today, the rain.

(unrelated photos from a walk on our property when the sun was briefly out.) 

I have a bunch of pictures to share from the fair we attended this weekend, but I am not in the mood today- maybe I'll post them tomorrow. I have been feeling pretty melancholic the last few days. Like many Canadians, the news of Jack Layton's passing hit me with unexpected emotion and sadness. The sense of loss feels surprisingly personal, considering I never met him myself. Yet his death made me realize that I had a great deal of hope resting in him- in his authenticity and honest striving to make real and profound change. I am inspired by the outpouring of love and emotion, and I'm trying like many, to turn the hope I had resting in him, towards the changes we all need to make together. That would be a legacy he would have been overjoyed with.

Totally unrelated, but also occupying a good deal of my thoughts is my dear oldest boy. He has been struggling a fair bit lately, and after an (amazing!) phone consultation with Beth Sutton (Enki founder) we decided to get some tests done, including allergy testing. The dear sweet boy is apparently sensitive to darn near everything we eat, and I am reeling a bit. We take food pretty seriously in our house. We cook from scratch and source things locally whenever we can. We grow a garden and raise chickens and get to know the farmers whose food we purchase. We make much of our own bread and baking from local wheat, make our own yogurt and cheese and kefir from pastured goat or cow milk and raise our own chickens for eggs. And now, my dear boy cannot eat most of that food. I am feeling so sad and confused about this.

Why is his sweet little body developing panic responses to the foods that should be nourishing him? And how can I ensure we are all well nourished on a diet that excludes many of the most nourishing foods available to us? I don't want to rely on ready made foods shipped from far away when we can get much healthier local alternative and make things ourselves. Yet, on the other side, I  look forward to seeing how he feels without being exposed to these foods that have been troubling him. I am just beginning to research it all, but I do have some hope that there might be therapies or diets out there that could help him heal and get strong and to outgrow these allergies altogether. For now I just need to give it a bit of time to figure out, and to read and figure out the next step. For now we are all cutting out these foods and replacing them with whatever we can purchase from our local health foods store. My body is  not enjoying the change to an essentially vegan diet (with a bit of meat thrown in!) I am reminded of how I felt as a vegan- not great!

Today Perry took the boys to a new and exciting pool in a neighbouring town and I turned up my most melancholic music and spent the day cleaning and organizing and moving things around. It felt like the right thing to be doing on a cold and rainy sunday when my head was full of thoughts to think. One thing I do know, putting my physical space in order is a surefire way to lift my spirits.
good night friends.