LIFESTYLE OF HEALTH AND SUSTAINABLITY

Time is marching on and so are we! I went down to Springfield for the 29th Annual Missouri Small Fruit & Vegetable Conference. I left Sunday afternoon so I'd be there bright and early Monday morning. It was very interesting with talks on marketing, pests and pest management, grafting of vegetables, (which we will be trying to do on tomatoes this year!), blueberries, strawberries, etc. It ended Wed. at noon. I got some good information and contacts, learned more about how to make our blog better, but I went down with a bit of a back problem, which only got worse. So Wed. morning when I tried to roll out of bed to get to the conference it didn't work! My husband & parents ended up coming down to get me, so I didn't make it to the Wed. session, but I do have the power point presentations in my packet, so all is not lost! While I was gone, Greg worked in the big greenhouse installing a sprinkler system to keep our seedlings watered, and take some of the work off of me! Yeah!

I learned a new term, LOHAS (I had not heard of it before). It means Lifestyle of health and sustainability. So if you practice this principle you can refer to yourself as a LOHAS! I think that would apply to you if you are trying to live a healthy life by exercising and eating healthy. Part of eating healthy would be to eat locally grown food. I think we all know that the fresher our food is the healthier it is. By buying local produce you are helping to sustain the local farmer's and the economy.

So along this line of thinking, I've got some web sites you might find interesting and useful. To stop junk mail and save 1 1/2 trees per household per year, you can as Direct Marketing to remove your name from their list. Go to http://www.dmaconsumers.org/cgi/offmailinglist to make your request.

Use clean phosphate free detergents & cleaning supplies. Go back to basics using the cleaning supplies of the early 20th century which include vinegar, baking soda, salt, borax & soapy water. For recipes go online to Klickitat County Solid Waste: SolidWaste@co.klickitat.wa.us.

For more information and ideas you can go to http://www.thegreenguide.com or http://www.50simplethings.com.

Also don't forget our local in town recycling curb service. Or you can always take your recyclables to Kingdom Projects. O.K. so now I will get off my soap box!