WOOOHOOOO! It's Foodie Friday! I love to eat and I love Fridays:) My garden is finally growing like mad and I have loads of fresh lovely greens like lettuce and kale. I'm also cutting off my garlic scapes so I can harvest big lovely bulbs at the end of the summer. Garlic scapes are essentially garlic flowers. If you leave them you'll still get garlic bulbs, but they might not be as big as they could be. You can pull apart the bulblets in the scapes after they open and plant them now for garlic next year. My favorite thing to do is EAT THEM! Most of the time I just chop up the flower and about an inch or so of the stem above and below the flower. They have a bright and mellow garlic flavor. You can use them just like you would garlic. OR you can make them the star of a meal. I have shared a few garlic scape recipes in the past and today I'm sharing a link for 28 yes that's TWENTY EIGHT garlic scape recipes. If you like Pesto, try garlic scape pesto. Try making a delicious garlic scape vinaigrette to eat with your amazing homegrown paleo salad. Of course, if you don't have a garden you can order garlic scapes and all the summer greens you can eat from Rocky Creek Farm which is just 1 mile east of the gym. Happy Eating! Be sure to click on the photo below to get a bunch of garlic scape recipes.
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Providing a safe and inviting habitat for birds in your backyard is simple and will help our feathered friends thrive in the summer and survive during the winter. I have had a certified Backyard Wildlife Habitat in every home I've lived in. My Montana home is Certified Wildlife Backyard Habitat #197,214. All you need to provide is four things: food, water, cover, and places to raise young.
Water Providing water in the summer is not as critical as in the winter. In the winter, many natural sources of fresh water are frozen, but birds still need clean, fresh water for drinking and bathing. Finches, sparrows, warblers and towhees will eagerly visit a birdbath in the winter. To prevent the water from freezing, install a birdbath heater or a “water wiggler,” or dump out the water in the evening before it has a chance to freeze. Either way, change the water frequently. To keep the birds healthy, scrub the bath with a stiff brush every few days. If it is really soiled, use a dilute vinegar solution or mild soap and water to clean it. Just be sure to thoroughly rinse it. Food Food is easiest to provide by hanging a feeder. There are many different types, and each feeder is designed to replicate a specific feeding niche in the ecosystem. The most common feeders are tubes filled with black-oil sunflower seeds that attract house finches; thistle sock feeders that attract colorful goldfinches; and suet feeders that attract flickers, sapsuckers and some woodpeckers. These feeders can be purchased in most nurseries and garden centers. Cover Cover is any place a bird utilizes to perch, seek shelter or escape predation. Just about anything can be used for cover, including living plant material, snags and rock or brush piles. But, the best way to provide cover is by planting a diverse selection of perennials, annuals, grasses, shrubs, vines, and of course, trees. Grasses are especially important because they provide cover during the winter. Leaving spent flowers and stalks through the winter will also provide cover. Nesting Places Installing a nesting box is the best way to provide a place for your backyard birds to raise their young. Birds can be very choosey when it comes to selecting a nesting place. It pays to do some research and provide a nesting box with the appropriate size and dimensions. There are local stores that specialize in birding and wildlife habitat, as well as online sources. An excellent resource for information on nesting boxes is the Cornell Lab of Ornithology website section devoted to nesting box characteristics, http://www.birds.cornell.edu/birdhouse/instructions/. It provides bird-specific nesting box requirements and downloadable plans on how to build your own box. Building nesting boxes is an excellent woodworking project for the entire family. They also make wonderful handcrafted holiday gifts. Providing habitat for our native birds not only helps them survive, but it can also bring us great joy and contentment, as we watch them frolic in our yards. However, be aware that attracting small wildlife to your yard can also attract larger wildlife, such as deer or bears, so always be cautious. Once you have all of the critical habitat pieces in place, you can get your backyard wildlife habitat certified by the National Wildlife Federation. The online application is available at http://www.nwf.org/backyard/. This is a reprint of an article I wrote when I was the commercial horticulture program coordinator for the western area of University of Nevada Cooperative Extension. I recently started wearing a Whoop strap and blogging about my experience. The Whoop strap is a wearable performance monitor that measures your strain (workout intensity), recovery and sleep. Since my Sleep Number bed monitors my sleep, I am most interested in Whoop's ability to measure my recovery and strain. I started wearing my Whoop strap on July 1st and within the first 3 days learned that I was not recovering from my workouts. I certainly was feeling this in my body and I was not at all surprised that the data correlated with my feelings. It takes 7 days of data collection before you can access the Whoop coaching features. Until then, you just wear it all the time. You still get very interesting data within the first week, you just don't get analysis and suggestions. Here's my first week's strain and recovery. As you can see my most intense workout was Saturday July 4 when I hiked up to Cottonwood Lake in the Crazy mountains and my worst recovery score was the next day. The hike was 10.5 miles and since it was the Fourth of July I enjoyed a few post-hike beers back at camp:) I have since learned about how alcohol and dehydration affect your HRV which impacts your recovery.
Monday I drank lots and lots of water and no beer and my recovery was the highest for the week. Whoop calculates recovery using heart rate variability (HRV), resting heart rate and sleep. Before I started wearing my Whoop strap I knew very little about HRV. Now, I'm managing my recovery to maximize my HRV. As you can see in the image above HRV varies based upon age, gender, health and aerobic fitness. Since the first two variables are fixed, I'm focusing on health and aerobic fitness. According to Whoop there are about 5 health factors that can influence your HRV. They are hydration, nutrition, sleep, limiting alcohol and stress management. Since my sleep is solid and my nutrition is on point (thanks to working with Coach Audy) I am focusing on hydration, which Whoop confirms is the number 1 way to improve recovery and HRV. Being properly hydrated has many benefits, all of which I have blogged about, and the benefit that has the most significant impact on HRV is that hydration helps circulate oxygen to your working muscles. My heart is my most important working muscle and HRV tells me how efficiently it's working. According to Whoop I need to drink more water (and less post-hike beers.) How much water should we drink? For many years I have followed the 1/3 to 1/2 your body weight in ounces. Now that I weigh 170 again (thanks Coach Audy) I should drink 51-85 ounces of water (or other hydrating liquids). That's a big range and according to Whoop it's not enough. This inadequacy is expressed both by my low HRV and by the thousands of data gathered by Whoop users. They have calculated the optimal hydration strategy for athletes (that's what we CrossFitters are) to be 1 ounce of water for every pound of body weight. That means I need to drink 170 ounces of liquid every day! I have been barely getting half that amount! In order to drink 170 ounces of water I need to down a little over 5 Nalgene bottles EVERY DAY! I better start drinking and staying close to a bathroom. I have not yet achieved 170 ounces in a day. I am making this a top priority and am looking forward to seeing HRV improve. If you are interested in joining me on a Whoop journey, use my link to get your first month free. If you're already a Whoop user, join our True Spirit Whoop Group with the team code: COMM-AD6416. Stay tuned for my next Whoop! Wednesday post as I explore the strain score and how it relates to CrossFit workouts. Kim Pribanic is an OG! |
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