Resilience: Tire Flowers

He got laid off.  She’s a stay at home mom.  They have a baby and a toddler.  She has applied for jobs… and is waiting.  He has applied for jobs… and is waiting.  They could just complain and whine.  Poor meeeee….  This economy is sooooooo baaaadddd…..  booooooo-hooooooo…..

But, they have piles of tires in their back yard.

So, they’re making (and selling) Tire Flowers.  AND THEY ARE AWESOME!!!!!!!!

You can choose from lots of colors.

You can choose the cheaper painted (non-flower) tire….

Or, splurge and get a tire FLOWER!

You can plant flowers in them (or plant your baby in them.)

Or, use them as goat tutus.  (I have actually never seen that word in print.  It looks weird.)

What????  Did you just say YOU need a flower tire?

Well, great news!  I just happen to have their email for you!!!  It’s greentiregardens@yahoo.com.  Contact Lauren right away! 

And, if you’re thinking, I could just make those myself!  Don’t.  It takes 30 minutes to turn one tire inside out to even get it to being an unpainted flower.  THEN, you have to paint it with a few coats of paint.  So…..

……Just order one.  Or ten.  Support them (they are Colorado Springs locals) and their quest to make ends meet in a positive, recycling, creative, fun, cheerful, resilient way until the steady paychecks start rolling in again.

-  The Goat Cheese Lady

$3230.00

$3230.00.  AWESOME!!!!

That’s where we stand right now in our donations collected for The Goat Cheese Lady Team for Great Strides…the walk to Cure Cystic Fibrosis!!!

Our goal is to raise $10,000.00, we only have 12 more days to get there AND WE NEED YOUR HELP!!! 

Please watch the 6 minute video below and decide if you will make a donation.  Anything will help…$5, $25, $50, $500, $3000…whatever you can afford.

I hope you will, lives are depending on it!!

The walk is Saturday, May 19, registration at 8 am, at America The Beautiful Park in Colorado Springs (for you locals).  We’d be thrilled to have you join our team and walk (or run, or bike) with us! 

If you’re not a local but want to donate, click here! 

And, to all of you, A HUGE THANKS!!! (in advance!!!)

-  The Goat Cheese Lady

 

Help Us Raise Money For To Cure Cystic Fibrosis!!!

Great Strides, the fundraising walk in Colorado Springs, is on (my birthday!!) Saturday, May 19, 2012 at America The Beautiful Park at 8:00 am.  Donate here, or join our team here! 

My sister and I are a few years older than Samantha and Libby, but we grew up together.  My parents have been friends with Steve and Debi, Samantha and Libby’s parents, since the early 80′s, and when my parents learned that Sam and Libby had Cystic Fibrosis (CF), they determined to do what they could to help.  

Libby was diagnosed with CF when she was 3 days old, the doctors knew to look for it because her older sister, Samantha, had it. Libby is now 27, met Will in college and they have been married for 3 years. They live in the Highlands area of Denver and she works as a Speech Language Pathologist. This picture was taken on their recent trip to Banff, Canada.

In 1989, they, along with a handful of other friends of Steve and Debi’s, started the CF Project, a campaign to raise awareness about CF.  In my mom’s words, “CF is invisible.  You can’t tell if a person has it.”  Soon after that, they learned that the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation was creating a fundraising walk for Cystic Fibrosis called Great Strides.  

At that time, people with CF lived to their teen years.

Today, many live into their 30′s and 40′s.  

Cystic fibrosis is an inherited chronic disease that affects the lungs and digestive system of about 30,000 children and adults in the United States (70,000 worldwide). A defective gene and its protein product cause the body to produce unusually thick, sticky mucus that:

• clogs the lungs and leads to life-threatening lung infections; and
• obstructs the pancreas and stops natural enzymes from helping the body break down and absorb food.

In the 1950s, few children with cystic fibrosis lived to attend elementary school. Today, advances in research and medical treatments have further enhanced and extended life for children and adults with CF. Many people with the disease can now expect to live into their 30s, 40s and beyond.  (above information from cff.org)

Since it started, Great Strides in Colorado Springs has increased from raising around $40,000 or $50,000 to now raising well over $100,000.00.  Huge advances have been made in treating CF, but scientists have still not found a cure.

Now, Samantha is 30 and Libby is 27.  Samantha is pregnant…with twins…and due in about a month!!!! 

People with CF look and act just like anyone else.  BUT, they have a daily treatment regimen that lasts two to three  hours, to break up the mucus in their lungs and to treat and prevent infections.  Every time they eat, they must take enzyme pills to help the food digest, 20 or more pills per day.

CYSTIC FIBROSIS HAS TO BE CURED. 

I want to grow old with Samantha and Libby.  

SO HERE IT IS…On May 19, 2012, The Goat Cheese Lady Team will walk in Great Strides.  And, as a team we WILL RAISE $10,000!  SO FAR, we’ve raised $2590.00!! 

You’ve seen my Dream List, right?  It’s on line 15.

And, we need help!!  We need team members!!!  We need donations!

WE NEED YOU!!!!!

Here’s how you can help:

1. Sign up for The Goat Cheese Lady team here.  Start raising money now!  And, meet us at the Great Strides walk in Colorado Springs on May 19, 2012!  Set yourself a personal fundraising goal…mine is $1000.  What’s yours?

2.  If you can make a donation, click here then click “Make A Donation” and donate to The Goat Cheese Lady team.  Whatever amount you can donate will help us reach the $10,000 goal!!!

YOU Will be an AWESOME part of The Goat Cheese Lady Team!  We can’t wait to have you!!! 

We only have a month to go!  Please join us to raise money to CURE Cystic Fibrosis!!!

-  The Goat Cheese Lady Team Leader

This Year’s Chicken Coops For Sale…So Far…(He’s always inventing more!)

Coop prices start at $400.  Call Herbert for details.  719-651-6480.

Coop with Side Nesting Box.  Easy to access egg boxes, just raise the small right side roof and grab out the eggs!  Comes with ladder into the front door of the coop and inside of coop has 3 laying boxes.

Chicken House on Stilts.  Run is attached and extends (not finished in this picture) to under the coop, ladder included.  Door was added after this picture was taken.  2 nesting boxes, easy egg access by raising side roof to access boxes.

Chicken House.  Front and back access doors, egg access door, 3 nesting boxes, metal roof, roosting bars, painted.

 

 

Chicken Castle With Run.  Metal roof, vinyl window, large back access door, front door, egg access door, 3-4 nesting boxes, roosting bars, painted.  Coop is 4′x3′, including the run it is 8′x3′.  Very luxurious.  Starting at $1200.

 

 

Chicken Barn.  Front door, egg access door, 4 nesting boxes, asphalt roof, window, ramp, painted.

 

 

 

Chick Saloon.  Front door, egg access door, asphalt roof, 4 nesting boxes, roosting bars, unpainted, Old West Style. 

 

 

Chicken Cabin.  **Best Seller**  Front door, egg access door, ramp, asphalt roof, roosting bars, 3 nesting boxes, unpainted.  4′x3′. 

Just give us a call if you’re interested!  The Animal Whisperer builds custom chicken coops and play houses too.

-  The Goat Cheese Lady’s, Proud Wife Of This Creative Chicken Coop Builder!

Killer Cheese

I came across an obscure quote in a crumbling, ancient cheesemaking book.  It was from a monk who developed an interesting following of cheese afficionados. 

He lived 2000 years ago.

“Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day.  Teach him to milk a goat and he can top that fish with a killer cheese!”  -  Sir Scott Yorkston, 12 A.D.

Okay, so really, it was 2012, A.D. (i.e. yesterday). 

And, he is not a monk. 

Or a Sir. 

He’s that jovial, self-proclaimed food-loving guy in the graduation photo above.

And, the killer cheese thing is what he said about his experience in the class yesterday.

-  The Goat Cheese Lady

Vinegar: Serving up Cheese Made With Petroleum ???

The simplest cheese I teach to make and the simplest cheese that people make all over the world…is made with vinegar.

Or is it made with synthetic alcohol derived from petroleum or natural gas which is then used to make vinegar?

For all of you researchers who are reading, I need help figuring this all out.

Here is a little brief history:  I taught a class to Gretchen and Ciara on Sunday.  Gretchen asked what type of vinegars could be used in the process of making the cheese I was teaching.  I responded with my new knowledge on the variations in vinegars.  Gretchen asked me if I knew vinegar was made from coal tar.

EXCUSE ME?  Yuck!!!  No!  I did not know that! 

We proceeded to discuss the fact that the store brand vinegars I have used (suspiciously)do not have an ingredient label.  And, they don’t work right in the cheese.  And, that’s why I now use only Heinz distilled white vinegar, because it works like I expect it to, and because the label proudly says, “Made with only the best sun ripened grains,” or something along those lines.

Huh.  Gretchen agreed to do some research on the issue, and soon after she got home from class, she sent me an email including this information from the FDA website (here is the link if you want to go directly to the source.)

CPG Sec. 555.100 Alcohol; Use of Synthetic Alcohol in Foods

BACKGROUND:

Increasing quantities of alcohol (ethyl alcohol) have been made synthetically from natural gas and petroleum derivatives.

Questions about the suitability of synthetic alcohol for use in manufacturing vinegar arose as early as l948. By Administration Information Letter No. 90, dated January 28, l949, the districts were advised that we seriously doubted that a product made from synthetic alcohol could be appropriately regarded as a type of vinegar.

Early in l957 the Director, Alcohol and Tobacco Tax division, Internal Revenue Service asked for comment on the suitability of synthetic alcohol for use in foods and drugs. Our comments in a letter dated February 5, l957, signed by Mr. M. R. Stephens, who was then Director, Bureau of Enforcement, included the following paragraphs:

“Ethyl alcohol is recognized in the U.S. Pharmacopeia, one of the official drug compendiums under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act; consequently, ethyl alcohol intended for drug use must comply with the standards and tests laid down in the Pharmacopeia. Since the Pharmacopeia does not place any restrictions as to the method of manufacturing ethyl alcohol, synthetic alcohol which complies with the standards and tests set forth in the official monograph may legally be distributed for drug use.

“We consider that the situation with respect to foods is different. We believe that consumers generally expect the alcohol in food products to have been produced from fermented food substances, such as grains, fruit, etc., and that they do not expect their foods to contain ‘alcohol’ produced from petroleum gas.

“For this reason, we have advised inquirers that we do not regard this synthetic alcohol as a suitable food ingredient. This position, however, has not been the subject of any court review.

In reply to many letters from industry and from members of Congress, we consistently advised that we considered synthetic alcohol unsuitable for food use.

Questions have been raised as to whether we can or should continue to consider synthetic alcohol unsuitable for food use. In order to secure more information, we wrote to the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Division, Internal Revenue Service. Their reply included the following paragraphs:

“Presently, we authorize the manufacture of vinegar from ethyl alcohol synthesized from natural gas or petroleum derivatives. It is our opinion that most of the distilled spirits used in the production of vinegar are derived from natural gas and petroleum. When such alcohol is used in the production of vinegar, we would consider any reference to ‘grain alcohol’ or ‘neutral grain spirits’ would be misleading for the alcohol and also the name ‘grain vinegar’ would be misleading, except for connoting strength, e.g., 40-grains.

“When alcohol is used in the production of beverage products, our regulations require that the source of the alcohol be shown on the label except for cordials and liqueurs. Incidentally, I might add that most of the alcohol used in the production of medicinal preparations and flavors is synthetic.”

Practically and scientifically, pure ethyl alcohol synthesized from natural gas or petroleum products does not differ from that obtained by fermentation with subsequent distillation. Furthermore, foods in which one is used cannot be distinguished objectively from those in which the other is used.

POLICY:

Synthetic ethyl alcohol may be used as a food ingredient or in the manufacturing of vinegar or other chemicals for food use, within limitations imposed by the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, the Alcohol Administration Act, and regulations promulgated under these acts.

Any labeling reference to synthetic alcohol as “grain alcohol” or “neutral grain spirits” is considered false and misleading.

Issued: 7/25/69
Reissued: 12/3/73, 10/1/80
Revised: 2/1/89

 Now, the way I understand this after reading it slowly 2 times, is that in 1949 and 1957, it was recommended, and apparently agreed upon that synthetic alcohol should not be used in the production of foods (including vinegar).  But then, at some point (date not specified), a branch of the IRS??? recommended that it was fine to use in foods, so the FDA went ahead and changed their policy???

It seems a little (a lot) wishy-washy to me.  But, I will be the first to tell you that this is the only reading I have done on the issue, other to find out that vinegar is not taxable. 

So please, I’d love for you to jump in and comment if you have anything to add…mostly, hopefully, because you know about this stuff or because you’ve done a little more research.  A lot of us have our opinions (me included) about the sketchy nature of food these days, but instead of commenting your opinion, please only comment if you have actual factual knowledge on the subject. 

Just the facts, man.  Just the facts.

Thanks in advance, and thanks for the future of my cheesemaking classes.  I would really prefer NOT to be feeding my family and my students cheese made with petroleum or natural gas.

-  The Goat Cheese Lady

The White Buffalo

 

A herd of buffalo. 

A fairly common sight driving through South Park in Colorado…on the way to skiing in the mountains.  Not nearly as common as seeing herds of cows, and much more nostalgic…definitely something to wake the kids up to see.  But still, common enough to see them once every 4 or 5 times we drive through.

This, however, is not.

I felt like it must have been a good omen, a blessing.  Seeing a white buffalo must be rare, I reasoned, as every other buffalo I had seen in my life was brown.  Buffalo Brown.  But never Buffalo White.

None of the other buffalo stopped to look at me (gawking with my phone camera at the fence on the side of the highway). 

But this one did.

It was awe inspiring.

-  The Goat Cheese Lady