fall

Yesterday I planted three 2'x4' beds of garlic (about 84 cloves) and one bed the same size of shallots.  I mulched them thickly with some straw after planting.  I will remove the straw in the spring when it's time for them to grow above ground. 

We haven't had any frosts yet around here but they are forecasting there might be one in a couple days.  So I spent some time yesterday covering all the outdoor faucets and pipes (bubblewrap, newspaper, garbage bags and duct tape - nothing fancy but it works every year), and putting the insulation blocks inside the foundation vent covers.  I also picked all the green tomatoes.  I've got a late crop of snow peas which hasn't bloomed yet.  If there is too hard of a frost I will just cover them with some more straw and they will become mulch, but I'm hopeful I might still get something out of them yet.  I also wanted to work on some new insulated shelters for "my" feral cats, but after all that I was too worn out to start them.

I've been eating mostly grain-free the last month or two.  Ever since I had the lung damage I have found I feel better the less grain I eat.  I used to eat A LOT of grain, and have drastically reduced that (and what I did eat was almost always prepared according to the Weston A Price guidelines) but decided it was time to cut it out all together.  I've eaten a sandwich or two when out during that time, but not eating any grain in an average day or week.  At first it was challenging (what do I take for lunch if I can't make a sandwich?  what do I have for a snack?) but after a little time went by it became much simpler and I very quickly quit wishing I could have some.  I've found that not only do I feel healthier but I feel way less hungry and almost never need a snack and I absolutely never crave sugar anymore.  If I have to wait a little too long between meals due to work or etc. I don't start feeling bad like I used to sometimes.  Also I didn't used to eat a lot of sugar since I was ill, but I would still crave it and now I never do.  My body is happier.  I'm still eating potatoes frequently and other starchy vegetables so it isn't really low-carb nutrition (like GAPS or Paleo or some of the other interesting nutritional systems I have leaned about and borrowed recipes and ideas from in just the last couple months), just no grain.
I've mostly been focusing on eating simply and naturally (basically how I did before since becoming familiar with WAPF-type diet: grass-fed meat, farm eggs, raw milk, and veggies, with small amounts of fruit and nuts, just taking the grain out and finding I really didn't need to replace it with anything).  I didn't want to just replace baked grain items with a bunch of other baked items so I made a point of not doing that at all for awhile, but this weekend I decided to make some grain-free muffins to take in my lunches this week.  I have found some great websites with recipes, some of them are in my blog list and more that I will add later. Today I made pumpkin spice muffins and they are really good.  I used this recipe, although I substituted coconut oil for the grapeseed oil and I cut the sweetener in half and substituted honey in place of the agave because I don't use things that are high in fructose.  Here they are (minus the two I had for supper to make sure they were good):