Back in September,  I sat down with my boys and had a talk about Christmas.  We talked about how Christmas is a celebration of love and family.  The reason for presents is to celebrate what we have to give and to share the love and abundance we have. 

So, we decided to aim for homemade or homegrown presents this year.  Little did I know that I was part of a fad! Buy Nothing  or Make Something is all over the internet, including an offer to buy the “What would Jesus Buy” DVD for “Buy Nothing Christmas”.

Here’s our deal:  My commitment is to spend whatever time necessary to work on projects together and to buy the supplies.  The boys can choose to play rather than working on projects each afternoon or evening.  For any presents they decide to buy rather than make, I’ll take them shopping, but they spend their own money for half of what it costs. 

Late September, we sat down and made two lists.  One boy wrote down the names of all the people we would like to give presents.  The other boy wrote down all the possible things we could make or do for presents.  

Since then, we’ve been plugging away.   We had a couple refresher lessons on macrame, and made a trip to the craft store.  Both boys learned needlepoint on plastic canvas.  The oldest boy learned cross-stitch.  We have even finished some projects!  

December starts the baking season.  A wonderful side benefit of this process is that we can make all these goodies, and the boys understand that the stuff will be boxed up for other people (thus avoiding their sugar highs and expanding mom’s waistline).

As for me, lest I be hypocritical, I’ve had to take a look at my own gifting agenda.  Fortunately, I can pack up some of our home-grown premium Angus beef or dip into my stock of tie-dyes.  And, I can now macrame a bracelet an evening during movie night.

The boys are having a great experience.  We’ve spent a lot of quality time together during a period when one of my boys has been having a tough time otherwise.  They aren’t talking about what they want for Christmas, they are talking about what they are giving!  Unlike the hurried and harried trips to the mall, as we work on projects, we talk about the people for whom we are making them.  Christmas IS about family, sharing and love.

So far, I would say this is shaping up to be the best Christmas ever. 

Feliz Navidad!

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Cowboy Logic: Most people spend money they don’t have to buy things they don’t need just to impress people they don’t like

One of the meta-issues that impacts my life in a surprisingly large number of ways is the growing disconnect between food consumers and food producers. 

As a producer, my business is affected by the views and beliefs of politicians, activist groups and consumers; the vast majority of whom don’t have a realistic idea of what life is like for a typical American farmer or rancher.  Legislation such as California’s Proposition 2 and the EPA’s proposed ‘cow tax’ can have huge impact on food production and producer’s lives. 

As a farmer’s market vendor, I come fact to face with the reality of the  gulf between consumers and producers every week.  Although I am sometimes discouraged by the misconceptions I hear, I am also  heartened by the sincere interest many of my customers have in knowing about their food and in hearing the “real story” of how their food is produced.  

Dan Rather, who came from a ranching background, once told me that he would love to see a series of “farm Disney Lands”; not with rides and cutesified animals, but where people could actually come see how food is produced and that there are real people, real families, producing it. 

Information is out there; encouraging outreach, taking a hard look at activist groups, and presenting the producer’s viewpiont on issues.  I suspect that much of the what is written ends up preaching to the choir, as pro-ag articles tend to be in agricultural-focused, not consumer-oriented venues. 

If you are a producer, be an ag ambassador, know the issues and be willing to discuss them.   If you are a consumer, reach out and ask questions, visit a farmer, keep an open mind.   The best way to bridge the gap is person-to-person.

I don’t have the answer, but it’s an interesting debate.  I’m going to paraphrase heavily from Dot.Earth, because frankly, this is way out of my area of expertise. 

George Washington Carver was of the opinion (back when there were only 2 billion people on earth) that as we depleted the energy stores from ores and oil, we could fully replace them with energy produced on our farms.  But, now that we are pushing 7 billion people, it is unlikely that we can grow enough biofuel AND food to provide our needs without developing every inch of land possible. 

Ultimately, it is sunlight that provides our energy.  It seems logical that the more directly we harvest that sunlight, the more efficient we will be.  Looked at in that way, solar (and wind) power, followed by the stored solar energy in oil and other fossil fuels are arguably more efficient than using plants to convert sunlight to carbon. 

The debate continues:  Some argue that intensified agriculture can cut land use; concentrated agriculture leads to increases in production efficiencies.  Others argue that as more of our crops go to ethanol, more land is pushed into row-crop production that is best left to other uses. 

As a biologist (and therefor completely unqualified to offer an opinion), I believe that any system that has built-in redundancies in its abilities to meet its needs is inherently healthier and better able to adapt to changing circumstances than a system that has only one source.  In other words, as long as we don’t go overboard and become completely dependent on biofuels, having additional options for our energy is probably a good thing.

We’ve blogged about home food safety here more times than I can count.  It hit home (literally) last night.

My boys go to a Montessori school where they have access to a kitchen.  Lunch is truly part of their curriculum, a place where they discuss nutrition, recycling and also honor healthy food and communal dining.   They are encouraged to bring “oven food”, in glass containers or wrapped in foil to heat up in the oven (no microwaves allowed) so they can have a hot lunch.  As a sidebar, it is very gratifying to have your children choose a bowl of homemade beef stew for lunch over PB&J!

Yesterday’s lunch was “stuffed hamburgers”.   My son forgot to put his dish on the oven tray at lunch time for heating, so was not able to heat it up.  He chose not to eat it cold (can you blame him?), but apparently go hungry about 3 pm between the end of school and start of his afternoon Performing Arts class, so ate his now 8-hour old, non-refrigerated hamburger. I’ll spare you the details of what happened when he got home about 6 pm.

This was our home-grown beef, ground and frozen straight from a USDA-inspected carcass at a plant whose cleanliness I see with my own eyes each month.  The meat was cooked properly and placed in the refrigerator immediately after we finished our supper.  My son has a very sensitive palate–often declaring the milk to be ‘off’ days before the rest of us suspect anything.  He said the burger was delicious.  The failure here was that he has an uninsulated lunch box, so foods like leftovers and sandwhiches should NEVER be eaten if not consumed at lunch.

Fortunately, the onset of what I can only attribute to food poisoning was so rapid that Eric does not seem to be suffering any after effects this morning.

I think when he gets home from school today we’ll  be making an online visit to the FSIS’s mobile food safety game.