Home From San Fran

The WAPF Conference was awesome!! To my friends back in Ohio.....did you know the 2009 conference will be held in Chicago?? Remember, you don't have to be a member of the WAPF to attend! (I'm talking to all you Farm-To-Table friends!) Reserve November 12-15 on your calendars now!

It's taken me a whole week just to settle down and begin processing all the information. Between the many lectures, the information at the vendor booths and the conversations at the meal tables, it was ALOT to take in!! On top of all that knowledge was time spent visiting with old friends and making new friends. We dined 3 times a day at tables of 10 so there were always fabulously interesting new people to meet.

Gracie did wonderfully and would often rush me through the meals so she could get back to the children's programs. She was in a different room than Marshall but would frequently check in on him for me. I was very proud of how mature and outgoing she was. Gracie also impressed me with her poise and her courage all weekend as we navigated through the airports, the cab rides, the subway and the city. I couldn't have done it without her!

Our roommate, Sue Kirkpatrick, from Lincoln, NE was a gem. Not only was she a GREAT roommate (lots of fun and easy to be around) I consider her a new friend. We have a lot in common and I look forward to seeing more of her and meeting her husband Tom.

Here we are at the Rainforest restaurant on Fisherman's Wharf.

This is Aunt Karen's mom, Marilyn. She drove herself downtown, parked in a parking garage and walked about 20 blocks to Chinatown to meet us for dinner. After a wonderful meal and two glasses of wine she shopped with us, showed us around downtown and then walked back to her car. What's the big deal you ask?? She'll be 85 years old in May!!

Here is Gracie on the subway train at 11pm at night!! After a $56 cab ride to Fisherman's Wharf we decided to take the $5.35 train back to the hotel!

San Francisco Here We Come!

This time tomorrow evening Gracie, Marshall and I will be having dinner at the Empress Of China in downtown San Francisco! The Empress of China is lauded internationally as one of the world's most beautiful Oriental restaurants and is located in the largest China town outside of Asia.

We are traveling to San Francisco for the 9th Annual Conference of the Weston A. Price Foundation, which we have been members of for the past 7 years. This year's conference is titled "Life In Its Fullness: Nutrition for Mental and Emotional Health". Doctors, nurses, nutritionists, dietitians, parents, students, food writers, food providers, farmers, public servants, teachers, patients, activists and agriculture professionals gather from all over the world to learn the latest on a variety of health and healing topics!!

The conference will be held at the Hyatt Regency near the San Francisco airport. We're excited to be sharing a room with a fellow WAPF member from Lincoln, NE (Sue Kirkpatrick) whom we met this past summer.

Gracie will be participating in a new children's program that will run concurrently with the adult daytime sessions. We hope to visit Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39 on Sunday afternoon. Karen Seevers' (my sister-in-law) mother lives in San Francisco and has graciously offered to be our tour guide. Looks like it will be in the high 60's each day!

The Drakes and The Worms!

Some good friends of ours from Ohio visited recently, you may have seen their RV parked in our driveway for a few days. Jonathan, Heather, Nadine (3.5) and Samson (8 mo.) Drake are "shopping" for a new hometown. Fed up with the rat race of urban Cleveland living, they recently quit their jobs, sold their house and all their material possessions, bought a really nice RV and decided to spend the next year of their lives traveling the country in search of a small community that is more in line with their values.

After I picked my jaw up off the floor and they answered a thousand of my questions I was truly inspired by their story. After they left I stumbled onto a video that really affirms their choices and convicts some of mine. You can see it at http://www.thestoryofstuff.com/. But beware, you may end up with a stomach ache after watching it like I did!

The Drakes are fellow members of the Weston A. Price Foundation so it was an absolute pleasure spending three days with people who eat the exact same way we do! I will rendezvous with them again in November at the foundation's annual conference in San Francisco. You cannot imagine how it "fills my bucket" to be with people who understand our lifestyle! And even though I introduced them to the dietary principles of the WAPF, they have actually embraced them and incorporated them to a larger degree than we have!

Oh yeah....so now about the worms. Heather and Jonathan eat totally organic and had been composting all their kitchen trash for their garden back in Ohio. The method they used is called "VermiComposting" whereby you basically feed your scraps to some pet worms and they happily poop out some of the most nutrient dense fertilizer on the planet. When they were ready to leave Ohio they decided they could not leave their loyal "vermies" behind and decided they would compost all their kitchen scraps even while traveling in the RV.

Now I've since learned that Vermicomposting containers should have very little to no smell and are always kept indoors during the winter in colder climates. So it wasn't totally absurd to think they could manage these critters in the RV. However Jonothan apparently forgot to tell Heather she was supposed to "bury the scraps" as opposed to plopping them on top each time and an annoying smell ensued. After much discussion the Drakes decided to part with their little vermicomposters here in Seward and so the Seevers are the proud, new owners of an organic WORM FARM!!

Now don't laugh because if I can keep them alive, you'll be calling me next spring for some black, earthy-smelling, nutrient-rich, organic fertilizer for your garden!