Days 6, 7 & 8

It's been an uneventful few days. The weather has kept me largely housebound, and so my purchases have been few. I didn't buy anything on Tuesday, but I emailed the publishers of the backyard chicken-raising book I ordered to find out where it was manufactured. They got back to me right away and said that some of their books are produced domestically (US), but the full-colour ones are usually, you guessed it, made in China. They didn't say anything about my book in particular, so I'm not sure where it was made. I emailed them back and appealed to them to increase their domestic production. I tried to check on Amazon but there was no "look inside" option so I couldn't check the copyright page to find out where it was made. Guess I'll just have to wait until I pick it up to find out. I'm not sure what I'll do if it was made in China; I special ordered it from the local bookstore and I would feel bad dumping it on them. In that case I guess I'll ask them if they want to put it on their shelves; if they don't, I'll pay for it.
Yesterday I just had to get out of the house, so I went to the health food store. I bought 2 bottles of essential oils- lemon and lavender. One for cleaning and one for baby bedtime baths. They are both from the same company, but the lemon was made in Canada and the lavender was made in the US. Weird. It may sound silly, but putting a few drops of the lemon oil in the sink while it's filling up makes doing the dishes almost pleasant. Almost.
Today I took Knuckle to the vet again; he is getting a four-week round of Cartrophen injections to give him some serious joint support. He's been diagnosed with suspected FCP- a genetic joint problem where his elbows don't develop properly. If the injections don't relieve his discomfort, we may look at surgery, but his heart defect makes that option very risky. Our vet is a big believer in homeopathy and natural medicine, which is a big reason why I drive 45 minutes each way to see her. She knows when to give modern medicine its dues, but she is very averse to unnecessary medications and I appreciate that. Knuckle has been to a few different vets in his first year of life and all of them wanted to put him on heavy-duty medications that would have been terribly hard on his body, and I couldn't stomach that. Last week she prescribed a natural garlic-based oil to drop in his ear because it was very dirty. Two drops every other day for less than a week and today it was clean as a whistle. Plus he smells like salad dressing now- bonus.
I bought some basic groceries on the way home and dropped some dry cleaning off. I had a small dilemma in the dairy aisle; I used to buy organic milk until I learned that all Canadian milk is required to be hormone and antibiotic-free, and then I just started buying regular milk. But I switched back to organic again today because the brand I buy, Organic Meadows, is not only local but the company is owned by about 100 small-scale farmers and all their cows are pastured and grass-fed. That is a big deal to me- supporting local farmers, opting out of Big Industrial Agriculture, and consuming grass-fed rather than grain-fed animal products (read The Omnivore's Dilemma for a way more articulate argument than I can give). It was only 10 cents more than the non-organic Neilson brand. I wouldn't have minded it being more than that though; I think North Americans spend way too little of their money on their food and that is the source of a lot of our health, environmental and economic woes. We want cheap food despite the consequences. Doesn't it seem ludicrous that we're willing to get robbed blind on our cell phone bills but we balk at paying an extra dollar for organic lettuce?
Anyway, I should talk- I had Kraft Dinner for lunch.
I'm in need of a few things that I think are going to be a challenge: a plastic shower curtain liner, hair elastics, and new shoes.