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Traditionally, February is one of the coldest months of the year where I live, but our winter has felt like anything but.  I think we have gotten a grand total of three or four inches of snow all winter which doesn’t hurt my feelings at all, having grown up in California, but has left my husband grumbling.  He doesn’t think it is winter without a foot or two of snow on the ground.  Despite how warm it has been, it seems like everyone has been sick anyway.  I think it is especially easy for those of us who live in a cold winter climate to forget that temperature isn’t the only contributing factor to getting sick.

A couple weeks ago a petition requesting that Obama cut FDA ties to Monsanto made the rounds.  Here is an article on the subject as well as a link to the petition.  If you have not already, please consider signing it.

Having just had our second child, I seem to have babies on the brain.  We had our second successful home birth and could not be more happy with our experience, in both instances.  This time around, labor took me by surprise and from start to finish it was all over in under 6.5 hours, a far cry from the 44 hour labor I had with Rowan.  As such, here are a few articles that have resonated with me the past few days.

Soup is one of those remarkable dishes that is simple, generally healthy, and an excellent way to keep your New Year’s resolution to eat more vegetables.  According to the Chinese, soups are a great way to keep your immune system healthy.

We are big fans of raw milk around these parts.  Short of that, we’ll take regular pasteurized milk.  There has been a recent crackdown in California regarding raw or unpasteurized milk, and where I live in Ohio, you basically have to go underground to get access to raw milk.

Here are a few more November photos of our garden. Enjoy!

Even in November there is plenty going on in our garden.  Here are a few images that we especially appreciate.

For those of us in Ohio, we received some good labeling news recently.  The Ohio Department of Agriculture agreed to withdraw a dairy labeling rule that prohibited milk from being labeled as produced without the use of the artificial growth hormone, recombinant growth Hormone (rbGH).

When the weather changes and temperatures start dipping, we tend to gravitate towards comfort foods and meals that stick to our ribs in the cold winter months: soups, stews, and casseroles. I generally try and avoid turning on my oven during the hot summer months so I especially look forward to our winter meal routines. We go from eating an abundance of tomatoes, peppers, berries, and stone fruit to root vegetables, squashes, leeks, kale, and a multitude of others.

I can hardly believe that Thanksgiving is just weeks away.  Here is an excerpt from Martha’s book, A Pocket Full of Posies on the focus of herbs during the holidays.  Enjoy!