Diane here. Alice has been off in London visiting her sisters and the newest addition to the family, Mary Marie. Alice also has two nephews, Finn and Charlie. I have heard that Marisol is having quite the time dealing with her two cousins. I imagine they are getting along wonderfully by now, since Alice is due to come home this week. I hope she brings lots of pictures back and some treats from Harrod's for me.

Frolic Girl Lily and I (along with my trusty Assistant to the Chapter Leader, Ed) attended our first ever Weston A. Price Foundation Wise Traditions Conference in Chantilly, Va, last weekend.
Lily was even an Exhibitor with a wonderful table of D'Artagnan pates, foie gras, smoked chicken breast, and terrines. But maybe she didn't bring any pates. Sally Fallon herself visited Lily's table to sample the foie gras, pronouncing it one of her favorite foods. I have it on good authority that she orders it regularly for herself. It turns out you need a bit of liver every day for Vitamin K. This is advice we Frolic Girls would do well to heed.

I did not attend many meetings or sessions or workshops at the Conference, as I was too busy sampling foods from the Exhibitors (including our own Clearview Farm) and informing myself as to the different products we could all be ordering. The most informative session I did attend was Sally Fallon speaking on "Getting Started", in which she pronounced, DO NOT DENY YOUR CHILDREN OR YOURSELF OF SWEET TASTES!

She got a solid round of applause from three people, yours truly included.

Sally also said she was not obsessive about her food, which really surprised me! I think it's a sign that we should not obsess, that this way of eating should be fun and not a chore. I really needed to hear that.

We also heard Michael Schmidt, from Canada, speak about how his grass-based farm was raided and closed down. He faces huge legal bills, and we can all help him. He also appeared on a panel with Sally Fallon, Pete Kennedy (who helped me with my run-in with the so called Health Department), and some others (careful notes were NOT taken) on the farmer's right to farm and sell directly to the consumer. You can read about him here http://www.realmilk.com/real-milk-canada.html

Speaking of that, Lily made friends with a sweet Englisher who lives in Pennsylvania, distributes jams, jellies and fermented vegetables, and helps some of the Amish farmers in his area. Maybe Lily will add a comment explaining more about him.

Lily also made friends with the O'Brien Brothers, sturdy, handsome builders who use only traditional tools and techniques to build beautiful homes. They brought tools, wood, a beam, and a bucket of glue which I thought they could add some lavender oil to, package differently, and sell as moisturizer. They are considering the idea. Lily kept them well-supplied with D'Artagnan food to keep their strength up.

Other highlights of the conference were Ed's consultation with Dr. Ron, the Japanese Miso Men, so polite and dressed so beautifully, and our Live Blood Testing. Stay tuned for a notice about when I will be hosting a Testing session here at Wit's End, which was the name of our home school back in the day.

Joel Salatin gave a rousing closing sermon to the weekend. His latest book is "Everything I Want to do is Illegal" and I highly recommend....no, COMMAND.....you all to read it. You will understand more than every how hard it is for a small farmer to operate, and appreciate our farmer a hundred-fold. We met Joel and he is a wonderful person to talk to, very funny and animated, and he buttons his plaid shirt right up to the top button. Get your men-folk to do the same. It is a nice, severe-yet-casual look. Of course, I would be happy of our men all wore black pants, a white shirt, and a straw hat, but that's not about to happen. Maybe they can start with the Joel Salatin style and work their way up.

Hurry home, Alice, I expect we will have a lot of work getting your house back in shape after Jesse being there alone for a couple of weeks.

IT'S SNOWING! WHAT'S A FROLIC GIRL SUPPOSED TO DO?