But, I Like Sugar!

The nine little chicks that hatched here at home a few weeks ago are out of the coop during the day now, and enjoying the fresh grass and interactions with the rest of the flock.  Eight of them are white with random black feathers, and one is a pretty brown hen with speckles.  The mamma hen has her hands full, keeping them all safe and leading them to tasty bits in the grass.  

They know I'm the food lady now, and when they see me approach they run toward me peeping and begging for food.  I have so many birds to feed that when the whole flock clusters around my feet begging for dinner, I can hardly find a place to step that isn't occupied by a chicken or a guinea.  

Yesterday evening, as Brandon and I prepared to gather up all the hay that had been drying in the field, we could smell rain on the breeze, and see the curtain of rain drops in the distance.  Instead of working on hay, we walked around the farm putting away our tools and admiring the sky as we watched the rain approach.  I was glad that the garden got a shower, but it wasn't very good for my nice dry hay to be rained on.  

We don't always have a sunset, an approaching rain shower, beautiful cloud formations, and a rainbow in a break in the clouds all at the same time!   

Brandon has been working on the exterior trim on the new studio barn addition so we can paint the outside and make sure the wood siding doesn't get ruined by the weather.  He's not supposed to be lifting heavy things while he recovers from surgery, but he's feeling so good that it's hard for him to restrain himself.  

We're both feeling pretty good after more than thirty days on the elimination diet.  There are times when I feel like we might be a little predictable with our meals, since we tend to make the same dishes over and over again, but, we're introducing a new ingredient every three days (today is chocolate!), so it's not always exactly the same.  Brandon has had pretty clear reactions to some foods that we did not anticipate, like pork, and walnuts.  Until we tried cane sugar, I hadn't had any type of reaction.  

I still have a hard time believing this, but I think when I ate the organic cane sugar, in my tea, on my breakfast, on my sweet potato, and in some homemade coconut cookies, my nose got all stuffy.  I couldn't breath well through my nose, like my sinuses were swollen, and my throat felt raw, like it does with post nasal drip.  By the morning of day three with sugar, I was sure I was getting a cold or having a seasonal allergy.  I had two nights of terrible sleep, felt all congested in my sinuses and just generally felt sort of crummy.  Could it really be the sugar?  According to some stuff I read on the interweb, sugar is one of the most pro inflammatory foods that cause sinus congestion.  I stopped eating the sugar after breakfast yesterday, and I slept good last night since I could breath through my nose, and feel much better.  Sugar?!?  Really?  I'm going to test it again in a few weeks.  Maybe it was just a coincidence and I was having sinus problems because of some plant blooming outside or something.  Or maybe I'm in denial - I like sugar!