And a good, good day to everyone. For those folks on the Eastern Seaboard who are digging out – my sympathies. Take it easy.

And to some (Aunt Toby can’t claim ‘all’ here) of the news fit to print:

Guerilla Gardening Enters The Industrial Age:
Guerilla gardeners, those sneaky underhanded planting fiends, who by cover of night descend on public spaces such as – highway berms, median strips and abandoned areas – and either plant actual plants, scatter seeds or balls of earth, clay, fertilizer and seeds, have a new ‘weapon’ in their arsenal. “South Korean designer Jin-wook Hwang came up with this design for a completely new kind of seed bomb: one that could be used on a larger scale than the neighborhood-greening ones we’re used to. In his project portfolio, Hwang tells of the inspiration for his idea: “After The 2nd world war, Gale Halvorson, an American pilot, dropped candies in the name of hope for children in Berlin. The seedbomb is the bomb of hope like the candies of Gale Halvorson.” This new seedbomb isn’t meant to replace the neighborhood mud ball; rather, it’s intended for a larger scale.”
Urban Seed Bombs

For more information on guerilla gardening, see Guerrilla Gardening

Beekeeper Partners With Coal Companies to Turn Reclaimed Mine Lands into Bee Paradise:
“Tammy Horn is part of Coal Country Beeworks, and wants to turn eastern Kentucky and neighboring West Virginia into a "honey corridor." She sees the potential for reforesting mined areas and teaching locals how to become bee keepers, transforming the torn landscape into a strong ecosystem and providing a new component to the local economy.
Currently there are 53 hives on five sites, but Horn hopes some 25,000 hives could be supported on former strip mines. "Coal companies have created over 33,000 acres of reclaimed land. Within these isolated areas, we can produce bees that are better acclimated to the region and, in effect, create ‘genetic islands’ of bee colonies that will aid in preserving biodiversity of bees and plants in North America." The issue here is that Horn’s interest is in the ‘understory’ – the plants that grow between the tree tops and the soil, which as we know are what will hold the soil and nourish the trees themselves and create a complete forest habitat. At the same time, however, it will also create areas of biodiversity which can support greater and healthier bee colonies than mono-cropped agricultural areas.

Make Reclaimed Lands Bee Friendly

Consumer Food Labels Not Understood:
The Center for Science in the Public Interest has released a report discussing the fact that the information that is put on food packaging labels goes largely misunderstood by consumers. This produces a situation where intelligent decision making cannot take place. "Consumers need honest labeling so they can spend their food dollars wisely and avoid diet-related disease," said CSPI senior staff attorney Ilene Ringel Heller, co-author of the report. "Companies should market their foods without resorting to the deceit and dishonesty that’s so common today. And, if they don’t, the FDA should make them."
The report goes into detail in terms of how to make labels more informative and understandable to consumers. Of course, given the amount of consumer education taught in schools these days (cough, almost none, cough), even the suggested changes might not help. Just hammering on the fact that consumers should look at the first three ingredients on the package and understanding what THAT means would be a tremendous improvement.
Food Labels

For a look at the report itself, go Report

And, Aunt Toby realizes that this might be seen as a complete digression, with not much connection to food news at all, but bear with me. The LA Coroners Office reported this week on the results of tests done after the death of Casey Johnson, the young Johnson and Johnson heiress. “A coroner’s report determined the 30 year old, who suffered from diabetes, passed away due to diabetic ketoacidosis, caused by a lack of insulin.

And Assistant Chief Coroner Ed Winter tells GossipCop.com Johnson’s death could have been prevented if she had followed her medical regimen properly.”

Casey Johnson

Click on that photograph and take a look at the picture. Casey Johnson was diagnosed with diabetes when she was a child. Type 1. The Coroner’s office is making a definitive statement here about her not taking her insulin. There has emerged over the past couple of years, a ‘new’ condition of what is considered disordered eating (ah, there is the connection with food) called ‘diabulimia’, where Type 1 diabetics basically live on the edge of ketoacidosis due to either not taking their insulin or reducing the amount that they take, in order to lose weight and maintain and extremely low BMI. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diabulimia

It is difficult enough being young and constantly being exposed to media extolling extremely thin models, actors and actresses and the like (shoot, someone as mature as Colin Firth was badgered by Tom Ford into losing a great deal of weight for his latest film) and having a healthy relationship to food, eating, and body image. Type 1 diabetics, again, mostly extremely young people have (in their own minds) the perfect control mechanism to create and maintain this body type – unfortunately for them, the edge between alive and not alive is a very fine one. Casey Johnson’s death should be seen as the wake up call for all parents who have diabetic youngsters; unfortunately, it probably will not.

And in completely local news, at Chez Siberia, we have (drum roll please) a hen that has gone broody. She’s little; she’s red and she will not get off that nest. Given that her eggs are not fertile (we only have the much much larger Light Brahma roosters there and the logistics of..well, you get the picture), we sneaked several of the other, much larger eggs underneath her. Broody is broody. They don’t seem to care whose eggs are underneath them; they just want to sit there, keep them warm and hatch them. So, mark the weekend of the 21st on your ‘Save the Date’ calendars to see how she’s done.

Q&A:

Why does she look like that? Well, broodiness usually goes with molting. She’s not at her best – can’t get to the beauty salon and she’s molting.

Does she ever get up? Yep – she usually gets up off the nest a couple of times a day to eat, drink and do her business.

Will she stay in that nesting box? Nope – we are going to move her and her clutch to a different space with a heat lamp this coming week. She and the nest will be much closer to the floor so they will be safe but also the chicks won’t fall out.

Eat well; eat healthy.