Monsanto.

Goat and I watched a very eye opening documentary last night about Monsanto. They are a huge multi-national conglomerate responsible for genetically modified crops, the bovine growth hormone present in milk, Round-Up, Agent Orange, PCBs and aspartame. Their products have been rubber stamped by the FDA with little investigation into the potential health problems they could be causing all of us, due in large part to the fact that, since the Reagan administration, top government officials in the FDA, the EPA and congress have been former employees, board members and stockholders of Monsanto. Monsanto's goal is to control the world's food production. Their "Round Up Ready" crops have been genetically modified to withstand the broad spectrum herbicide, however, they lack the resistance to pests and diseases and will die if Round Up is not used. Using the genetically modified crops means the farmer will be dependent on Monsanto for herbicides which are, according to several studies, carcinogenic. Worse, if the farmer in the next field over decides to use Monsanto Corn, the pollen of which blows into your field and pollinates your corn, Monsanto, which has patented the genetic modifications, can sue you for using their GMO without paying. This is happening to small farmers all over the country, as it is almost impossible to escape cross pollination from the GMO crops. I could go on and on, but just watch the documentary and see for yourself: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-842180934463681887

Warning: The documentary contains some very sad and upsetting images of cancers and birth defects caused by the chemicals and is probably not good viewing material for young children.

Please keep my brother Paul in your prayers. He is in Tanzania on a missions trip and has gotten sick. He may have malaria. He is headed to the clinic in town with his friend Lee.

UPDATE: I just talked to my Mom and it looks like he may have a UTI. They gave him some antibiotics and he is headed back to the school. Hopefully he will recover quickly.

UPDATE: Paul is taking the antibiotics and is feeling much better!

Dinner with Dad

My Dad had a meeting in Cocoa Beach yesterday, and we were able to meet him, as well as Aunt Jane, Uncle Larry and Ben, for dinner. It was great to see him! Landis was so excited to see his Grandpa. He had a great time pulling the cell phone and pen out of my Dad's pocket and replacing them, and looking at the boats going by outside the window. Earlier in the day, I told Landis that we would be seeing Grandpa later that day, and he said "Am-Pa!" We looked at some pictures from a trip to Gainesville and he had fun identifying Grandpa, Nonny, Josh and "Kway." He hasn't quite gotten John and Paul's names down, but he has some time before they return from their overseas adventures in Iraq and Tanzania. Hopefully he will be able to greet them by name when they return!

Landis has decided that today, the coldest day in several months, is nakey-baby day. He pulled off his jammies as soon as he woke up this morning. Usually he is happy to wear them all day if I let him. I decided it was just too cold for him to run around in his diaper, so I put a long sleeved outfit on him. He is pretty good at getting undressed, and doesn't have a problem pulling off his shirt or pants, but he hasn't yet figured out how to wiggle out of one piece outfits like the one he is wearing now. He keeps coming up to me, tugging on his clothes and saying "all done." Unfortunately for him, I don't want him to freeze and so am not willing to undress him, but it's great that he's able to communicate his desires so well.

It's Perfect...

Story of my life.

The sunflowers are sprouting! I am so excited about them. Besides adding some lovely color to the garden, they will attract bees to pollinate the vegetables, and we will have lots of delicious sunflower seeds to eat. During my obsessive reading of gardening websites, I came across the idea of planting a sunflower house, planting the sunflowers in a rectangle, leaving a small space unplanted for a door. Inside, a "carpet" of hardy, edible plants can be sown for the kids to trample and chomp. I think the boys would really enjoy watching the house grow (and grow and grow.... The sunflowers should reach about 12 feet.) If I get the sunflower house and bean teepee up, the garden should be a pretty fun place.

I put the lettuce and radish seeds in cups to sprout at lunchtime today. They grow very quickly, and if all goes as planned we should be eating the first of them in about a month. I can't wait for fresh salad from the garden!

I have high hopes for our watermelons. The seedlings (18!)we planted seem to be doing well so far, and the plants we bought as seedlings have just started flowering. I found an amazing recipe for Watermelon-Strawberry Sorbet that I cant wait to try.

Ru it, pa it and mark it with a B...

Landis loves singing songs with fun hand movements. His favorites are Pat-a-Cake and The Itsy Bitsy Spider. He loves the "roll it and pat it" part of Pat-a-Cake - he says "ru it, pa it" and does the hand motions with a big grin on his face. Does anyone have suggestions of other songs he would like?

Today was a productive gardening day. Landis (my sweet little helper with his very own little shovel) and I weeded one of the new beds, added compost and got the watermelons and bush bean seedlings in the ground. I can't wait for watermelons! The basil, spinach, yellow squash, zucchini and pole bean seedlings are still growing in their containers and aren't quite ready to be transplanted yet. We're still waiting for the sunflower and marigold seeds to sprout. We have enjoyed using the basil, thai basil, rosemary, cilantro and green onions for a few weeks, and today we ate our first banana pepper. Yum! It is so much fun to watch Landis' face light up as he eats something delicious from the garden. There are tons (I stopped counting at 35) of tomatoes ripening on our plants, a few blueberries and strawberries, and 3 bell peppers. The corn is now taller than Landis and continues to grow very quickly. This week I plan to start lettuce, red onions, carrots, cucumbers, radishes and butternut and spaghetti squash, weed the last bed so that the seedlings have somewhere to go, and put up the teepee for the pole beans to grow on and the boys to play in. Hopefully Aaron Scott can come help build the teepee structure. I think he would enjoy it. He is a lot like his dad in his love for making and building and fixing things.

Sun 'N Fun

Goat, his parents, Aaron Scott, Landis and I spent Friday at Sun 'N Fun in Lakeland. It was great. The boys really enjoyed both the event and the opportunity to spend the day with their wonderful Ludwig grandparents. We saw all kinds of planes, from tiny ultralights, which look like go carts with gliders or parachutes, to huge old military planes, and everything in between. There were also helicopters, some so small you could carry them with you in the back of your pickup truck, and others so large they could carry a dozens of people. Aaron Scott found a small helicopter that seats 2 and is painted to look like a bird and now he really wants one. Maybe he will be a helicopter pilot when he grows up.

Avidyne had a booth and we were able to see the keyboard that Goat has spend countless hours designing. It looks great! It was nice to see the product of so much of his work shown off for everyone to see. I am so proud of him! We were also able to see a plane which used the old Avidyne flight system, which looked great.

In the afternoon, there was an air show. It was amazing to see the planes perform dizzying feats in perfect formation, shooting straight into the air, plunging down at terrifying speeds, flipping, looping and spinning through the air. Landis loved watching the planes, pointing whenever he saw one and trying to get the rest of us to look.

Toward the end of the day, when both boys had had about enough of the show and the heat and the crowds, we found a shady, deserted grassy spot, perfect for the brothers to practice their wrestling moves on each other. They love wrestling. Aaron Scott falls down dramatically when Landis tackles him, and picks Landis up and swings him around before depositing him carefully back on the ground. He is such a great big brother!

Landis is talking like crazy and I am loving it. He says the funniest things. Sometimes Goat or I will play a game with Landis where we count to 3 and then do something fun - toss him onto the bean bag or into the air, swing him around or cover him with a blanket. He's started coming up to us and asking for "two threes."