Life Change

"Your patient will never be able to go back to the typical modern diet full of sugar, artificial and processed ingredients and other harmful "foods".  Use the years of following GAPS nutritional protocol for developing healthy eating habits for life!" 

- Dr. Natasha Campbell-Mcbride, 

Gut and Psychology Syndrome, pg. 155

We bought this house when Ellie was 2 months old.  We moved in one month later, two weeks before Christmas, and have never fully unpacked.  Boxes and piles throughout the house have sat untouched for over two years. We are selling.  As I clean and pack I am witness to the insanity and change of the last 2.5 years. We have never really had the chance to make this place home, and though we didnt know it at the time, this house would not be what we needed.

When we bought this house it seemed ideal.  It is located on the fringe of a newer subdivision, a couple blocks from farm fields, and within 20 minutes of most everything. On 1/4 acre corner lot it has a huge backyard and we made plans for a play structure, sand box, raised beds, and fruit trees.  Now it sits with chickens, chicken coop, metal swing set, sand box, and a half-dozen unfinished projects.  We did get in three raspberry bushes that the pet rabbit loves to torture.

The last 18 months have been absorbed with finding safe food for Ellie, and now my family. The hunt has been tough.  Regardless of how I tried to phrase the question the results were often the same.  Farmer's were offended that I questioned their feed practices, and some were dishonest which put Ellie's healing at risk.  Safe food has been hard to come by, and often expensive.  When I find it, I stock the freezer like a beef bone hoarder.  Often times my sources will just disappear.  Randomly they just stop calling me back, or tell me they are not comfortable selling their products to me.  This has gone on for over a year.  Search time and drive time have kept my days tense.

About a year ago I was in the thick of searching for Ellie safe meats when our local chicken guy just didn't show up to give me my eggs. He literally went from weekly chatting it up with me, to dropping off the planet.  It was so bizarre.  It caused me to pause and seriously examine our situation.  There has always been this underlying fear of 'what if we can't find food for her' or 'what if we don't have the money to feed her'.  This incident made those fears very real, and pushed me to my knees.

I told God that I knew He would heal her, and thanked Him for hope. I told him that I was tired of chasing safe food and unsure how to continue.  I asked Him if I was to continue searching, or make a change. Was He really expecting me to spend an unknown amount of years driving my car all over hill and dale to find food for her?  Food that I couldn't always even trust entirely? He knew our situation. He knew that I simply could not continue to squeeze a GAPS family, an FPIES toddler, working full time, and hours of searching for safe food into every day.  He also knew I was willing to do whatever it took, for as long as needed.  His response response gave me clarity and a vision.

What I realized was this:

I do not wish for Ellie to be 30 and looking for safe food on craigslist.
As the parents, I believe it is our job to make sure she grows up to be an adult 
who can provide for, and take care of herself.  
In addition, we want to always have a safe place
for her to come home to.

I took that to daddy, and he agreed.  We didn't know how we would get there, but we knew God had that plan for us.  We laid it at His feet, and the rest is history.  

Here we are a year or so later.  We are making a life change.  We are moving.  We have a vision. We have an idea of what we want to do.  We are even a little bit excited.  We plan to raise some animals for Ellie, for the family, and for other's in need.  Sounds exciting, eh?  It IS...now.  It was not all roses getting to that point, let me tell you. When I was a little girl I never said 'I can't wait to grow up and be a chicken farmer'.  We have had to do more accepting of our new normal, but that is o.k. Things don't always go as planned, and certainly not when we decide to have children.  But isn't that how it is supposed to be?  

We are officially on the hunt.  We are looking for a home.  We are open to most anything, and I am just specifically asking that it not be under a bridge (truly).  In all reality I am very comfortable saying:

It doesn't have to be big enough.  It doesn't have to be fancy enough.  It just has to be safe enough.  

And with that we have hopes of acreage and the start of a chicken farm.  Want to help? Know of a lead? Have a safe place for Ellie? Have a rental property that needs some great tenants? Want to sponsor a barn raising?  Or help us launch our business?

By the way, Big Sis has been asking to live on a farm since she could speak.  After we moved to this house she informed us that she liked it, it was nice, but when was God going to give us that farm?  We laughed.  And I am certain God did, too.  He clearly hears the prayers of children.  

For more info on how you can help or what we are looking for click HERE

Grain Free Chickens

We did it. Ok well the Daddy of the house did most of it.  And we had lots of help, like from Opa who helped with the chicken coop.  But we did it.  We have our first pot of grain free chicken broth brewing on the stove. 

About three or four weeks ago several of our backyard birds decided to hit puberty and announced their arrival by crowing all at once.  Not sure yet what we wanted to do with these roosters who were not quite big enough to butcher, we loaded them up and delivered them to my parent's house for holding.  Daddy and Papa threw together a second coop there to hold them, where they are happily gorging on worms and getting fatter.

We were left with 7 birds in our backyard for laying hens; until Sunday when one of them decided to crow.  We were unable to drive it up to join it's 'brother's', so the unlucky fellow has become the first grain free chicken grown from our yard to feed Ellie, and the ultimate homemade chicken soup for healing.

Exciting times around here.  This is a hard won battle in the fight for safe food to feed Ellie, and one step in a larger plan.  Stay tuned for more chicken stories as we supply our kitchen table....and hopefully those of some others.

Note: If you are looking for information on raising chickens, please check out this book by Harvey Ussery.  I had the blessed privilege of learning from him for an entire day at the WAPF conference in Dallas.  His information and teaching has been pivotal in our success. 

If you are looking for more information about our grain free chickens, please hop over to my new site where you can find the details: http://hopecentric.com/our-grain-free-chickens/

Gettin A Move On

It has been 8 months on GAPS intro stage 1. Ellie has lived on meat, broth, and zucchini for 8 months. She has grown, thrived, and never been healthier. Any person can live on a diet like this forever. But there is no way I want her stuck there. There have been so many times I have thought there must be something else. GAPS got her started, but what is the hang up? Back to my knees, and the science, and my support system, and we keep plugging forward. I keep hearing of other GAPS patients who take 2 full years before really seeing large jumps in healing and progress. Ellie is on the extreme side of that, so 2 years may even be an unrealistic goal. I tell myself that 2 years for a lifetime of eating is a drop in the bucket. But that is not an easy goal to hang on to.

And then this week something changed. By the grace of God I got another glimpse into her system when she ate some wretched dried green peas. Those peas tore her up and I prayed every night that it would not set us back months. And it didn't. Which was amazing in itself. Once she was symptom free we decided it was time to retry chicken broth. Two days before her eczema on her legs erupted into a nasty painful mess that looks more like hives. We recently stopped her nystatin because she reached the six month mark, but I have no idea if this is the cause. Should we wait?

GAPS progress is largely individual and based on the healing that has taken place. It is completely possible that the small amount of fiber Ellie is getting in her zucchini is keeping her from healing, and we may have to pull it. When I got that word from Dr. Natasha, I cried. 8 months of broth and healing and that? And then the pea incident.

Back on my knees I went. Pull the zucchini? Move forward? Once the basis of healing has begun in a GAPS patient, foods should be tolerated easier and at a 'quicker' pace. Other FPIES kids have moved much faster than Ellie. This time I feel it is different. I may be right, I may be wrong, but there are some changes that show me it is time to push forward.

Three days ago we started our third attempt at chicken broth, armed with lots of fat from the feet and added lamb tallow. These chickens have been fed grain, and guess what? SHE DID GREAT! This pass makes me want to do a dance with excitement. I am feeling the green light. It feels scarey and exciting, but I am hopeful at another milestone of feeding Ellie.

So what is next? We begin with one drop of fresh carrot juice a day. Carrot juice has anti-fungal properties and will help with candida which she battles. Carrot, butternut, and pumpkin are on the list. Maybe even onion. And I am thinking it is time for a trip back to the feeding specialist to find help getting her off the bottle and onto whatever is next.

Here we go Ellie! Here we go FINALLY gettin' a move on!

More Chicken. More veggies.

After much prayer, thinking, discussing, polling other mamas, etc. I have decided that the largest problem with the chicken broth was a lack of fat. I re-read the GAPS chapter on constipation, and decided to increase Ellie's probiotic dosage as well as her daily amount of fermented cabbage juice. She had one day of noticeable adjustment and die off and that was it. This pleased me greatly!

This week I plan to make a new batch of chicken broth and we are going to go for round two. This time I will also add in some additional beef or pig lard to help with digestion and keeping things moving through. In fact, since the chickens we have are smaller and leaner, I may make half beef and half chicken blends just to be sure.

The other topic of discussion is what vegetable to try next. As the summer comes to a close, the zucchini prices start to sky rocket and our freezer is full. We have not been able to find an additional used freezer that we can afford, so the pressure is on to find something to replace the zucchini.

This makes me incredibly nervous considering she has not tolerated cauliflower, garlic, onion, carrot or yellow squash (while on GAPS). I have been considering a couple of reasons this may be. One thought is that I am giving her body large amounts of one vegetable instead of rotating through more than one. If it is important to rotate meats through for optimal healing, perhaps that is the same for vegetables. The other thought is that due to her non-existent digestive enzymes she is not getting 'over the hump' for healing and not tolerating any other vegetable. I am considering starting her on an HCl supplement to see if that helps.

I will be doing more re-reading and researching on enzymes and HCl this week, as well as spending more time on my knees asking for direction. We have gotten too comfortable around here with our zucchini. Time for something new!