Part one: Crohn's and the beginning.

I have been thinking about this post for a couple of weeks now.Wondering,thinking,chewing ,reflecting over it all ,like a dog with its bone.I think in order to say all I have to say this may end up being a multi-posting kind of thing.

I have been blogging now for just over 3 years,it all started with our journey into growing more of our own food with the hopes that we could take control of our health in a better way.At the time we had one sick kid and me just back on my feet, both of us were recovering from surgeries for our Crohn's Disease, a stack of medical bills and vague answers from the doctor about diet and Crohn's.

Since starting my blog I have not wanted to write about the Crohn's factor in our daily lives.I don't want pity because in the world of Crohn's Issac and I are blessed with mild enough cases,we are fortunate.Pity and coddling really pisses me off .And honestly like Lance Armstrong not wanting his book to be about his cancer I did not want my blog to be about our Crohn's, It is not the sum of us,it is only a part of who we are.But it is the deep core of why I started my blog that has reached it's "ah ha moment" finally after three years of work and writing.

Four years ago the vagueness of the doctors was frustrating,how can diet not make a difference?A good diet when you are healthy is important,why wouldn't it be critical when you were not?Malnutrition and absorption of certain vitamins and minerals are a big issue with Crohn's,so when you are able shouldn't you be eating to build a strong body as a way to stock pile for the times when you can't eat? I kept hearing Issac's first   doctor talking to me when Issac first started to eat solids,"If you only feed him healthy foods,he will be healthy."
## Ok, that last bit about, he will be healthy,that kind of backfired didn't it.But we won't go there because my Mama's guilt can't handle it.I carry the Crohn's in my genes not Chance,it really sucks to the point that I still cry over it.As in right now my eyes are teary.  

Yet,all the gastro doctors would say is "Eat what you can tolerate". WTF is that supposed to mean?

I did a ton of reading,about Crohn's and what it does to your body as a whole, food and how it nourishes our bodies,all the crap in our food,organic,every diet out there (and some were out there.) and how some foods can combat the effects of diseases.


It was a worlds worth of information and like the world conflicting.But one of the things I did find over and over again is that all the junk,additives,pesticides,corn syrup,bad fats and all of the things with names I can't begin to pronounce were not good for our bodies at all.So my thought was "if all of these things are not good for a healthy body that can fight easily for its self,what are they doing to our over worked autoimmune systems** that is always in overdrive? If we eat a good clean diet maybe our bodies will calm down and be able to stop fighting so hard." Kind of like being able to work on a project in a tidy work space,you are not all tangled up in the junk that's in your way.

**When you have Crohn's your autoimmune system is always on over drive when your disease is active,your system can attack your own body because the Crohn's thinks that spot is something to get rid of.Sometimes it's your gut,sometimes it's places that are a bit random like your eyes,joints,skin or mouth.


I had known for a long time that junk/processed foods were not healthy and we did not eat many of them.I also knew that organics were the best choice for the health of ourselves and our planet.With all of the new information I now had in my head we decided to get rid of the rest of the crap food in our house,cook even more from scratch and go organic.

The first two were easy enough but the sticker shock of eating all organic was a blow.We were living on one modest income with 100 K in medical bills (never let anyone tell you there is nothing wrong with our health care system.We have insurance,imagine if we hadn't.) how were we going to make this work?As some of my long term readers may have guessed Chance and I are very,very determined.Give us a task and we will find a way to make it happen.We knew we could garden,we were already raising chickens and we knew we could work hard for our family. It was time to dig a bigger garden,raise more chickens and see what else we could do for ourselves to make things better.

Little did we know at the time that there was this whole movement going on,Urban Homesteading.And there were others out there doing the same thing for some of the same reasons,zero mile organic food growing right out your door.

The trendiness of it still  makes me chuckle,I was raised in a household with a big garden,chickens,cooking from scratch,canning and doing for your self,it was all normal to me.We were just going to go bigger than in the past with the hopes we could put up enough to get us through most of the winter.We also hoped that by growing our own we could free up some of our cash to buy organics we could not grow ourselves.

At the start of the blog all we thought we were doing was growing more food on our double city lot and sharing our journey through the blog.Man,has there been so much more than that happening.Things we never would have guessed at.How could we know how our whole household would change and evolve in some very positive ways.


I am going to close this here before I get ahead of myself or this gets too much longer.First though,I'd like to ask what brought you to Urban Homesteading and my blog?

Rois