bees would have food to eat. They plan to refill the sugar-water mixture every couple of days for about a month while our buzzy friends become acclimated to their new homes. Then, with any luck at all, the bees will start foraging for pollen in our fruit trees and berry patches. Can’t wait to see the honey production!
Productivity is the key to success. Period. I’ve always believed that a person with average intelligence who is organized will be more successful than a genius who is disorganized. Why? Organized people simply get things done and reach their goals. Geniuses may have great ideas – and probably lots of them – but they often get swallowed up in distractions and miss opportunities to realize their dreams.
In the article “10 Uncommon Habits of Extraordinarily Productive People“, I like Jeff Haden’s recommendation to let go of things you do because of your ego or to stop striving to reach the extra 5% to be the best. Seem counterintuitive? The garden doesn’t have to be weed free; besides, when the weeds are bigger, they’re easier to pull! Doing things to stroke your ego or to be the extreme perfectionist will waste your valuable time for little ROI (return on investment).
He also suggests ways to say “no” to other time wasters like invitations to parties or social events that you don’t want to go to. You know the ones, your receptionist’s baby shower! I’m guilty of that – I seem to get pulled into outings that take me away from things I enjoy doing – like planting herb gardens!
I like his suggestion of setting time limits on social media – what might seem like a few minutes often rolls into an hour, or more, several times per day, and you somehow end up on the Wikipedia page for a weird marsupial and who really has time to get caught up in all that? I’ve set my social media and news reading to just one hour every morning – it’s like my cup of coffee as I wake up and lie in bed.
And my favorite habit: delegate tasks to others! Sometimes the old idiom: “If you want something done right, do it yourself” isn’t the best advice when you are trying to be productive.
I generally like to keep this blog pretty low-key, but every once in a while something comes up that makes me want to toot a horn or three. Not for myself, but for some of the kids Merit Academy has helped.
There’s a period of time every year that’s always fraught with tension and anxiety: college admissions. Who’s going to get in where? We fire off a ton of (carefully considered) applications, and then we wait for acceptances (hooray!) or rejections (boo!).
This year, out of many Merit students, I’ve gotten the go ahead from a small sample of 3 to share their names and some of the colleges that accepted them. In no particular order, I want to congratulate Amy Peet, Omar Alhait and Teagan Knight for their hard work and stellar range of acceptances.
Here’s a short list of just some of the colleges Merit students have been accepted to this year:
We need to readjust our priorities in regard to education. Did you know that Big Oil and Big Ag suck up $35 BILLION taxpayer dollars per year?
If we took the $21 billion a year our government gives to BIG OIL and $14 billion to BIG AG in corporate subsidies, we could EASILY provide free college for our kids. And not just community colleges, either.
Our collective priorities are out of whack – oil and the big agriculture conglomerates aren’t hurting for money, so it should be going toward a better future for everyone – EDUCATION.
Check out the original article about Obama’s community college plan here.
I was diagnosed with diabetes last year after being “prediabetic” for about 5 years. Sure, over the past 5 years, I tried to eat less white flour treats like bread, pasta, and my favorite bagels. I thought I was doing all I could to avoid going over the magic 117 glucose number. Nicole, my daughter who is an Emergency Medicine doctor, told me about her many obese patients who suffered from diabetes and their awful prognoses, which was a huge wake up call! Obviously, I didn’t want to go blind or have my feet amputated (how would I play croquet?). So when my glucose hit 140 last year, I realized that I would need to do something drastic — anything — to fix this.
As you may (or may not) know, I’m a firm believer in Eastern and alternative medicine. So I went to see Dr. Randy Baker, a Stanford MD who practices naturopathy. He recommended I read his colleague’s book “There is a Cure for Diabetes” and go on a strict, raw vegan diet for 3 weeks. But, the notion that “I” would be able to go 3 weeks without my favorite grilled salmon, fresh eggs from our chickens, or my favorite cheeses seemed impossible to me. I felt doomed. DOOOOMED!
But my husband got on board and agreed to do the raw vegan diet with me. And my youngest daughter Jaclyn was doing a similar diet so we commiserated together. So I rid my fridge and pantry of the things I couldn’t eat, and I filled them with organic and raw veggies, nuts, and oils. I eliminated all fruit, soy products (including soy sauce!), processed foods (all grain flours except nut flours), dairy, meat and seafood, and sugars (honey, blue agave nectar, syrups). This almost broke me, but I knew it was just a test. I wanted to see if I COULD cure myself of diabetes via my diet. Because I couldn’t cure myself using my other techniques or even with the meds my western doctor prescribed, I decided to go for it.
I learned how to make vegan pate, pesto hummus, and nut protein bars. Every Sunday, I made my little treats of nuts, pates, dressings, and salads. I think the hardest part was not being able to steam veggies or make stir fries – no cooking allowed! What happened next surprised me.
I felt better almost immediately. By eating whatever I wanted (as long as it was raw vegan) with no restrictions, I felt super-charged. I ate a whole avocado with a spoon! I’d never tried that before — always thought it needed to be between 2 slices of bread with mayo and cheese! I seemed to eat less quantities of food yet felt comfortably full. I did, however, stay away from restaurants that served tempting foods. Our friends still seemed to enjoy healthier meals with us — or at least they didn’t complain! To my surprise, the 3 weeks zipped by quickly.
This morning — exactly 3 weeks later — I pulled out my glucose meter, the device that checks your glucose readings and the lancing device (I really don’t like its name! Sounds like a sword sharp enough to lop off the top of your finger!) that pricks your finger to get a drop of blood. I was excited to see if my glucose levels dropped below the diabetic level, but was terribly fearful of the NEEDLE. Have I mentioned that I don’t like needles? Feeling clever, I decided to use my big toe as a guinea pig. Or guinea toe, I suppose. If I had an appendage that was 20 feet away, I would have chosen that. When I pressed the button (that shot what I thought would be a sword into my toe), nothing happened. I realized that it wasn’t going to be as painful as I had anticipated so I sat down and decided to try my finger. Surprisingly, I didn’t feel it but noticed there was a little blood. I grabbed the test strip and blotched up the job. In a panic, I grabbed the container of test strips and emptied them out on the table (another no-no). I was determined to get every drop of blood from this one stick.
When I read the glucose monitor, I was shocked. I knew I wanted my 140 reading to be below 117, but when I read that it was 55, I was thrilled. I read the small print on the monitor instruction sheet and found that 55 was actually on the low side. I am going to start introducing my favorite foods back into my diet one at a time. I want to understand what foods actually do to my blood glucose. Knowing what I can and cannot eat will give me the will power I need to stay free of diabetes. Oh, and while I was stressing out about my blood glucose levels, changing my diet led to losing 6 pounds, almost by accident! You see, if I can do this, you can too!
Growing up in LA, I didn’t learn much about agriculture. All I knew about bees was that they made honey, and if you made them mad, they’d sting you! Common sense. Okay, and I also knew that bees get nectar from flowers. But that was about it. I learned the hard way that my fruit and almond trees here in Santa Cruz actually NEED bees for pollination or they won’t produce fruit. I was alarmed to hear that pesticides are killing off bees in startling numbers and I have watched the cost of honey skyrocket.
After talking with friends John and Julie (who were planning on becoming beekeepers), my husband Rob and I were curious about what that would entail. Little did we know then that this would become a huge project. Side note: I’m scared of anything with wings — and especially flying insects that sting — and hesitated about venturing into beekeeping. Just the thought of wearing the bee-gear and being swarmed by bees didn’t sit well with me. But, being a good sport, I joined our friends at an introductory beekeeping class and watched dozens of YouTube videos to learn about the fascinating social stratification of bees. I’ve got to admit that I love the fact that the QUEEN BEE rules the roost and that the male drones’ sole purpose is to procreate and then die. Hmmm. The female worker bees do all of the work. They often forage a whopping (combined) 55,000 miles to collect enough pollen from 2 million flowers just to make one pound of honey!
We bought our hive and painted it to blend into the landscaping. I painted vinca all over the boxes so the bees would be able to easily identify their new home, and Julie painted hers with poppies — we chose the indigenous flower theme. In hindsight, I should have painted poison oak plants because that is what covers most of our property.
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Next we assembled the honeycomb frames that we placed in the hives. They’re made out of beeswax and save the bees the hassle of having to make their own honeycombs. John and Rob built a little retaining wall and platform for the hives. Before I knew it, the guys were buying all kinds of specialty tools and mixing up concoctions of bee food (bees need sugar water during the winter during the dormant period).
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Rob and John took an apiary class last weekend so they got to wear their beekeepers getup and actually work with the bees. Notice I didn’t mention that I was taking the class? Not me! I like my distance. They’re buzzing with enthusiasm (sorry, couldn’t resist!) as they await the arrival of their bees. We won’t harvest any honey this year because the bees will need it to make it through their first winter. That’s another thing I didn’t know. Bees actually eat their honey and need it during the cold months. So we actually steal their honey! No wonder they get mad when we smoke them out of their homes and take the honey.
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So I’m on board. Setting up a bee hive provides much-needed pollination for our fruit trees and we take a small step in saving the bee population. If you live outside of the city limits (don’t try to start a hive in your apartment), you might consider becoming a beekeeper! I’ll post again after we get our bees and harvest our first honey!
I just read a great article on earthjustice.org about the 11 wonders of honeybees (click the link at the bottom of this post to read it). We’re completely dependent upon them for our food and everything IS better with BEES!
Did you know that bees are the only insect who can tell their fellow bees where to collect the best food? They do a waggle dance where they move their midsections at a specific angle as it relates to the sun. Then they indicate how far along that angle the food is by the length of time they do their waggle dance! Amazing. Now I know where the term “busy bee” comes from!
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