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

Pulled Pork

The only meat (besides grain fed chicken) that Ellie has had trouble with has been pork. While she couldn't tolerate chicken in the beginning, she seems to do okay with corn and soy free, grain fed chicken broth now. Pork is a different story.

I have no idea if it is actually pork itself, or if it is the grain it is fed. The pork we purchase is pastured, as well as corn and soy free; but it is also fed grains. I have noticed that every time we feed Ellie pork she eats less and seems to just generally not like it. I figure she is allowed to not like a meat or two, and kept feeding it to her on a rather large rotation.

The last two or three times we gave her pork she had some suspicious poo, and I told her daddy pork may actually be more problematic than we had thought. This time it was pretty obvious. Pork broth and pork meat combined to be pork constipation and then reflux and then crying and then bloated belly and then...well, you get the picture. Yesterday she woke up from her nap with a 101 fever which is extremely rare. Every fever Ellie has had is tied to a food fail. (Insert note here that we also started her on elk broth for the first time yesterday, but her reaction had started prior to elk and was too quick to have been elk.)

I threw her in the bath with some Epson salts, and gave her an enema. Fever came down, and we received a diaper filled with confirmation that pork was not her choice meat. Darn. Is it the pork or is it the grain in the meat? Not sure. But that is OK. She has more than enough meats to rotate through, and we won't even dwell on it. For now, we pulled pork.