HEALTH

Monday -- kale chips! I'm on a vegetable roll since I made my "fruit resolution" back on April 11. Since then I have eaten:

nectarine • strawberries • grapes • lemon juice • avocado • broccoli • corn • shallots • banana • spinach • lime juice • onion • carrots • rutabaga • red pepper • tomatoes • cucumber • apple • pineapple • pear • tangerine • dried blueberries • radishes • spaghetti squash • leeks • bok choy • chard • shiitake mushrooms • watermelon • passionfruit • apricots • mandarins • kale

Maybe that sounds like a normal amount for two weeks' worth of fruits and vegetables, but for me I'd usually tend toward the same things over and over -- eg. apples, bananas, red peppers, tomatoes -- so it's felt pretty good to expand my list, and I plan to continue to do so.


Along with the increased fruit and vegetable consumption, I have been trying to do some form of exercise everyday. This has also got me out into nature a lot more, and I have had some great bird times. I watched this swan build a nest. I hung out with some ducks until I unintentionally filmed a duck porno. I fed a crow some of my banana peel and then watched him wipe his beak on a log.


While jogging the next day, I got much closer to another swan couple and their little green egg.

I also met this woman on one of my jogs, while she was photographing some herons' nests. She has an enormous camera, and her photos really get up close and personal with the birds. Here are the results of the day I ran into her. She gave me (who has had my camera pooed on before while standing under the herons' nests) some good advice for photographing the herons: look around on the ground for a spot that is not speckled with white -- that will likely be a safe spot to stand.


Anyway, on Monday I also made some quinoa tabouleh salad, a new ridiculously easy favourite from Mairlyn Smith's new cookbook, Healthy Starts Here. The salad is even featured in her cute little promotional video:

Ferry Food; JESUS THOR SUPERSTAR

Monday -- I celebrated a weekend of healthy Salt Spring vegetarian eating with a White Spot cheeseburger on the ferry ride home.


Later: my reason for leaving Salt Spring early: a reenactment of Jesus Christ Superstar by the residents of Thor's Palace. Feat. Thor brew.


It was everything I thought it would be and more. A week later I still can't get the songs out of my head.

Earth Candy Farm

Some photos from our visit to Salt Spring's Earth Candy Farm!


Sonya checks out their wares.


Cute little watermelons in the bin...


And later in my belly, as a fresh, juicy breakfast.


Baby goose photo op time!


Wheeeeeeeeeee.


Awwwww.


I saw my first ever turkeys in real life.


They are fascinating, ancient looking, alienlike creatures. They seem to wear their brains on the outsides of their heads.


Goats!


Leaving an important message on the farm's message board.


...


Saying goodbye to the incredibly romantic and smiley farm dog.

---


More work in the greenhouse back at Neptune.


Shiitake mushrooms from Earth Candy Farm made an incredibly delicious dinner with only a few ingredients: olive oil, sun-dried tomatoes, rigatoni and nutritional yeast. I need to buy myself some of that nutritional yeast. Amazing!


Kicking back with a nice cool beverage after another day's hard work.

Salt Spring Island Saturday Market

While on the island, we naturally made a visit to the Salt Spring Island Saturday Market. Here's a little guy we met there.


I didn't make it out to the Salt Spring Island Cheese Company like I'd hoped to, but I did have Mr. Salt Spring Cheese himself, David Wood, cut my Montaña for me at their table. I sampled almost every cheese they had, and every cheese from Moonstruck Organic Cheese as well.

I brought home some of Salt Spring's Montaña -- a sheep's milk cheese -- and Romelia -- an intense surface ripened cheese. If there hadn't been such a line-up at Moonstruck, I would have come home with some Ash-Ripened Camembert as well.


I purchased some lavender coffee from Sacred Mountain Lavender's purple table.


And here's Sonya with a tomato tart that we got pretty excited about.


Some busking ladies.


Busking ladies from the other side.


I did not eat this,


nor these,


nor these, but I wish I had.

WWOOFing on Neptune Farm

When Sonya invited me to Salt Spring Island, she neglected to mention that we'd be working on the farm we were staying at!


But that's what we did. We WWOOFed. Sonya was David's first WWOOFer seven years ago.


WWOOF stands for World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms; WWOOFers receive free room and board as well as a little education in exchange for a few hours of labour per day on the farm. It's a great way to travel, see the world, get in shape and learn about organic farming.


This one's a MEOWer.


We did some transplanting and soil hauling. All the fruits and vegetables on the farm are only little babies right now.


Apple trees!


Chickens! (We didn't eat these guys.)


Garlic!


Which went in this spaghetti squash stew for lunch.


...


Aaaand dinner time. A well-earned meal.


We made quinoa with bok choy, chard, broccoli, carrots, veggie sausage, Braggs and nut butter.


And topped with my new favourite flavouring agent, nutritional yeast.

Salt Spring-Bound

Ferry food on the way to Salt Spring Island started out healthy:


Strawberries and tangerines and pears and hard-boiled eggs...


But we were sitting too close to the cafeteria, and eventually I was overtaken by a desire for poutine. I don't regret it.


We arrived! But were having so much fun taking photos of ourselves on the last ferry, that we didn't get off in time and missed the bus into town.


And because we suck at hitchhiking, we missed eating dinner, so I found myself hanging out at the food blanket most of the night at the, uh, Cuddle Party.