Vegan Finds, Vegan RVing, Nature, Volunteering, & Playing Catch-Up

First I want to say THANK YOU for those who commented on my last post and sent words of encouragement.  I truly appreciate you all!  This post will be more on the positive side.  I have LOTS of vegan finds to share with you over the last several months.  As well as some of the volunteering, family, nature, and camping posts to share!  So...here...we...go!  The photo above is one of the new vegan butters I found.  Since I found this months ago it could very well be old news but I think it's still worth posting!  Country Crock jumped on the plant-based train and came out with this new 'butter' made from Avocado Oil.  I have to say I do like it.  I found this one at my local Tops Market.

These next TWO photos are vegan yogurts I found.  The flavors were good but they were a tad on the thin side.  I believe I found these at Wegman's.

Of course, I LOVE Lemon Meringue flavored things so I had to try this one at the very least!

Here are 4 of the dressings and such that got me thru this season of camping!  I have been trying to follow more and more vegan RV'ers and vegan campers to connect with, too!  I know I have posted the Daiya dressings before but I don't think I have featured the Field Organic Goddess Dressing or the Annie's Lemon & Chive but I enjoyed all 4 of them!

Here is a shot of my cabinet for the camping season.  Of course there were other trips to the grocery store in between but I thought it was worth a corner in this blog post.  I tried the new Daiya Bac'n & Cheddar and I wasn't that much of a fan but at least I can say I tried it once.  It was too salty for me.  I'm just now getting to the point were I am eating the soups because it cooled down for a few days.  Rice is always a good choice.  Trinity and I shared the organic applesauce.  There are some Nature's Bakery items in there and a few Coconut Silk Milk's in there, too!

On to the snacks!  My father went to a snack and candy show and brought back a bunch of munchies for me.  Over the last several years he has noticed more and more vegan options!  YAY!  This was one of the new flavors back in April from Vegan Rob's!  I have to say I LOVED them!  A nice kick!  Addicting!  YUM!

And speaking of addicting...THESE GUYS!  OMG!  I adore them!  The only negative?  I can't find them around here!  Maybe that is for the best...I would eat them TOO MUCH then if they were readily available.

While camping this year we found MANY birds nests!  And some of them were in the strangest places!  This one was behind our camping in between the fence and the water hook-up.  It was built AFTER we hooked-up.  I checked on it each time I went to the camper and the eggs were so small!  Too small to be Robins.  After researching it for a bit, I found out these were Chipping Sparrows.  3 out of the 4 eggs hatched and I was actually able to see them fly out of the next a couple of weeks after they hatched, too!

Another thing that happened in the spring was another Refugee Hike.  Once again I helped with the food - as did my mother!  These kids were AMAZING!  The youngest was about 14 and the oldest of was 24.  There were also a few chaperones, too.  Unfortunately, I missed the canoe trip they did in early August because of the volunteering I do at our fair.

Also in the spring, I was inducted as a new Zonta Board Member.  I'm pictured here in the black shirt with red scarf.  I really LOVE being a part of the Zonta Organization.  My only regret was that I didn't join sooner.  In addition to being on the board now I am the Service Committee Chair for a 2nd year in a row.  This year I am also on the Advocacy and Media/Communications Committee (as I was last year) and new-for-me this year is becoming a member of the Fellowship Committee, too!  I'm VERY excited about the new year!

You may remember that last year our club started collecting bras for Free The Girls.  We have continued to do so and have collected 2,001 bras so far.  I doubt we will be slowing down anytime soon!

These next TWO photos are from some of our Suffrage Centennial Committee Meetings.  We have been discussing and planning various events with several other organizations around our county to celebrate 100 years of Women's Right to Vote.

Many of the ladies have been purchasing and making banners, sashes, flags, and more!  It's really neat to see!  Tonight we actually have an actress coming to town to portray Susan B. Anthony.  I will try and take pictures and blog about it soon!

And, finally, here are some photos from Warren County Serves that took place in Mid-May.  It's a group that formed a year or so ago and they lost many of their members even before the first annual event.  I've always wanted to do something like this to encourage and promote volunteerism in our area so I ended up joining the group!  We had projects that included beautification at our local Humane Society as well as tagging and sorting at the thrift shop they have on the other side of town.  There were several parks that also did beautification projects during that weekend.  There is a community house for those with mental and physical disabilities that a group helped scrape, paint, and stain steps, too!  We also have an organization in our county that houses and pairs service dogs and emotional support dogs to those who have PTSD and other emotional difficulties and that group helped clean-up their parking lot, outside of the building, and such.  Another place that had volunteers was our fairgrounds.  We did a LOT of painting, and I mean a LOT.  And others helped with cleaning some of the buildings and landscaping.  There were other projects, too, these are just a few.

I'm already pondering my post for tomorrow.  I still have a lot of catching up to do.  Let me know if you think these posts are too long or if you prefer them.