The Plague (Redux)

It appears that we will never have a week at the Pumpkin Patch where we are all healthy and well.  Last week, I had the flu for about 4 or 5 days and was pretty much out of commission for that time.  Now, poor Pumpkin has been sick for the last four days or so.  He, surprisingly, does not have the flu but does have another lower respiratory infection for which he is taking antibiotics.   He is finally fever-free and feeling better during the day but he is still having some rough nights due to post-nasal drip.  Last night, my husband slept with him in a recliner to help him stay in a more upright position.  My husband seems to have the same cold which must have started all of this for Pumpkin and my nose is now suspiciously stuffy so I may be getting it as well.  Will this cold/flu season never end??

On another note, in honor of Earth Day, we have started recycling efforts at the Pumpkin Patch as I had hoped to do.  I have located drop-off points in our county (since, unfortunately we do not have curbside pickup) and we have purchased plastic storage bins to hold the items at home.  Now, we just have to make sure that we actually periodically take the recyclables to the drop-off vs. letting them continue to stack up here and eventually overrun our house...

I will post more once we are all well and rested again...hopefully, that will be soon!

Finding Safer Produce

Ever since Pumpkin started eating solids, we have been trying to eat organic foods as much as is possible, or as much as makes sense.  If the organic produce is available in our grocery store and it doesn't look like it is half-rotten, which unfortunately it often is at Kroger, I try to go organic.  We have a new grocery chain which opened up up a store nearby.  This store doesn't offer a huge amount of organic produce, but it does offer a lot of more locally grown produce and it also has a great store line of other organic products.  Hopefully, I'm not just wasting money but when I look at the ingredients on the organic line of products, I at least recognize the ingredients and do not need to pull out a Periodic Table to try to decipher what chemicals have been added.  Another benefit of the new store is that they have spurred Kroger to start prominently selling reusable grocery bags in our local store, which I have purchased, and I find them to be not only a greener solution but also much easier to use because they are sturdier and hold more than your traditional plastic bags.

If you are concerned about the pesticides in the produce you are buying, you may want to check out the Pesticide Produce Guide which lists which items are most likely to have large amounts of pesticides found in or on them.  I found a reference to it on a blog post on Green Mom Finds, which discusses the many eco-friendly and safer products that are becoming available. 

We're trying to live greener here at the Pumpkin Patch, though we have a long way to go.  We do not have curbside recycling in our community here, as we did in our previous city, so we have fallen off the recycling wagon.  However, we have purchased bins for recycling and we need to start soon since we want to set a good example for Pumpkin.  I'll post about it when we start so hopefully my guilt from letting you all know that we're not currently recycling will spur me to start now.