Lexie Smith

For me, I have crazy weird health issues that inspired me to focus on what I can control and what I eat was at the top of the list. I dropped all conventional sugar and flour as well as so called “vegetable oils” and focused first on whole foods, organic and stopping all processed foods. I dropped 60 pounds, regained my mobility and went from a wheelchair to running the farm again. I still struggle with the constraints my illnesses cause and with the constant need to pace myself but I’m no longer brain fogged, stuck in a wheelchair and unable to drive myself because I couldn’t focus on it. I think cutting your food bill is a great idea but my experience says pay more attention to what you’re eating than what it costs and listen to what your body says about it to maximize your health.

Cube it, peel it if it’s a big one, sauté it with most anything. Eat it plain or crack an egg on top. Freeze dry it about half way done and it rehydrates just like fresh.

I know that raw milk has enzymes that processed milk doesn’t so I’m wondering if it causes kidney stones like processed milk does? My father always loved milk and had to give it up years ago because of stones, quite possibly around the same time milk started being strictly (for us) a heavily processed CAFO product.

I love them all, except for just a few but my current favorite is yogurt cheese or skyr and it definitely has to be homemade. I love getting a big spoonful and having a yogurt “popsicle” for lunch.

I usually treat things like this with a dual approach: I treat the ear as most have described with the addition of a tiny bit of colloidal silver added to the final drops and help my body fight the invasion with nasturtium tincture sublingually, several times a day for a day or two. If the infection is particularly bad I’d add a little poke root tincture too but I recommend extreme caution with that one. Not only is it fiercely strong but some people react strongly to it.

Always test something new by starting with a drop on your inner wrist to see if that causes any issues before trying a diluted drop orally, just to be safe.

You could go a long way in the attempt to feed the cow on that much acreage, depending upon the fertility of your soil and your climate but it also depends upon the dietary needs of the particular animal. Lots of people, including myself, supplement my pasture with hay I buy from a local farmer as well as alfalfa pellets I buy from Azure standard. My great aunt kept a milk cow by tethering it to a steak that she moved around as needed. “Where there’s a will there’s a way,” I guess.

There’s a brand of socks that we have been considering that are guaranteed for life. They are supposed to be extremely well made out of natural fibers and the company agrees to replace them when they wear out. I keep seeing their advertisements on Amazon but haven’t taken the plunge yet. At the rate my husband goes through them, I’m thinking they would make an excellent investment.

Pigs won’t eat them, at least our pigs are smarter than that. My trees run alongside the driveway so they dump husks all over the driveway and I just run over them with my bagging mower and then put in the compost bin or dump them out for the chickens to peck through.

I second the advice for bone broth! I’ve had over 20 major surgeries and I agree with all the previous advice. You do need to add in lots of good probiotics to restore the microbiome that was killed off with preventative antibiotics that all surgical procedures call for, at least all the ones this retired nurse and (seemingly) professional patient is aware of. Homemade yogurt, sauerkraut, kimchi, kefir or my own favorite, kombucha, are all (if homemade) great sources of the beneficial bacteria that nourish us and regulate our immune systems and, apparently, mental health status as well. Best of luck on the healing journey!

I have always thrown fresh, rinsed tomatoes in the freezer until I had enough to can and then run it through a mill (lately) or used an immersion blender to take care of the skins (for many years but I recently decided to switch to dicing and then freeze drying them so that they don’t take freezer space and I can do anything with them that I’d do with the other. I haven’t actually tried this method but it sounds reasonable and useful. Always before I just reduced it and made ketchup, spaghetti sauce, bbq sauce, tomato paste and sauce and canned it.