Midwest Wiggle

Have you seen the new post over at Urban Earthworm? Go check it out and see what we've been up to!

Big News!

Have you seen it yet? 

It's so exciting!

I'm finally official.

 

Please go.

I promise this will be the last time - at least for a very, very long time, that I will switch sites.

I'm quite excited.  It still needs a little fleshing out, and the logo isn't even close to what I ultimately want, but it will do for now, and I'm really glad to have to whole thing launched.  And there's a brand new post up over there just for the launch!

So please go.

Comment.  Let me know what you think.  Let me know if anything doesn't work properly.  I'd be happy to hear any advice or ideas.  

Can't wait to see you there!!

Visit Urban Earthworm!

Look There!

      There's a new post up on the blog you should be following:  Firm to the Farm!

Go Now!

Pretty Please

      Go on over to my NEW BLOG - From the Firm to the Farm, and FOLLOW.  If you keep just following this blog, all you're going to get are a whole bunch of posts asking you to follow that blog, because that is the blog I am now regularly posting to. 

Go.

Now.

Pretty please?

Thank you!

TODAY'S POST.

Yesterday's Post

The post that went up yesterday, Don't Call Me Skinny, was not supposed to have gone up.  It was actually an old post from last year that I had pulled up to get my PFT score out of, and somehow managed to republish as a new post.  So sorry about that.  As it says in the post below, THIS IS NO LONGER MY MAIN BLOG. 

I HAVE MOVED!  PLEASE FOLLOW ME OVER AT:

From the Firm to the Farm

 Military Lawyer to Sustainable Homesteader in One Year.  Maybe.

 

I just put up a new post over there.  Please read it:

 

Warpath

 

Let's Review:

I AM NO LONGER POSTING HERE.  PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE FOLLOW MY NEW BLOG:

 

From the Firm to the Farm

 Military Lawyer to Sustainable Homesteader in One Year.  Maybe.

Shifting

      My senior year of high school (back when It Wasn't Me by Shaggy was the no 1 single), my teacher for Soc and Psych handed out 3X5 note cards to the class.  He instructed us, quick emphatically, to write our names in the upper right corner, and then to write only one more word on the cards: yes, or no.  The yes or no was to be in answer to the question, "Do you have any desire at all to ever be a lawyer?"

     I, in big, block, insistant capital letters wrote, "NO."

      About four and a half years later (when Hollaback Girl by Gwen Stefani was at the top of the charts), I started Law School.

      Things change.  Life reaches out and grabs you, pushing or pulling you, opening new paths and shifting others.  One thing I have always accepted about my plans is that they will change.  I am always moving forward, but not necessarily in a hard, straight line.  I love the changes life brings, and I love being open to them.

      The other day, not for the first time, I was struck by how very much my life and outlook have changed since I started this little blog.  At it's inception, MacGyver and I had been married just over 4 months; I had just come on active duty and was barely a lawyer; and while I was health and nutrition conscious, it wasn't even approaching the Ethical Eating, chemical free lifestyle we strive to live now.

       I thought I would probably stay in the Marine Corps for 20 years.  I thought I would probably only want one more child.  I thought I would eventually go back to The City.  Farming definitely never crossed my mind.

       But Life, as it has a way of doing, intervened.  Things, as they tend to do, changed.  MacGyver and I, being who we are, have embraced it.  We are ready to make a change.

       We have a new aim.  It is not a goal.  (I accomplish my goals.)  This is an aim.  We might not land exactly where we're aiming if Life intervenes, but we're moving in a new direction.  And that direction is toward a sustainable homestead - dare I say it?  A farm.

      Not a big farm.  Not the neverending fields of corn that represented farming to me growing up where I did.  No, our plan is more of a big, massive garden.  With chickens.  And maybe a couple cows and pigs and some peafowl.  And possibly sheep.  We'll see. 

       One day, I'll do a post on the fact that I'd rather call it a big, massive garden than a farm even though a farm is precisely what it would be, but the industrial farming complex has so changed what it means to farm that I don't even want to associate myself with the word. 

      And I don't want to be called a Farmer.

      So - that's quite a direction shift.  Well, sort of.  I'm pretty sure anyone who's followed this blog could kind of see it coming.  I mean, we're damn near a farm now with the three gardens and the chickens and whatnot.  Really, this is just the next step.

      Nevertheless, I'm owning this change.  I'm facing the fact that I'm not really the same person I was back when I started this little blog.  And I'm moving in a new direction.  So, as much as it annoys me when people do this, I'm changing blogs. 

      Cheap Wine and Cookies will no longer be my primary blog.  It will still be here.  I may occasionally update it.  But from this point on, the majority of my posts will be found at:

From the Firm to the Farm

 Military Lawyer to Sustainable Homesteader in One Year.  Maybe.



      Please click on over and follow me there.  One of my biggest worries is losing touch with all my awesome Cheap Winos in this switch.

      The new blog will be a little more focused than Cheap Wine and Cookies has been.  My primary focus will be on the journey from where we are now to where we would like to be in about a year when I get out of the Marine Corps - the steps we've already taken, the steps we fantasize about taking, and the huge transition process.  Ethical Eating and Sustainable Living posts will still abound.  There will be fewer posts kvetching about how much I dislike the Post Office.

      I can't wait to see you there!

(Oh, and hey, if anyone wants to lend their talents to some blog and button design, let me know!)

Fertalizers Don't Have to be Chemical Stews

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Whitney Farms for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

       I think we all know that I'm not big on chemicals in my garden.  I wouldn't eat chemical fertalizers, so why would I ever put them in my food?  We create an excellent compost on our own with kitchen scraps, worms, and chickens.  That said, the soil where we live is aweful.  Really, just pathetic, and after three years of cultivating it, there are still areas where the nutrient profiles are just off.

       I have been saddened by the prospect of having to resort to chemical fertalizers to try to get our broccoli to grow properly or prevent our cabbages from bolting, but companies like Whitney Farms® give me hope.  Now, to be honest, I haven't done a full battery of research on this company, but the things I do know about them certainly but them head and shoulders above chemical fertalizer companies.

      Products like their organic soil and organic plant food are free of additive and artificial ingredients, and - most imortantly in my mind - contain beneficial microbes.  This is essential.  This is what sets these sorts of fertalizers above chemical ones.  The very best possible soil for any plantlife is living soil.  And Whitney Farms® will help you get just that.  They even have more specifically tailored products like Tomato and Vegetable Food and Plant Food.

     

      I mean really, with a beautiful garden like this, and, more importantly, beautiful gardners, why would I ever put chemicals down? 

      They are also offering a great $3 off cupon - more incentive to give it a try!