Ry’s Ruffery Healthy Dog Treats
Don’t feed your dog what you wouldn’t eat yourself.
Ry’s Ruffery was born of a young boy’s desire to make healthy and delicious dog treats (that also smell good) for his puppy, a beagle named Barkley. Using the most wholesome ingredients available, Ry’s Ruffery makes three varieties of dog biscuits – Peanut Butter, Pumpkin-Apple, and Cheddar – all of which are grain-free, vegetarian, crunchy, wholesome, and pretty darn good (yes, I did taste a peanut butter biscuit). But, the ultimate judge is the dog and in my home, both my dogs gobble these treats down. Read more 
“More Great Good Dairy-Free Desserts Naturally”
Eat your fruits and vegetables but make sure you leave room for dessert, as long as the dessert tastes excellent and is made with healthful, honest ingredients…
Imagine a cake without butter, sour cream, milk, or eggs that actually tastes rich and delicious with a light crumb and moist texture. Hard to do? Not if you’re making one of the cakes made from a recipe in More Great Good Dairy-Free Desserts Naturally by Fran Costigan, a professionally trained pastry chef who has shown the world that desserts – and especially cakes – don’t need dairy products to be truly great and absolutely scrumptious. Read more
Where does $1 to United Way go?
We advance the common good by improving education, helping people achieve financial stability, and promoting healthy lives.
United Way may refer to a number of charitable organizations throughout the world but in the United States, United Way generally refers to United Way Worldwide (formerly United Way of America) and/or one of the 1,800 local offices in 40 countries and territories. United Way Worldwide is the leadership and support organization for the whole network which includes 1,256 local offices (approximately 70% of the total number of offices) in the United States (including DC, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands). The states with the most United Way offices include Texas (85), Ohio (71), Pennsylvania (64), Michigan (58), and North Carolina (57). Read more
So Delicious Cashew Milk “Ice Cream”
For the past several years, most non-dairy ice cream has been made from coconut milk, which is delicious but you have to like coconut because no matter what the flavor is, coconut tends to dominate. Recently So Delicious – a leader in non-dairy products – released a line of cashew milk frozen desserts that taste just like ice cream. They can’t call it ice cream because there are no dairy products used to make it but trust me, it’s ice cream. Read more
Gifts for Readers
Readers seem to have a special understanding and appreciation of each other. If a hundred people were walking through an airport and I had to choose five to speak to, I would unabashedly pick those who were carrying a book. If there were more than five carrying books, then I would look at the titles and choose based on what they were reading. Although I could get it totally wrong and would certainly miss some interesting people who carry books on their i-pads, kindles, and phones, there is still something that draws me to people who read the physical bound version. Read more
Finger Lakes Fresh Multigrain Tortillas
Tortillas are one of those products that always look healthy and delicious sitting on the grocery store shelves but sometimes fall short in the ingredient department. Not so with Finger Lakes Fresh Multigrain Tortillas which are made from a blend of locally grown grains. All natural with no preservatives, dough relaxers, or added sugar, these delicious tortillas are ideal to use for wraps, burritos, quesadillas, enchiladas, chips, tortilla bowls, and as a crust for pizza. Simply bring to room temperature (from the refrigerator) to easily separate the tortillas. Read more
Where does $1 to the Ronald McDonald House go?
The first Ronald McDonald House opened more than 40 years ago (1974) in Philadelphia when Dr Audrey Lane at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia saw a need for short-term lodging near the hospital for families of cancer patients. Since then, Ronald McDonald House Charities, Inc. (RMHC) – a public charity under both the IRS Code 501 (c) (3) and 509 (a) (3) – have opened 353 Ronald McDonald Houses, 196 Ronald McDonald Family Rooms in hospitals, and 50 Ronald McDonald mobile health units (Ronald McDonald Care Mobiles) along with providing grants to other non-profit organizations (hence, its 509 (c) (3) designation) and scholarships to students across the United States. Read more
Spotlight
Many years ago, there was a postal carrier who delivered mail to our home nearly every day. A quiet guy who rarely spoke, the mailman often looked at the ground as he walked from house to house delivering letters, bills, catalogs, and packages. One day, the local newspaper carried a story about a group of adults who came forward claiming they were sexually abused by priests in the Catholic parishes they attended as children. Filled with shame and often told to be quiet, many of these children grew up deeply disturbed and troubled, unable to reconcile the sexual assault or the way their families and the leaders of the church treated them. Our mailman was one of those children and it was heartbreaking to be a bystander and read about the personal violation of a person we both knew and didn’t know in the local paper. Read more
“A Thousand Acres”
What is a farmer?
A farmer is a man who feeds the world.
What is a farmer’s first duty?
To grow more food.
What is a farmer’s second duty?
To buy more land.
Why does a society value appearances, secrets, and hard work over basic human rights? And, what does it say about a society that condemns a victim for speaking out against a perpetrator for unspeakable crimes? These are the questions Jane Smiley seems to be asking in her Pulitzer Prize winning novel, A Thousand Acres. Published in 1991, A Thousand Acres refers to that magic number of acreage that most midwest farmers ascribe to own – a thousand acres of rich, fertile Iowa farmland. It’s the number that sets one farmer apart from another, especially if the land has been handed down from generation to generation and is unencumbered by a mortgage. Read more
The “Absolutes” of Florida
There are no absolutes….
This is the time of year when many snowbirds come down to Florida, leaving the cold, icy, grey weather of the northern and western states for a winter of sunshine and warm temperatures. Many of these travelers drive south on I-75, the Florida Turnpike, or I-95, all of which are lined with billboards that may lead them to think that Florida is full of people living in gated communities who shop at a Ron Jon Surf Shop, and need Disney tickets. And, judging by the sheer volume of billboards advertising the services of Alex Shunnarah and The National Life Center, they may also come to believe that visitors or residents need a personal injury lawyer and that Roe vs. Wade was a nuisance judgement set down by the Supreme Court more than 40 years ago that is best ignored. But, billboards don’t tell the full story. Read more
Paddock Post 