rebuttlal- OG to Come

I would like to apologize to Jean Stryker and anyone else whom I mislead with my letter. I truly meant the Amazon is not being deforested to grow broccoli for local Brazilians. The Amazon was however legally and illegally deforested in 2005-2006 to produce part of the 53.4 million tons of soybeans in Brazil.

Wait, I think we are on to something here…Soybeans are VEGETABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!! All that tofu and soy milk vegetarians consume is really at fault for destroying the rainforests! Possibly, but it’s a stretch, and here is why.

The vast majority of Brazilian soy exports go to companies such as Cargill who in turn sell it to companies like McDonalds who use it principally as animal feed. So yes the Amazon is being deforested to grow vegetables- soybeans- but these soybeans do not make it to my plate in soybean form- they are force feed to livestock across the Atlantic who turn the soy into hamburgers!

What should we do though? Contact companies that produce the food you eat! Ask Questions like “does your soy come from areas previously known as tropical forests?” or “Was your livestock feed soy from former forest land?” Be thorough and persist until you get your answer and then tell everyone you know what they said! Gardenburger, a well known meatless burger, states they get their soy from farms in Illinois.

If Broccoli does become an easy to grow, subsidized cheap source of feed for feed lots then yes I would agree the world will turn itself upside down to mass produce broccoli and it WILL have the same destiny as corn and soy- Can you imagine High Fructose Broccoli Syrup! I hope it’s green!

But why does this happen to food? One reason is the cost of feed for commercial animal products account for 60-64% of poultry and egg costs, 17% of beef cattle costs, and between 47%- 65% of hog production costs. It takes 3 pounds of grain to produce one quarter pound hamburger (minus the bun and fixing’s). This could make 2 loaves of bread, or 6 plates of spaghetti.

Give a starving person a burger he/she eats for a meal, give him/her some grain and he/she eats for days.

I will let other writers get into different facets of the food debate while I tirelessly search blackle.com for the connection between broccoli and the Amazon!

We are Home!

In the words of Michael Franti, "Asheville, How you feelin'??!?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!!?"
Di and i are back in Asheville and our new number that now works is 828-225-6986. We have been able to see some of your friendly faces but can't wait to see everyone and catch up! We are pretty much doing house stuff so if you swing by we should be there!~ Hope to see you all soon!~

Close to home!

Hey folks we have toured part of the east coast and are heading home soon! We can't tell you how great it was to see some of our friends and family thus far and can't wait to see a bunch more in SMASHEVILLE! Much love- enjoy the random pictures!

North Island

Here are some pictures still of Australia! A shot out to Delaware, a cool picture of Di and i biking, a trailer we stayed in and some cool plant life! Enjoy!

So we have made it to the North Island. Some fun facts about NZ. There are only 4 million people here. 3 million live on the north island and of that 3 million 1 million live in Auckland! Wild stuff! Two of those millions are Drake and Erica who we rocked out with for a few days in Wellington aka WINDington because it is freaking windy as anything! I had to get crampons just to stay upright as we walked around the town. No really it was wild. Drake and Erica were amazing hosts and there housemates rocked as well. We celebrated Christmas in July! It was fantasgreat! The Te Papa museum was amazing! a truly beautiful and education place.

We then headed to Tongariro to do the northern circuit hike- famous from Mount Doom in Lord of the Rings. Unfortunately, after we had prepared 3 pounds of rice and beans because there is no way to cook while hiking out there a blizzard came through and threw us off the mountain. Their were winds of 200 km/h going on and snowing! About 2 hours into our hike di and i regrouped and decided that this was not the way we wanted to spend our last week on "vacation." So we high tailed it to Auckland and won a cut throat game of Cranium with Anne and her beautiful family!

We are now on Waiheke Island WWOOFing with a splendid family! We have been gardening, cooking, and hanging out with some rather energetic 4 and 5 year olds! It's been fun. We are very excited to come home and see you guys all soon!

Pictures

Hey folks here are some picture of Australia-

Pictures of Di and i wine tasting in the hunter valley, some cool rock formations in the Blue Mountains, a puppet shop in Sydney, a cool tree in the sunset and the Cliff Mallee tree. I really like this tree b/c the bark is looking like it is melting off!
Enjoy-

Strazzer US Reunion East Coast Tour Dates

Hey folks New Zealand is great! We rocked out the South Island with the help of James, Biff and both mommie and daddie birken! It was great. We hiked the Kepler Trail a bit in Te Anu, we went cross-country skiing in Wanaka, we went hiking in Queenstown, we eat a "world famous" salad and sausage buffet in Greymouth. Good times!

We are planning out return to the US and it will be a short and sweet tour down the east coast as we make a b-line to Asheville. We would love to see our friends along the way so if you live in any of these areas hopefully we can set something up. Below are our tour dates! Get excited!!!

8/3-5th- NYC- wake up on the 5th and head to NJ
8/5- NJ- wake up on the 6th and head to DE
8/6- DELAWARE- wake up on the 7th and head to DC
8/7-?DC
8/8 or later- Asheville!

NEW ZEALAND

If you know me well you know how much I love this country. It is interesting to be here in the winter since the last time I came it was sunny summer (during January unfortunatly when most people don't have vacation). It is still sweet now but for a super outdoor enthusiast who likes to hike it is a little bit of a bummer. The cadebury chocolate factory was a good side trip. They have a chocolate fountain that is in an old huge silo that is quite the site and only there for your entertaiining. thank you to all the amazing couchsurfing houses we crashed at. I had my sights set on the Milford trek, proclamed to be the best hike on the planet. There are many avalanche paths though and I don't need that. So we did the kepler hike. We didn't do the top section becuase the snow drifts made you step down into the snow all the way to your hip and doing that for 8 hours does not appeal to me. But it was sure beautiful up there. Mountian ranges covered in snow, last time I was here it wasn't as glourious as this. The forests are covered in moss or ferns, the lake is everywhere and they have huts with tiny wood stoves. really i can not believe wood stoves are made this small. small enough that you have to chop wood down to the side of your foot. we were a little low on food but thankfully our freind farmer neil shared his feast with us. hopefully i will throw a photo up soon. we will be back in the states at the beginning of august and down in asheville by midmonth. i am pretty excited to see you! I get to see my parents in a couple of days here in nz cool!

Hunter Valley

THESE PICS ABOVE ARE FROM THAILAND. WE WILL SORT IT ALL OUT EVENTUALLY. MAYBE WHEN IT DOES NOT COST 77$ PER HOUR ON THE EMAIL AY? We spent a few days in the Hunter Valley - Wine Country. It was great. We rented some bikes, stayed with an amazing family- The Towers, and went around tasting wines, cheese , and chocolate! It was fantastic to say the least. There were many new wines that we tried b/c they are specific to that region and they were lovely! We eat at Smelly Cheese for lunch twice and hit up a fantastic chocolate factory! not too bad! We made it to about 12 wineries out of 120 and learned a large amount of knowledge about wine. Fun times!

We also got to see a herd of Kangaroo's chillin in the bush and then hop off in line. It was fun to see. they seemed to hop in a line formation with a baby leading the pack and also pulling up the rear.

After that we headed up to Byron Bay and as luck had it we arrived in the middle of Farmers Market day and eat some fantastic foods. A beet, spinach, sweet potato, chick pea layer cake- which we amazingly colored! Good food!

We have done some whale watching b/c the whales migrate up the eastern part of Australia to have their caves. We have seen a bunch slapping the water and breaching as well. Byron Bay is the eastern most part of Australia so we are pretty close to home right now- can you feel the good vibrations coming your way?

Here are some random pictures from Thailand!

Quick Updates!

Hello folks all is well here DOWN UNDER! Yes we have made it to Australia and we just came back from our first hike in the Australian "Bush" and we were able to see our first kangaroo! Hot Darn! We have seen plenty of Kangaroo testicles because apparently it is funny to attach them to random objects such as key chains, bottle openers and t-shirts! Well done Aussies!

DI and i sat for a Vipassana Course. It consisted of 10 days of not talking and 11 hours of meditation AND I AM HAPPY TO REPORT NEITHER OF US RAN AWAY FROM THE COURSE-(This happens quite often).

I will attach more photos soon. We have couch surfed twice thus far and it is great!!! Thanks Kendall and family, Rose and Lisa!!!

We also took a Thai cooking class in Bangkok before we left-thanks Emi- and we have learned that if you dislocate the the legs of this insect that is in the cockroach family it smells very sweet! look for it at your local international markets!

We'll see you all in about 6 weeks!~

Koh Phangan

So we have been living the island life pretty much. A lot of chillin', reading, relaxing, eating, meditating, and so forth. We have been to about 6 of teh 16 beaches on this island and we have even "Beach hopped" because some of them are about a 5 minute hike away. I don't want to brag or anything, but i was on 3 beaches in one day! Oh yeah. Here are some pictures from them.
The first is of Di hiking through the jungle as we went from Haad Tien to Haad Yan beach, then a picture of the twig walkway on the rocks, another great picture from our walk, then a picture of the sky, and a picture of Haad Rim beach as we went on a boat tour of part of the island! It was fantastic!

Pictures from the Haad Rim Beach Party

Here are some pictures from the party. it was real fun. You drink out of Buckets! it consists of an alcoholic drink, a mixer, and a energy drink. It's pretty tasty and funny at the same time.
The pictures are of di drinking from the bucket, a board of designs you can get painted on your body, the fire sign for the party, me dejected because i had to wear di's purse during the party, and some dude passed out towards the end of the night! Enjoy~

Thailand- Largest Beach party EVER!

Hello all we are all good!

we just went to the largest beach party in the world on Koh Phangan Island! The pictures are not working right now but i will post some later. we are all good and we are happy and healthy! talk to you guys soon and see you all soon! 10 weeks left!~