Raising Healthy Dogs with HardyPet {Sponsored}

What do you feed your pets? The more that I explore and understand human nutrition, the more I consider this question. If I believe that humans are healthiest on a diverse, vitamin-rich diet, doesn't it follow that my pets would thrive on such a diet too?

Our little dog Hawise stopped being interested in dry food about a year ago. We tried switching brands but she was never excited about it. I'm not a fussy pet owner and wasn't about to get into cooking a fresh meal, but I'd always been curious about raw diets for dogs. With a friends' encouragement, I started feeding Hawise raw frozen chicken. She thrived and I began to notice that she wasn't quite as anxious as usual and her smelly breath lessened.

When our new puppy Annabel entered our life, I chose a high protein, grain-free dry dog food. She is far less picky than Hawise but doesn't seem to have as strong of a digestive system. And instead of chewing food she swallows it in big gulps, so we haven't switched to the raw diet yet but we might someday.

Pet Vitamin Supplements

HardyPet recently offered me a chance to try their Blue Box Bundle of health-supporting supplements for dogs. The box arrived by mail and I let Anabel try to open it. She could smell something good but fortunately isn't a very destructive pup and couldn't figure out how to get inside.

I started feeding the dogs HardyPet Complete, a multivitamin, right away. Both gobble up the tablet eagerly. While I haven't noticed any outward effects, I do feel more secure that Hawise is getting balanced nutrition with a primarily raw diet. I am hopeful that with nutritional supplementation, we can avoid some of the more common canine aging problems like joint pain, heart disease, and immune disfunction.

Annabel uses the HardyChew daily. She loves her soft toys too, but I appreciate the durability of the antler.

I'm giving the probiotic HardyPet Canine PRO6 as a support when they've eaten something suspect. Anabel cleared a couple plates at our Pi Day party last weekend, for example, so I fed her PRO6 for a couple days to help her digest the human foods.

About HardyPet

I didn't accept the offer from HardyPet before researching their company. With all the pet food recalls and questionable ingredient sourcing, I wanted to be sure this was a manufacturer whose values matched my own.

The mission of HardyPet is to reduce pets surrendered to shelters because of poor health. Being a supporter of Capital Area Humane Society, I know all too well the number of animals that come in with nutritional deficiencies and all sorts of related health issues.

HardyPet is a researched-based company with roots in the animal welfare world. Their products were developed for animal shelter use and continue to be used by shelters to restart nutritional balance. HardyPet uses pharmaceutical grade ingredients and offer a money-back guarantee to back their well-tested products.

I found the Blue Box Bundle a convenient way to support optimal nutrition for my dogs. If you'd like to try it too, HardyPet is offering free shipping and value pricing on the bundle for a limited time.

Disclosure: HardyPet sponsored this post. I was provided the featured products for free, but all opinions are 100% my own.

Change Your Life Kraut Melt Sandwich {Recipe}

What I'm about to tell you is so devastatingly simple that it can hardly be called a recipe. And yet, a friend whom I recently served this to declared that it "changed her life." All you need is vegetable kraut, bread and cheese. I ferment my own mixed vegetable kraut from whatever's in season. The variety pictured includes beets, red cabbage, carrots, and garlic aged on the counter for just a week because I like my kraut crunchy.

Bread can be whatever you have on hand, sliced fairly thinly. Same with the cheese - use anything that melts nicely, sliced thin.

Toast the sandwich open faced for 5-10 minutes at 400 degrees and you'll have a tangy, cheesey kraut melt. It doesn't take much time, but it might change your life.

Kraut Melt Sandwich

2 slices bread or sandwich bun 1/2 cup mixed vegetable kraut 4 slices swiss, provolone, cheddar or other cheese

1. Heat oven to 400 degrees F. Place bread in a single layer on a baking sheet. 2. Spread kraut evenly over the two slices of bread. Top with cheese. 3. Bake for 5-10 minutes until cheese is browned. Serve while warm.

Wisdom & News from OEFFA Conference 2015

I'm still riding high on the "agricultural intoxication"* of the 2015 Ohio Ecological Food and Farming Association annual conference. My heart is warmed by so many great talks, both prepared presentations and side conversations, with friends new and old. My head spins with the possibilities of this coming year.

I bounced around a lot this year, staying in only one session for the entire period - my own! There were just too many enticing presentations to choose from. Here's some of the wisdom I heard:

• "Introduce wild edibles to your diet one at a time." - Kate Hodges of Foraged & Sown, speaking on foraging. Since wild edibles are often more potent than farmed vegetables, it's a good idea to give your digestive system a chance to adapt. Later, when talking about plantain, she shared our canning disaster story.
• "No one else can be you." Jill Moorhead spoke about telling your food story. When marketing your farm or food business, she advised consistent branding, offering education like recipes and samples, and team up with others to tell your shared story.
• But avoid trendy terms. Jill said "I have so many pet peeves about meaningless words." Natural, family farm, free range, heirloom, etc. are undefined and overused. Instead, choose defined terms like organic and/or meaningful descriptive phrases.
• "Appreciate your pork farmer." That's my quote after stepping into Lyndsey Teter's talk about pastured pigs when she was discussing breeding. I'm glad she's willing to spend "days of her life" (her words) staring at porcine nether-regions doing pregnancy checks while I just get the benefit of delicious Six Buckets Farm pork.
• "Our deal with our livestock is that we'll give them a great life where they won't want for anything. In exchange, we're going to eat them." Chelsea Gandy shared this farming principle when talking about raising livestock with Jesse Rickard of Fox Hollow Farm Naturally. I'm planning a farm tour this spring to check out their amazing pasture rotation system and exciting livestock varieties.
• "Turkeys are awesome." This tidbit started off Meredith's session on raising Thanksgiving turkeys, based on her experience running The Gray Fox Farm. Her presentation restarted our poultry plans for this year. I'm not certain that we'll try turkey but we are definitely going to raise our own meat again this summer.

And now for the news!

• Joseph Swain and I debuted the Columbus Agrarian Society at the OEFFA conference by hosting a booth and talking to hundreds of folks. We've been working on the CAS for months, envisioning a group that offers technical and material support for intensive growers in central Ohio. We have a full slate of hands-on classes and social events coming up. We would love for you to join us as a member! I'll share much more about CAS soon.
• Finally, during the business meeting on Saturday night, I was elected to the OEFFA Board. I'm excited to serve this body that gives me so much inspiration and support.

*Alex coined the term "agriculturally intoxicated" while listening to me gush about the conference on Saturday night.

Homestead Happenings #3: Plans & Yeast

This week was dominated by planning for the spring ahead. The groundhog may have seen a shadow, but sunny, longer days mean that garden work will come very soon. The weather was warm enough for me to spend a little time digging roots and washing seedling pots yesterday!

What's happened this week:

• We watched BBC's Great British Baking Show on WOSU. Airing Monday nights at 10, this is our new show not-to-be-missed. The hosts are very British - quirky, kind, and quick-witted, and the spirit is more of learning and comradeship than dramatic American food competition shows.
• Inspired by one challenge to bake a cake without chemical leavening, we've experimented with yeast-risen quick breads this week. Alex made yeast-risen biscuits twice (so good we're sharing the recipe soon) and he also did a batch of yeasted pancakes which tasted like a mesmerizing cross between a soft pretzel and a griddle cake.

• On Saturday night, I made a Savarin, a yeast-risen cake from the Great British Baking Show recipe. Not a big fan of cakes, I enjoyed the flavors of the Savarin. The yeast made the texture airy and lightly crumbed but as a whole, the Savarin is not as dense and rich as most modern cakes.
• I helped seed, harvest, deliver, and sell microgreens with Swainway Urban Farm as usual. We're at the Worthington Indoor Farmers' Market this time of year every Saturday morning.
• I considered the NPR story 'Are Farmers Market Sales Peaking?' with great interest. While I love working and shopping at the farmers' market, I know how valuable diversified sales routes become to small farms like Swainway. I don't think we're quite at peak in central Ohio, but smaller markets are declining and bigger markets are refining and improving.
• Based on the previous weeks' seed orders, I wrote out a generalized map of where I want to plant everything. Then I remembered that deer might ruin my sweet corn trials so I started moving things around. I tend to keep adjusting my map up to and even after planting time...
• My mother treated me to dinner at Angry Bear Kitchen and the show Anything Goes presented by Broadway Columbus. Both exceeded my expectations. I ate a creative and delicious carrot wellington at Angry Bear. Emma Stratton, the female lead of Anything Goes, was spectacular.
• I worked on my presentation for the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association annual conference this coming weekend. I'm discussing 'Building Self-Sufficiency Through Community' and will share a version of that presentation here for those who can't come to the conference.

• I just started salt-cured egg yolks for my next class at The Commissary. On February 18 I'll share how I put up excess eggs while we make egg noodles and other treats. Register online now to reserve your spot.
• I am planning class proposals for the spring. What would you like to learn?

How was your week?

Gardening on the Wild Side

If you've seen me in person recently, you've probably heard me mention Eating on the Wild Side: The Missing Link to Optimum Health. This book, a science-based review of how to select and prepare food for maximum nutritional benefit, has transformed my cooking more than any other writing ever. I even taught a class based upon it for The Seasoned Farmhouse.

The basic premise is that wild foods like foraged berries, greens, and grains are far higher in nutrients than human-influenced hybrids chosen for sweetness, carbohydrate efficient production, and ease of growth and harvest. Basically, we bred the nutrition out of many wild foods and have the related health problems to show for it. But Robinson is not preachy or focused on the past - she offers forward-thinking ideas to consume more healthy nutrients by choosing foods wisely.

Some of the research-supported advice is surprising: did you know that carrots cooked whole have the most betacarotene, even more than raw? Some tips are simple: choose the most colorful foods because they most often contain the most vitamins and phytonutrients. Some techniques are habit-changing: the cancer-fighting antioxidant allicin in garlic is maximized by chopping the garlic and then letting it rest for 5 minutes before cooking.

For gardeners, Eating on the Wild Side author Jo Robinson goes a step further to offer suggested seed varieties. I already know that backyard-fresh produce contains more nutrients than truck-ripened, grocery store versions. This year I plan to move one step further and plant varietals based on Wild Side recommendations that will feed my family even more vitamins and phytonutrients.

Gardening on the Wild Side Selections

1. Atomic Red Carrots - Joseph and I have grown these carrots for Swainway Urban Farm. They're less productive than traditional orange versions but are richer in flavor and higher in anthocyanins.

2. Garlic Chives - Of all the alliums (onion, garlic, shallots, scallions, and chives), garlic chives are the most densely nutritious. Chives happen to be a green Lil likes to eat, so we'll add garlic chives to our perennial herb bed this year.

3. Cherry Tomatoes - I was shocked to learn that cherry tomatoes have up to 8 times more lycopene than beefsteak sizes. The darkest red and purple varieties contain more nutrients than lighter colors. Tomato nutrients are more bioavailable when canned, so we'll enjoy them fresh in the summer and continue to put up tomato sauce, salsa, and paste for the winter and spring.

4. Colorful Potatoes and Sweet Potatoes - This isn't a change for us - I love purple potatoes - but we will be dropping the standard white varieties and growing more rich orange sweet potatoes, red fingerling potatoes and even a purple sweet potato.

5. Bull's Blood & Detroit Beets - I've grown these solid red varieties and the pretty bullseye chioggia ones. Both produce equally well for me but the dark reds have more betalin antioxidant so I'll focus on those this year. And I'll try to eat more of the greens because Robinson points out that they're among the healthiest greens you can buy.

6. All The Berries - I feel like a new berry is classified as a 'super food' every other week. But there's good reason for the hype - berries are full of fiber, phytonutrients, and flavor. Most are easy to grow, especially perennial shrubby berries like raspberries, june berries, and currants. Like the vegetables discussed above, deeper color equals greater nutrient punch, so we're adding black and red currants, black raspberries, and red gooseberries to our gardens this year.  If you are local and looking to start or expand your collection of perennial fruits, my friend Kate is selling a limited number of bareroot berry stalks by pre-order.

If you're a conscientious eater or gardener, I highly recommend Eating on the Wild Side. Read it, eat well, and grow more Wild Side varieties.

Homestead Happenings #2: Late & Great

Who is surprised that in the second week of what was supposed to be a weekly list, I'm already a day late? Not I. Last week was full in so many ways. Here's what was going on in our world:

• Alex spent the week in Arizona and Mexico on business. It was a long trip that included a number of life birds for Alex, a visit by javelinas to the hotel parking lot, and a few great lunches of steak and leek tacos.
• Meanwhile at home it snowed, rained, iced, snowed, and rained some more.

• Lil and I trekked to Wayne county, Ohio to check out an Amish farming supply store. Spring is coming and our cell trays will be ready!
• I ordered sweet potato slips from Southern Exposure and New Sprout Farms.

• I collected and delivered a little more than two dozen fertilized eggs to 4th Street Farms. They're going to hatch them to add to their flock. I can't wait to see the chicks!
• I attended Michael Pollan's talk in New Albany, thanks to a generous friend who invited me to go with her. I might share my own food rules someday, but I generally like the cut of this man's jib. I agree with CMH Gourmand's review that the talk included "just enough facts with humor without being preachy, just pragmatic information that hopefully will make a difference."

• We hosted a Sunday snack fest, I mean Super Bowl party. We fried chicken wings and Blue Jacket Dairy cheese curds and served these alongside chips and dips. The kids were impressed with Lil's Minecraft-inspired fruit salad. I was impressed with this buffalo cauliflower recipe, a spicy and satisfying alternative to the meat.

The Luxury of Boiled Eggs {Recipe}

Before raising chickens, I would never have imagined myself longing for a boiled egg. I rarely made them, and when I did, they were often over cooked because I tend to wander and forget about timers. But now I give them my full attention from choosing the right egg to measuring the cooking time to peeling and savoring the final egg. Backyard chicken boiled eggs are a rarely enjoyed luxury item around here, one we're just returning to now that our replacement flock is laying eggs after the fox attack. You see, fresh chicken egg shells are stuffed full of albumin and yolk. The semi-permeable shells allow in the tiniest bit of air which forms a bigger pocket of air over the weeks of the eggs' shelf life. This air pocket is why you can tell if an egg is still good by soaking it in water - too much air and you can assume the egg is very old and potentially spoiled - and it's also what allows you to peel a boiled egg.

A plucked-from-the-nest-box-this-morning egg has a negligible air pocket and if you boil it, you have a 1 in a million chance of peeling it easily. Most likely you'll spend ten minutes picking away minuscule bits of egg shell. After a couple trips down that road, I started trying old wives tales like adding salt or vinegar to the water. No dice.

I didn't find boiling egg nirvana until I considered the brilliance of the shell. The shell is meant to keep the yolk fresh until the hen has laid a dozen or so eggs over a dozen or so days for a clutch. The container then has to handle high heat and movement while a hen incubates the egg for another twenty one days. In nature, egg shells are designed to keep their contents safely held for at least four weeks! No wonder they don't want to give up easily in the kitchen.

My process for boiling eggs now takes over a week of preparation and consideration.

Hard Boiled Backyard Eggs

1. Wash fresh eggs. This removes the "bloom", a coating that seals in the egg's moisture. Allow them to drip dry.

2. Place eggs in the fridge for about a week, uncovered. Refrigerators dry their contents due to the lower temperature and humidity. Commerical egg producers often use syrofoam, plastic, or coated cardboard egg cartons to keep a little bit of moisture around their eggs. We want the eggs to dry out a bit, so I skip the cartons and use the egg tray that came with my fridge.

3. Boil minimally. I like room temperature eggs in room temperature water, brought to a boil quickly. Then I cover the pot for 10 minutes. Alex prefers 11 or 12 minutes.

4. Chill instantly. When the timer goes off, uncover the lid and run cold water over the eggs and/or fill the pot with ice. This stops the eggs from continuing to cook.

5. Peel and eat happily. Eggs will peel without much effort. I enjoy boiled eggs as is, made into egg salad or deviled eggs, or the most extravagant preparation, Scotch Eggs.

File this under "Things You Don't Know Until You Raise Chickens". What else would you add to that list?

Homesteading Hair Care - Baking Soda & Vinegar Hair Rinses

Over the last couple years, we've slowly simplified our bath and body routines and made the switch from "all-natural" manufactured toiletries to homemade concoctions from food ingredients. I discovered that making our own is cheaper, requires very little effort, and works better than what I can buy. Plus there's no wasted packaging or unnecessary chemicals! The first beauty product I made was hair "conditioner" pictured on the right. This started when Lillian insisted on keeping her hair very long but hated brushing out the tangles. We tried commercial spray detanglers, conditioning shampoo, extra rinses of conditioner and nothing lessened the time we spent fighting with a hair brush. Finally, based on a tip by Chef's Widow, I tried spraying some vinegar on her long locks at the end of a shower.

Instant success. Not perfection without a single tangle, but brushing is MUCH easier. And the ingredients give me no pause - vinegar and water is truly edible. I began using the vinegar hair rinse myself and ditched the bottled conditioner too.

Vinegar Hair Rinse Recipe

12 ounces water 3 ounces apple cider or white vinegar 2-4 drops essential oil (optional) 16 ounce spray bottle

1. Mix three ingredients in spray bottle. Screw on sprayer and shake to combine. 2. Cover hair with vinegar spray at the end of a shower or bath, paying special attention to ends. Allow to sit for one minute and rinse, or leave on without rinsing.

Using Baking Soda "Shampoo"

Next I moved on to baking soda shampoo, the basis of the "no-poo" routine. Commercial shampoos include strong detergents that strip hair of natural oils. The no-poo idea is to allow your hair to carry oils for better hair health and body.  To clean hair, no-poo calls for applying a dilute baking soda solution.

I experimented with different ratios and timing and settled on a very dilute solution poured over my hair like a rinse in my every-other-day showers. There's no lather, so I just smooth it around to make sure most of my hair is covered. Some people advocate scrubbing the scalp, but that seemed to make my hair more oily.

Many people experience a transition period where their hair is extra oily and itchy. I anticipated this and started shampooing less frequently and then using baking soda solution last winter when I more often wear hats. I experienced a week or so of funky hair before mine settled into a comfortable, predictable condition.

Whereas I used to have overly dry hair for 12-24 hrs and then overly oily hair after that, my hair can now go several days without washing with decent body and no itchiness. If I really want to push my time between showers, I use Lush No Drought Dry Shampoo when my hair is oily. It brushes through cleanly and corrects oily scalp. You could make something similiar at home, but I haven't tried because I've barely made a dent in the bottle I bought two years ago.

Baking Soda Shampoo Recipe

1 teaspoon baking soda 6 ounces warm water 2-4 drops essential oil (optional)

1. Shake baking soda and warm water together in a squeeze bottle. Add essential oils as you wish. 2. Pour 2-4 squirts over hair in the shower, shaking to combine before using. Smooth over hair and allow to sit for 1-2 minutes. 3. Rinse with warm water. Follow with vinegar rinse.

 Tips on Using Baking Soda and Vinegar Rinses

• Essential oils can address tricky hair issues. The Chagrin Valley Soap Company has a great list of essential oils used in hair care.
• Spray bottles vary in their quality. If I want something cute, I go for the ones in the Target travel toiletries section. For better quality, I buy from the hardware store.
• The vinegar smell dissipates very quickly, as soon as hair is dry. If it bothers you, use essential oil.
• A spray bottle of vinegar conditioner lasts us over a month and costs about $0.50. I mix up a new batch of baking soda rinse every week for mere pennies.
• The 'mother' of active bacterial cultures in raw apple cider vinegar may plug the sprayer mechanism. If you shake well before each spray, this shouldn't happen, but soaking the end of the sprayer in hot water and then spraying that through will usually clear the mechanism.
• Chlorine from swimming pools disrupts natural hair oil production. I try to avoid chlorine pools but when I can't, I rinse with clean water as soon as possible after swimming and expect a few days of overly dry and then overly oily hair.
• When we travel, I pack a smaller container with some dry baking soda but ditch the vinegar spray bottle. We add water to a drinking cup to the baking soda and pour over our hair. For conditioner, we either bring or buy a small bottle of vinegar, add water in a cup, and pour over. I've used individual packs of lemon juice or malt vinegar snitched from cafeterias in place of my preferred apple cider vinegar in a pinch.

Will you try making hair care products at home? Or are you already no-pooing? Share your story in the comments.