Another Day in Paradise

Good eatin', for chickens

2012-02-08T10:34:00.000-05:00

My chickens are one of the primary beneficiaries of my garden pest control endeavors. I do not let my chickens into the garden to search for insect pests on their own. If that was all they did, it would be very helpful and cut me out as an unnecessary middle man, but the true result would be that I would have not only a garden free of pests, but a garden free of any plants at all. Trust me, I know my chickens. The other day they decided to completely consume my several year old, overwintering, adorable patch of the succulent plant I call "Hens and Chicks". Cannibalistic little buggers!! So, during the summer, I am left to the task of handpicking the insects that plague my crops and serving them to the chickens on a silver platter, so to speak. They are especially fond of cabbage worms, cut worms and those giant, juicy grubs (I think they might be Japanese beetle grubs??). There are some bugs I can never seem to get them interested in though, and who would blame them. Would you eat a slug?? I would also never in a million years, even if starving and desperate beyond imagination, eat a squash bug, but I was very annoyed that my chickens turned out to be as picky as myself.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

I have recently discovered, however, that during the winter when bug-pickins' are slim, chickens are willing to expand their dietary palettes. (Hence the decimated "Hens and chicks") I do not have any squash bugs to feed them this time of year, but I do have a house, like most everyone else, that has been invaded by their close cousins, the brown marmorated stink bug. I used to think lady bugs were the worst things you could share your house with over winter, but these guys have convinced me otherwise. But! Hallelujah! It turns out chickens think that stink bugs are a delightful treat, at least in the winter. So, now rather than being annoyed when I find one of these guys crawling around on the windows (or worse yet, my pillow) I capture it in a little jar and toss 'em to the poultry. The other day I found a cluster of 30 or so stink bugs hiding out in a cranny of the outdoor kitchen. What a feast! I see this all as a slightly sadistic win-win situation -- household pest turned chicken treat turned eventually to yummy eggs for breakfast! Now, hopefully the chickens will remember about eating stink bugs when squash bug season rolls around. If not, maybe I'll hire this kid.

Sorry, I know I've put this picture on my blog before, but I just can't help it. It gives me the shivers all over to even imagine!! I just have to share the horror. And hey, the kid is happy!

2012-02-03T13:37:00.005-05:00

So, did the groundhog see his shadow yesterday? I was busy with a prenatal visit with my midwife and wasn't paying attention. Are we going to get six more weeks of winter? Are we even going to have six weeks of "winter" this whole winter? Today is blue skies, sunshine, mild temperatures and birds singing -- quite nice, but not very February-ish.

At my prenatal appointment I learned that the baby is doing fine and growing well. I, however, am not growing. I weighed in exactly the same as last month's appointment. To clarify, I have of course grown, somewhere in the vicinity of 12-14 pounds since the beginning, just not anything in the last month. Hmmm....the midwife was surprised, but not worried. She seems confident I'll catch up here soon, and meanwhile I have free license to eat whatever and whenever I want. Not that I haven't been doing that already. I've been eating whenever I'm hungry, and mostly light meals as I don't have room to stuff myself anymore. Also, what I initially thought was a tendon or something being uncomfortably stretched in my right ribcage area turns out to be a grumpy gallbladder. (Always wondered where that thing was.) Apparently gallbladders have a tendency to get grumpy about pregnancy. It's been recommended that I avoid fatty greasy foods (not a problem) but also get plenty of fat in my diet. I actually felt obligated to go and order a whole basket of french fries after my appointment yesterday. Such a conundrum. Smaller, lighter meals seem to sneak by my gallbladder without upsetting it, which is what I like, but not necessarily good for weight gain. I'm taking this as a sign from God that I need to eat more chocolate. Yes, that is definitely the answer. :)

Totally different topic, but if you happen to catch a copy of the latest issue of "Mother Earth News" (Feb/March 2012) you'll find a picture of my garden on both the contents page and on page 83 in the "Country Lore" section. They've also printed a copy of my letter to them about how great our concrete block garden beds are. Pretty cool. I think I get paid for this, although I haven't gotten anything yet. I'll give them a couple of weeks before I send someone over to break their legs. :) I also recently had a "Letter to the Editor" published in "Backyard Poultry" magazine. I'll be happy to sign autographs for anyone who is interested. :)

2012-01-27T12:25:00.001-05:00

My simultaneously pregnant sister Lynn and her husband Ben flew down from Alaska last week for the one get together we'll be able to have during the pregnancies. As part of their east coast visit, much of the family drove down to my grandparent's house in Atlanta to catch up with my mom's side of the family and attend a double baby shower thrown for Lynn and me by my grandmother. I didn't pull my camera out a single time, but here's some photos from Lynn's camera.

20 weeks pregnant, due June 5th and 6th! Haha Lynn, from the front angle, I still have a waist. :) And no, we did not coordinate our outfits.

No waists for either one of us from the side angle. There was some question as to whether or not Lynn was carrying twins, but there's only one in there.

My mom didn't coordinate outfits with us either. Pink was just the theme of the day. Four generations in this photo - my grandmother Ruby, mother Karen, sister Lauralee and niece Ruby (named for her great grandmother of course).

Using my grandmother's stethoscope from her nursing days to try and hear heartbeats. Ruby wants to help.

Beautiful Ruby with her beautiful quilt handmade for her by her namesake.

My nephew Logan, Ruby's big brother. He and Ruby were the highlight of the trip.


Grandmother and Daddy Bob, my mom's parents.

A Letter to the Neighbors

2012-01-19T09:49:00.000-05:00

Dear Local Wildlife Neighbors (in particular, those of you who inhabit the skies above us),

I really enjoy your presence. I've been a lifelong fan. In fact, I spent four years in college just to learn more about you and how to work with you, not against you, in my daily activities. However, my decision to raise chickens was not meant to be a joint activity. I've done my best to not tempt you with the presence of my chickens -- sturdy coops, pens, well secured food barrel, free ranging only with supervision, etc. Therefore, I would appreciate it if you would hold up your end of the deal and LEAVE MY CHICKENS, AND GUINEAS, ALONE!!!!

Thank you.

Your neighbor, Amanda

If only it was that simple. I had the disheartening experience once again this morning of finding a partially consumed carcass in a pile of feathers, inside the chicken pen. It was barely beginning to get light outside, and I just assumed it was yet another guinea casualty (they have short memories, and several of them have taken to sleeping outside the coop again). However, this death was my remaining Salmon Favorelle hen (the hawk Joe spied about a week ago had indeed gotten the other SF hen. We found the carcass in the back corner of the outdoor kitchen a couple of days later). I'm pretty sure this newest death was also the work of an aerial predator, which unfortunately means that my chickens are not safe in their pen during the day when I'm not there. Once upon a time, I had a plastic netting "roof" over the chicken pen to protect from overhead attacks, but snow, ice and sun broke it down in less than two years. Now it just looks like my pen is decorated for halloween with torn remnants of netting draped all over it. I was all excited about heading into this coming summer with 9 hens, five of which were going to be in the prime of their laying days, but now I'm down to 3 young hens and four older ones. That is still plenty for us, but these birds of prey need to leave it at that! Argh!!! And, before anyone starts sharing their favorite predator extermination tips and offering to bring over their guns and take care of the problem, even if I wanted to take such steps, hawks and owls are federally protected species and it is illegal to kill them. So, let's just put that argument to rest before it even starts. Looks like it's time to do some re-roofing and reinforcing of the chicken pen.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

Introducing...

2012-01-15T14:29:00.000-05:00

Baby Wareing! 19 wks and 2 days old, give or take a day or two. On Friday, Jan 13, Joe and I got to watch the little squirt squirming around in there, moving arms and legs, swallowing...so talented already! And, everything looks good and healthy. I could fairly easily see the lobes of the brain and heart, spinal cord, etc. while the ultrasound guy was checking them out. However, he also proclaimed the presence of a gallbladder, two kidneys, liver and some other stuff that I just took his word for. The cyst is still there, but not growing, so doesn't seem to be an issue. As I write this, the little guy (I consider that a unisex term) is bopping all around in there! Feels like popcorn going off in my belly. Mmm, popcorn....

10 Things

2012-01-14T14:19:00.000-05:00

I have apparently been nominated by a fellow blogger for the "Kreative Blogger" award. I usually prefer awards that come with a cash prize as well, but I'm honored nonetheless. This award apparently comes with a little picture that I may or may not figure out how to post on my blog and some requirements. The first requirement is that I tell you 10 things about myself that no one knows. The second requirement is that I nominate 5 other bloggers for the award. As I don't even think I know five other blogs/bloggers to nominate, I'll probably break that last rule. As for the 10 things no one knows…I'll give it a shot. By "no one" I assume they mean the readers of this blog. Obviously, I'm married and live in a one room cabin, making Joe at least one other person on the planet who knows everything about me. And, since I know that most everyone who actually reads this blog is either a friend or family member, there's not much I can pull out of the hat to surprise you, but I'll try to keep it interesting.

10. I really, really, really want a donkey. I can't come up with a single reasonable reason for owning a donkey, but every time I see one out in someone's field, I can't stop myself from smiling and exclaiming, "Oh! A donkey!" So, surely having one I could see everyday would be nothing less than life enriching, right? And I don't want just one either; I want two. Everyone needs a sidekick. I think I'd want one miniature donkey and one standard size donkey because I love the idea of big and little sidekicks, with the little guy being the boss, of course.

9. As a really young kid, I went through a phase where I prayed every night for quite a long time that my blue teddy bear, named Blueberry, would come to life. At one point, I was convinced I saw him move, just a little! I went through a similar phase with a repeated prayer that a puppy (or two!) would just miraculously show up on our porch one morning and we'd of course have to keep it.

8. Also as a young kid, I spent hours walking through the woods convinced that if I could just project an innocent and loving enough vibe, woodland creatures would flock to me. When my Disney-esque fantasies failed me, I resorted to more straightforward methods of interacting with the local wildlife and became a very skilled lizard and skink catcher. I would then proudly carry my captives around on the front of my shirt, or my head.

7. Speaking of reptiles, I really don't have any fear of snakes, or spiders for that matter. Granted, I can be startled by a snake or a spider (even a puppy or a kitten can be startling if it shows up under unexpected circumstances), but I don't consider that the same thing as a fear. Crickets, on the other hand, I find a bit unsettling. I'm not afraid of them, nor dislike them necessarily, they're just, well, unsettling.

6. I listen to the radio a lot while I'm doing stuff around the house. I really only have two stations I switch between - NPR and Top-40. This makes for an odd couple I guess, but I like to think it means I'm well rounded.

5. I once won the Peppermint Patty Award of Excellence in tree identification for a dendrology class in college. In a separate forestry class, I was voted to have the best decorated hard hat. I decoupaged autumn leaves onto it. :)

4. For my birthday one year (maybe somewhere in the 6th, 7th, or 8th range), my grandmother gave me a BBC recording of the books "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass". This started a lifelong appreciation for these stories and the genius of Lewis Carroll overall. I could quote large chunks of the books and find their wit and wisdom applicable to so many aspects of life. At one point in "Through the Looking Glass" the White Queen is disappointed in Alice for not believing her when she told her she was 101, five months, and a day old. Alice asserted that "one can't believe impossible things." To which the Queen replied: "I daresay you haven't had much practice. When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!" I must say I agree with the Queen. I have no problem believing impossible things, even contradictory things. I do, however, reserve the right to only choose pleasant impossible things to believe. (See #'s 9 and 8)

3. I do not like cucumbers. I realize this puts me in a very small minority of people, but it is true. Over the years, I have reevaluated most of my food dislikes and found that I do indeed like them - such as olives, mushrooms, and lentils. However, no matter how much I want to be one of those people who likes cucumbers, they remain firmly on my dislike list.

2. I have an obsessive habit of mentally dividing words, phrases, even whole paragraphs, into groups of three letters. It really upsets my mind when they don't evenly divide into threes, and I'll sometimes cheat and include punctuation marks, or un-contract contractions if necessary, to make it work out.

1. And finally..I don't shave my armpits in the winter. (Caught ya off guard on that one, didn't I! ;)

A Blog Within A Blog

2012-01-11T12:48:00.003-05:00

It's a funny concept to be blogging about being blogged about, but I'm pretty excited to have had Beagle Beads featured on a jewelry review blog, Jewelry Revelations (click the link to view the blog). As the namesake and mascot of the business, Wilson is also feeling pretty famous. We're trying to get him to tone it down, though, because there's nothing worse than a beagle with a big head. :)

In other exciting news, Joe is home! He had a great experience at his Vipassana meditation course in GA, and we're having a good time spending this week together before he starts back to school. Once again, his absence was the perfect proof that HE is the reason for the bed covers being all askew every morning. The whole time he was gone, I merely had to slide out from between the sheets in the morning and the bed looked good as new. In the whole 10-days, I only had to "make" the bed twice. Sure enough, one night of him back home and the bed had to be practically reconstructed the next morning. Of course, he says the same thing is true of when I go away and he is the only one sleeping in the bed. But, since in those cases I'm gone and not able to verify his facts, I'm sticking by my story. :)

On Friday we go in for our 20-week ultrasound. Sorry everyone, no we're not wanting to find out the baby's gender, but it will be exciting to see the little squirt again. Even as fat as I'm getting, there are days when I feel like I've imagined the whole pregnancy thing. There's this weird window between the first trimester, when the nausea and exhaustion has you pretty sure something is going on in there, and the time when the baby gets big enough to be consistently felt bumping around in there that you have no real proof that you haven't just eaten too much for dinner.

Besides seeing the baby, we get to also check on the status of the cyst, or blob as I like to call it. Since my last ultrasound 8 weeks ago, I've been sending my best blob-zapping mind waves down into my belly, so I won't be surprised when they say it's up and disappeared completely. :) At the worst, I'm hoping for the same diagnosis as last time - "stable and simple".

For the moment, the guinea massacres have ended. We're down to six guineas left. Joe was walking back to our place from having been visiting up at his aunt and uncle's house yesterday when he startled a hawk that was sitting on the roof of the outdoor kitchen, scoping the place out. He didn't see any signs of death and found 8 of the 11 chickens hiding under the porch behind a pile of firewood. When I was doling out chicken scratch yesterday afternoon, I got a headcount on all but one of the Salmon Favorelle hens. I'm hoping she was just inside the chicken house or around the corner somewhere. I'll have to do another count before I start to worry. These birds of prey really just need to move on and find some other food source!

P.S. Jenny, don't worry, I've accepted the 'nomination' and will be posting my list of secret facts soon. Patience my dear, patience.

Starpod in Winter (or Experiments in Photography)

2012-01-06T16:30:00.001-05:00

I had just gotten home from work the other day and stopped to admire the sunset before diving into unloading the car. I LOVE winter trees, and the Starpod silhouetted on the hill was so nice. Once again I was tempted to attempt the impossible (at least for super amateur photographers like me) and capture this moment in megapixels. The sky was a perfect mix of blues, yellows and oranges, but the first photo came out like this....all blue. Pretty, but not at all what the sky looked like.

I then switched to my camera's "sunset" setting and got the following picture, taken only seconds after the first. This one included the yellows and oranges, but completely deleted out the blue!

So, you'll just have to use your photoshopping imagination and combine these two photos in your brain to get an idea of the actual scene I was viewing.

The irony is, I've just spent all day at work researching photography equipment and reading reviews on cameras so I can make some purchases for work. My goal is to be able to take over the role of photographer for my boss' business, North American Gem Carvers (or rather revive the role, seeing as how our previous webmaster and photographing employee hasn't been with us for 5 or so years now). For the record, if you click on the above link, I did in fact take the photo of "Phoenix" that shows up on the front page, and am pretty darn proud of it if I do say so myself. However, if you click the "Galleries" link and view any of the other photos of gem art on the website, those were not me, but that's what I'm aiming for. Taking photos of gem art, it turns out, is as elusive as trying to capture a beautiful sunset. But, I aim to try. At least I'll have appropriate equipment now, so I'll only be able to blame myself for poor results.

This, by the way, is why my job is so hard to describe when the inevitable question "what do you do?" comes along. Well, I spend my summers pulling weeds and canning tomatoes, and my winters becoming an expert in gemstones, all under the same employment umbrella.

2012-01-04T16:26:00.002-05:00

Ahh, thanks to some bitter winds and ice cold temperatures, I'm finally getting some good sleep! Whereas nightly feeding raids by owls don't seem to do much to affect a guinea's sleeping preferences, cold blowing snow sure will! Maybe owls don't like to hunt in frigid temps either, but whatever the reason, the guineas all slept in the chicken house last night, no one got killed, and I got to sleep like a baby. This arctic blast is a short one, though, and the temperatures are supposed to start climbing back up again in another night or two. I hope the guineas stick with the new program so we don't just start the cycle all over again. But, at least I've caught up on some sleep.

Speaking of cold temperatures, I've noticed in the past few days that 49 seems to be the magic number in my house. I'll load the stove a final time before going to bed (which means it will burn for another 45 minutes or so), the indoor temperature will be in the mid to upper 60's, and when I wake up in the morning 8 or so hours later, it'll be 49 degrees in the house. I'll build a fire again before leaving for work, once again leaving the house in the mid to upper 60's, come home 8 or so hours later, and it'll be 49 degrees inside. Not exactly a balmy temperature, but not bad considering it's a small house with no back-up heat source, and the outside temps have been in the teens to barely topping freezing.

Happy New Year!...I think

2012-01-02T12:31:00.000-05:00

Happy 2012! My experience of the new year so far has been one of carnage and sleep deprivation, but we're only thirty-six hours or so in. I'm still optimistic that the year could turn out okay in the end.

I'm just shy of eighteen weeks into this pregnancy, and I've already reached the point where a comfortable, full night's sleep seems like a distant memory. According to the pregnancy literature, at this stage both back and stomach sleeping are off limits for me now. This wouldn't be a problem except that sleeping on my right side causes serious discomfort in my right rib cage, and sleeping in my left side soon leads to a very achy left hip. I basically spend my nights flopping from side to side like a fish out of water, swapping hip pain for rib pain and vice versa. To top it off, on new year's eve night, I was having an ongoing stressful, scary dream (I'll stop just short of calling it a nightmare). Despite my frequent wakefulness and attempts to shake this dream, it kept sneaking back every time I'd fall back asleep. I finally gave up the fight at 7:30 a.m. new year's day, not feeling rested at all, but too frustrated and achy to continue pursuing sleep.

The first order of business for the new year was to let the chickens out of the pen. As I approached the pen, I was startled by a very large bird making a swift departure from the area and disappearing into the woods. Hmm, not a good sign. Sure enough, I found a gruesome scene behind the chicken house - a bloody, half eaten guinea carcass surrounded by piles of feathers. No wonder I hadn't heard a peep out of the chickens yet. Generally, when we lose a bird to a predator, it just disappears with no trace, and the rest of the birds continue on about their business as if nothing had happened. However, having a comrade being feasted on right outside your front door has a whole different effect on the morale of a poultry flock. Even after I had disposed of the carcass, the birds were all very quiet and cautious the whole day. I had a hard time shaking the feeling myself.

As night rolled around again, I was disappointed to find that six of the remaining seven guineas were once again lined up on their very exposed perch across the chicken pen, easy pickin's for what I was sure would be a returning hungry owl. Only Ranger consistently sleeps in the house with the chickens: we don't call him the Lone Ranger for nothing! Oh well, what can you do.

I went to bed around 10 o'clock and slept peacefully until my bladder woke me up sometime later. I was disappointed to find that it was only 1 o'clock, but I managed to ignore the increasing winds and the incessant flapping of a stray piece of tin and fall back asleep in a reasonable amount of time. The next time I woke was to the sound of screaming guineas flying right past the window. Instinctively, I jumped out of bed and ran onto the porch, but what could I really do? By the time I got outside, all was quiet again and I couldn't see anything. So, back to bed (now it was 4 o'clock) I went, this time wide awake and heart still pounding. A few minutes after getting back in bed, I heard what was definitely an owl right outside the house, making the most spooky owl noise I've ever heard. It was quite chilling. My attempts to fall back asleep were not successful this time. When faced with bouts of sleeplessness, I often pull out my iPod and listen to some music. I find the band "Owl City" to be a good one for drifting off to sleep to, but given the circumstances, I wasn't in the mood. So, instead I turned on the lights, built a fire, ate a grapefruit and watched movies on the computer. Around six o'clock I finally drifted back to sleep and managed to fit in another hour and a half or so before the sun started guilt-tripping me to get up.

It was no surprised that when I went to turn the chickens out this morning, there were only six guineas hanging around. Thankfully, the owl decided to take-out rather than dine-in this time, so I didn't have any carcasses to deal with. Either the guineas will wise up and follow Ranger's example of sleeping in the safety of the chicken house, or, to look at it optimistically, I'll only have to go through this another five or six nights and then there'll be no more guineas to eat! Of course, I'll still be pregnant for five more months, but it's always nice to only have one sleep obstacle to deal with at a time.

Dream World

2011-12-31T11:11:00.000-05:00

I'm pretty darn sure I felt the baby move for the first time last night. I'm not sure if I was just falling asleep, or woken up from sleep, but I distinctly remember it. However, this morning, I couldn't be sure whether or not it was a dream. I've been anxiously awaiting those first little thumps and bumps in there, and I'm a little bummed now that I'm not sure if I've actually felt them or imagined them. For now I'm going to continue to assume it wasn't a dream, and I'm looking forward to more conclusive, preferably daytime, proof in the near future.

Speaking of dreams, though, I did have what was definitely a dream last night, and it was so vivid and semi-amusing, I just thought I'd share.

So, Joe, Lisa and I were all at a very fancy wedding reception, which just happened to be held in a swanky banquet hall located inside a very average American shopping mall. The wedding was for an old college acquaintance of mine, not a very close friend, and I wasn't even really sure who's wedding it was. I'd apparently responded to the invitation without paying much attention and was waiting for the moment when they announce the wedding party to clarify who's wedding reception we were at (apparently we'd skipped the whole ceremony). Meanwhile, we were looking over menus to pick what we wanted to eat, and the three of us were sharing a table with a half-dozen or so other people, all strangers to me. It wasn't like any wedding I'd ever been to as we were paying for our food, and boy was the menu expensive! I was starting to regret coming to this wedding! The menu listed a "gourmet entree" for $30.00, but at the bottom they had a "6 gourmet entrees for $60.00" option. I pointed this out to the rest of the people at the table as it seemed the obvious way to go for 6 of us to pool our order and get an entree for only $10.00! However, no one else was interested and considered it too big of a hassle. Even Joe and Lisa weren't interested and were happy to pay $30.00 for a basic salad, the only vegetarian option on the menu.

I was pretty disgusted with the whole group for their complete lack of logic, so I left the reception entirely. I ended the dream wandering the mall looking for a food court where I could get some french fries.

Okay, I guess the dream isn't that funny, it was actually pretty frustrating. But I woke up so amused with my inner psyche for creating such a vividly realistic and mathematical world. I've always believed that dreams mean something, though I've rarely had a clue what. This one was especially real and precise, and I really want to make some sense of it. Alas, all interpretations elude me at the moment, although I do fancy some french fries right about now.

2011-12-23T11:12:00.001-05:00

Finally, at the ripe old age of seven months, Elvis the Salmon Favorelle rooster has decided to test out his pipes! His new crow isn't much to crow about at this point (haha, pun intended), it's very screechy in fact, but I'm sure he'll have a voice that'll live up to his namesake in no time. Speaking of which, I'm thinking I picked a good name for him, don't ya think? Doesn't he just look like he could have a career in Vegas? Besides his fancy looks and his new-founding crowing abilities, he's not very rooster-ish overall. He's at the bottom of the pecking order and is terrified of even the youngest of the guineas. If there was ever to be an assault on the hens, I'm pretty sure he'd grab the nearest one and use her as a living shield rather than risk himself to protect her. After our last rooster, Reynaldo, went all Rambo on us and attacked our niece, I'm pretty relieved to have a timid rooster though. I'll serve as protector of the flock, his job is just to look and sing pretty.

Actually, my whole flock of chickens has me pretty happy these days. We've gotten two eggs a day for the past two days in a row!! There's been a couple of smaller eggs lately that make me wonder if the young hens are starting to lay. They're seven months old now, and should be old enough to be laying, but I wasn't really expecting anything out of them until spring. Of course, maybe they're as confused about the seasons as I am. Yesterday's 'first day of winter' felt pretty darn spring-y to me! Maybe the older hens are just feeling rejuvenated after the long break they've taken. Maybe it's their version of a Christmas present. Who knows, but if they keep this up, they'll be upgraded from "pet" status to "pets with benefits" status again in no time! (No offense to Wilson and Foxy, of course.)

2011-12-18T13:40:00.000-05:00

We wish you a....

Merry Christmas
Happy Hanukah
Joyful Kwanzaa
Wondrous Winter Solstice
Blissful Boxing Day (for our Canadian neighbors)
maybe just a Peaceful Weekend

and of course, a HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

2011-12-14T15:13:00.002-05:00

It's that time of year....

Yes, while this does want to make me start singing Christmas songs (not that it's hard to get me going on some Christmas carols!), I'm really meaning that time of year when the woods are littered with the chopped up remains of deer left behind by hunters. Not quite as delightful an image as chestnuts roasting by an open fire.Well, Wilson may disagree with me. I don't know where he finds them, but every other day he comes trotting through the yard proudly caring a whole leg or some other body part. Even if he doesn't bring parts back, he will disappear for an hour or so and come back looking like a walrus, feasting on something too big to bring home and enjoy in the comfort of his own yard.

This may all seem well and good, but I don't think this carnivorous orgy he goes on this time of year sets very well with him, digestively. Like most of us, he probably has eyes that are bigger than his stomach, and doesn't know when to say when. He then spends the rest of his day lying around looking lethargic and well, just plain icky... exactly like I do when I've overeaten or indulged in something I know my mouth likes better than my gut does. I've also noticed a definite connection between his hunting season feasts and an increase in seizures during that time. Plus, now that Joe and I have switched sides of the bed, my nose is now directly above Wilson's fireside sleeping spot. Let's just say it's like sleeping next to one of those air fresheners that sends off blasts of aroma every few minutes...except one that's gone horribly, horribly wrong. The other day I had to hurry Wilson out the door because he had this look on his face that I could only interpret as "I'm about to barf a steaming pile of semi-digested, rotten deer carcass on this rug." It's a good thing for Wilson that this has been a fairly balmy winter, because he's going to be spending most of his time outside until he gets all this feasting out of his system!

Tri/Se-mester Success!

2011-12-09T12:01:00.001-05:00

Three classes down, one to go!! Joe has only one final exam left to take, next Wednesday, and then he gets a 4-5 week break until the next semester. He'll be gone for about two of those weeks sitting a 10-day meditation course somewhere in Georgia, but it will be great to have him around more the other weeks. He'll be taking another four classes in spring, and it is looking like he will have that all packed into three long days a week, and two weekends during the semester.

I have officially made it through my first trimester and am now 14 weeks pregnant. I'm wearing maternity pants for the first time today, and my bladder no longer has room to go a full night without emptying. My energy is returning a little bit, and I no longer feel quite as sluggish.

In honor of these major accomplishments, I'm proposing a "Mester Success" celebration next week. Not sure what that will entail, maybe dinner and a movie??

2011-12-06T13:52:00.001-05:00

We're down to nine guineas. We haven't suffered any massacres yet, but something about the cooler weather does seem to bring the predators creeping out again. It seems that after each death lately, the guineas all decide to roost in the chicken house for a few nights, but this pattern hasn't stuck for the long term. After a few nights of safety, they regain their confidence and head for the trees again. I feel a little guilty because I heard one of them getting snatched the other night, and I didn't bother to get out of bed and do anything about it. In my defense, I have leapt out of bed countless times, heart pounding, running around in the dark and the cold with a dim flashlight responding to guinea alarm calls, only to find nothing apparently wrong. The two times I have actually encountered a predator (an owl and a raccoon), my presence seemed hardly to faze them. I may have temporarily put a hitch in their plans, but I could tell they were just waiting for me to tire and go back to bed so they could resume their business. In the end, I've decided that I have done my duty by providing a pen and a house for protection, but it is the guineas who must decide to take advantage of it, or take their chances.

Speaking of predators, we had a weird encounter with some local wildlife the other night. After eating dinner, Joe and I were sitting in bed watching a movie when we heard some strange noises from the front porch. I've mostly been desensitized to outdoor noises as lately they invariably turn out to be our neighbors' dog come for his nightly visit, but this noise was less gallumphing and more subtle. I turned on the porch light and shone the flashlight around the yard, but all I saw was Wilson in the garden, looking off towards the chicken pen. I called him inside, which he happily came, but after getting his seizure drugs and subsequent treats, he wanted to go outside again. Moments later, we heard more noises, as if someone was trying to reorganize the junk under our house. Joe investigated this time and came a minute later to tell me "There's a dead opossum under the house, and Wilson is trying to get to it."

By the time I'd put my robe on and we'd stepped back on the porch again, Wilson had gotten the opossum and pulled him out into the yard. Wilson was standing back away from the opossum, looking confused. The opossum did appear to be dead, but after watching him for a second we could see him breathing. Wilson had apparently only been interested in a dead opossum and wanted no part of a live one, so he left the scene. The opossum was sporting a wound in its side, presumably incurred by being drug around by a hound dog's mouth, although I'm no judge as to whether or not it was a fatal wound.

After debating for a minute or two what the best course of action would be, Joe managed to scoot the beast into a bucket. The opossum put up no fight, maintaining his illusion of deadness to the end (although maybe he was near to dying for all I know), although Joe said he did turn his head to look at him as he was being scooted into the bucket. Luckily, it was a bucket with a lid, so we put him in the car and drove him a mile or so away to a large area of woods by some roadside dumpsters. When Joe released him from the bucket, he did get up and slowly walk/wobble off into the woods. When we got back home, I went straight to he chicken pen to close everyone up. All was quiet the rest of the night, and I slept like a baby.

2011-12-01T08:24:00.001-05:00

Only one more month to go in 2011! I should probably go ahead and start practicing writing 2012; that always trips me up when a new year comes along. Up until now, it's been a fairly balmy fall. We've had a couple of cold days, and even some flurries, but they'll be followed by a week of sunshine and temperatures in the 70's. Thanksgiving week was especially warm. I usually like to decorate my Christmas/winter window just after Thanksgiving, but the warm weather had me thinking I should be working in the garden instead. I waited 'til we had a gray, rainy day, which made it seem more wintery, and forged ahead with the window dressing. That gray rain turned out to be quite a nor'easter! (I've labeled it a nor'easter because the eastern window on our house was covered with raindrops, blown with great force almost completely horizontally, while the western windows were completely clear - quite the opposite of our normal pattern of storms/fronts.) When the rainclouds cleared away, they left behind them much colder temperatures. Looks like I decked my halls at the perfect time!

Okay, now for a total change of subject. Several weeks ago, Joe and I had serious pressure cooker incident. Joe put some black beans on to cook, and then we both went outside and completely forgot all about them. I think they were supposed to cook for 15-20 minutes, but it was over an hour before Joe suddenly remembered them. By that point, our entire compound smelled like burnt beans (we'd been hanging out in the yurt, and the smell hadn't quite penetrated that far yet), and Joe ran back to the house, only to find it full of black smoke. The good news is, our house was not burnt down. The bad news is, we did not have beans for dinner, and a VERY strong burnt bean odor had permeated every square inch of our house. Thankfully, Joe tackled the pressure cooker clean up, a task that is ongoing as every time we have used it since, it still gives off a burnt bean smell and dark black juices come oozing out of hidden crevices. Whenever weather permitted, we opened windows and doors to air out the house, but weeks later, it still smelled like we were a household of smokers. Then, yesterday, I accidentally stumbled upon an antidote! It did indeed involve stumbling, of sorts, as I clumsily knocked over a bottle of tea tree oil, which broke and spilled all over the floor. With tea tree oil, a little goes a long way! Even after mopping it up, the house still exudes a delightfully mild essence of tea tree oil - MUCH nicer than stale burnt bean smoke.

Things to be Grateful for

2011-11-24T07:48:00.001-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! This has always been my favorite holiday. The only gifts exchanged are good food and the company of friends and family. What a wonderful idea to have an entire day devoted to gratitude, something we could do with more of every day (although not with the same level of feasting!). Joe and I are in Va Beach, spending the week with his dad's side of the family. On Sunday, we will be back home and gathering together with most of my family. And somewhere in all of that, Joe will find the time to complete three major papers/projects to turn in as soon as school is back in session on Monday! He's handling it all quite well, which I am thankful for. :)

I know my blog posts have been few and far between of late, but I have a good excuse. I'm three months pregnant! This has affected my blogging activity in several ways. First off, I wasn't ready to make a cyber announcement until now, and like the old adage goes - if you can't tell your most exciting news, don't tell anything at all. (Okay, I may have twisted that one just a little bit.) Secondly, pregnancy, especially the earlier weeks, has transformed me into a motionless blob with the metabolism of a shrew. Many days, the most strenuous, productive thing I do all day is making the bed, and that just doesn't seem like an accomplishment worth blogging about. To catch you up, though, here at the highlights of the past 12 weeks.

-Started out the pregnancy with a bang, or more like a whisper, when I fainted at the health clinic after they drained me of much of my blood in order to run "comprehensive bloodwork". (The nurse swears it was only a 1/4 cup or so, but I'm dubious.)
-I won't get into the full back story here, but I currently find myself on a gluten-free diet and feel compelled to stick with it till the baby is here, just to be on the safe side. This, combined with my recently developed complete lack of interest in food while simultaneously being ravenously hungry ALL THE TIME have made it difficult to feed myself. Joe can attest to the fact that I've had several complete emotional breakdowns over food. He has been a caring and patient supporter through all my emotional roller coasters, but I did have to pull out one of my pregnancy books with "Tips for Dad" and show him in black and white that you are NOT supposed to laugh at your pregnant wife. He seemed to find it funny that I was weeping over the fact that I was tired of everything tasting like rice.
-Right at 9 weeks, the whole family got to go on a short emotional roller coaster with me when I experienced a miscarriage scare. Thankfully it was just a scare, and all is well. Turns out that in addition to growing a healthy little swimmer in there, I'm also growing/hosting a giant cyst on my right ovary, so large it is shoving everything else in there over to the left. I now have medical proof for my long held theory that I am "crooked to the left".
-I'm taking advantage of all my down time to tackle reading the entire Harry Potter series straight through. I'm halfway through book four at the moment.
-I've only barfed once (there was a close call in a Kroger bathroom, but we won't count that) so far, at Joe's sister's house. It was our first time staying with her, and we'd like to be invited back some day, so we didn't let her in on this piece of information.

2011-11-02T12:05:00.005-04:00

I recently watched a documentary movie called Gasland, a look at the environmental risks and corporate greed behind "fracking" for natural gas. If you don't already have enough things to worry about, I highly recommend it. To be fair, in searching for the movie's website, I came across this disclaimer website by the natural gas industry. Even if they are right and drilling for natural gas is nothing short of God's perfect gift to humanity, the whole question has made me even happier about our recent purchase of a solar oven from the Solar Oven Society. (Actually, the oven was a joint birthday gift from Joe's Granny!)

The solar oven hardly replaces my propane camp stove, but why not use the glorious power of the sun when it's available? I'm still new to the whole solar cooking game and have had a mix of success and failure. The failures usually occur when I expect a sunny day, put food in the oven, head off to work and the clouds roll in to stay. On the successful sunny days, I've cooked rice, quinoa, butternut squash, potatoes, onions, peppers, tomato soup, greens, even gravy. Here's a photo of a recent success - stuffed bell peppers and pineapple upside down cake.

The solar oven functions somewhat like a solar powered crock pot. I've seen mine reach temperatures of 250 degrees Fahrenheit in full sun, but with intermittent clouds, it usually hangs out more in the 180-200 degree range. This means you can fill it full of food and then head to work and dinner is cooked when you get home (if the sun cooperates). You also don't add water when cooking vegetables. They steam in their own juices. The hardest part for me is trying to think ahead to what I want for dinner before I'm even done with breakfast. I'm curious to see how winter will affect it's performance. Lisa has been using a solar oven as her only cooking source for almost a year now (she eats sandwiches on cloudy days). During the winter, she added on the additional reflector shield and put the whole setup inside her greenhouse and kept on cookin'.

With all this talk of food, my stomach is reminding me to check the clock. Looks like it's lunch time!

Buffalo Mountain, Floyd Co.

2011-10-23T16:32:00.000-04:00

Don't know what this bush/tree is, but the berries are beautiful!

Futile attempt to capture the depth and scale of beauty from the top of the mountain.

Futile attempt number 2

My hiking buddy, Kerri. This photo was taken by someone who had never used a camera before.

2011-10-19T12:50:00.000-04:00

It's that wonderful, beautiful, slowing down time of year. Most of the garden beds are empty and nestled in their blanket of mulch (I'm too lazy for cover cropping). I've spent whole days at home without feeling any "needs to get done" pressure. So nice. Unfortunately, the chickens are also going into their slowing down mode. Egg production is about one egg every two or three days. I can't imagine extruding something as large or larger than my head from my body almost every day, so I can appreciate their need to take a break for a while, but I'm really missing my grits and egg breakfasts! I was bemoaning this fact to Joe the other day and he said "You know, you might just have to break down and buy some eggs. It's not the end of the world." To which I responded: "I know, I know. But, it's gonna have to be some $4-5 local, free range, pastured eggs. I just can't go back to factory farm eggs, not after having my own chickens for so long. No more slavery eggs." At this point Joe stopped me, laughing, and said "You've got it all backwards. You only have to justify yourself if you're choosing the less ethical option. Not the other way around." Hmm, he's right. I guess I'm just used to a society that has to run cost/benefit analysis on everything and justify the economics of a situation before the ethical considerations really come in to play. Joe is oblivious to such cultural conditioning I guess, and the economics of a decision are usually the last thing on his list of deciding factors. Seems to have worked for us so far! So, enjoy your seasonal break, my fine feathered friends. I'm off to Eats!

The World's Nicest Outhouse: A Tour

2011-10-12T11:57:00.002-04:00

Pretty quiet on the home front these days. I haven't had much time on the computer lately as Joe's schoolwork is keeping it pretty busy. Not much going on in the garden either. I did manage to get my garlic planted the other day, and we're enjoying the fall crops (or at least the remnants the slugs are nice enough to leave us) and greens that have rebounded after the summer's heat. So, I'll take advantage of this lull to give you all a virtual tour of the World's Nicest Outhouse. This is certainly old news to some of you, but I was surprised to find that I actually had not ever posted official photos of the outhouse on this blog. So, here you go.

Little cabin in the woods.

Joe's handmade wooden latch and handle, the one that Granny couldn't figure out.

Original artwork by a local artisan.

The throne, and bucket of sawdust for "flushing". The hardwood floor and wall paneling were salvaged from a trash pile.

Beautiful views and a diverse library, how Granny entertained herself until her rescue. (See previous post if confused). Timber framed with old barn wood. There's even a hidden storage loft, full of beekeeping supplies and empty canning jars.

2011-10-05T17:18:00.000-04:00

Joe's grandmother on his mom's side, Granny, has been visiting from Florida for just over a week now. Granny is quite a character. She is 3/4 (at least this is what her official "Indian" card would say if she were to apply for one, which she refuses to on principle) Cherokee and Creek and loves to collect dropped guinea feathers from my flock to use in making fans for pow wows. She is just shy of 80 years old and sleeps outside every night in her home state of FL. During good weather, she usually sleeps outside when she comes to VA to visit as well.

Given her sleeping preferences, she immediately fell in love with the StarPod. Joe and I have both been sleeping indoors for several weeks now as the weather has gotten much cooler in the evenings. Joe held out longer than I did, but he finally decided to come indoors, under these circumstances - I've sadly let go of "my" side of the bed so he can sleep by the window, and he has put a board (an old coffee table top) under the foam pad on his (really mine) side of the bed to mimic the firm sleeping conditions he became accustomed to in the StarPod. But I digress...anyway, Granny immediately decided to try out the StarPod as her guest room. The very first night we had a thunderstorm. At first it was just the distant roll of thunder and flashes of lightning on the western horizon. Then it became a little breezy and began to drizzle. Still nothing to worry about and probably nothing Granny hasn't seen before. By 10:30 the wind was whipping and it had begun a torrential downpour! I could not sleep worrying about Granny, so I climbed out of bed, grabbed Joe's raincoat and a dim LED flashlight and ran through the storm up to the hilltop. I shined the light through the screened walls of the StarPod but couldn't see much. The only response I got to my queries of "Granny! Are you alright? Are you getting wet?" was a low groan. Granny was sound asleep and snoring like a bear! Looks like I was the only one bothered by the storm.

Several mornings later, I once again left the house by flashlight to head to the outhouse. I found Granny out in the yard, watching the still very brilliant stars. She was eager to visit the outhouse herself, so I led her to it. I gave her the quick flashlight tour and then closed and latched the door for her and headed back to the house to check on my pot of grits and eggs cooking on the stove. Over the next ten minutes or so, I poked my head out the door several times and called for Granny, but got no response. I hoped she knew that she should come join us for breakfast. A few minutes later, Joe (who'd been meditating in the yurt) and Granny came up on the porch, laughing. Poor Granny had not been able to figure out the latch on the door and had pushed in vain to open it. She called for help a couple of times but then calmly decided to sit down and peruse the library of books we have in the outhouse, figuring someone would need the outhouse soon and let her out. Joe heard her from the yurt and went to rescue her. Good thing Granny is such a jolly soul.

Granny still loves me, even though I locked her in the outhouse.

2011-09-29T16:37:00.000-04:00

The second clutch of guineas has hatched! There were initially eight, but that number dropped to six within the first week. It would be even lower if it weren't for Lisa and me. Just a day or two after the hatch, Lisa found a lone baby frantically wandering her yard and peeping its lungs out trying to call for mom. Lisa scooped it up and came to find the rest of the flock, all of whom were down at our place around the chicken pen! While I was out on the porch the other day, I heard some incessant peeping coming from the pasture between our place and Lisa's. Once again, all of the guineas were over at the chicken pen. I had no idea how I'd ever find a baby guinea the size of a golf ball amongst several acres of waist high grass, but I followed my ears and sure enough, I found a lone little peeper and carried him back to his mom and siblings. It seems the adult guineas are losing their enthusiasm for parenting!

The first batch of guineas is almost a month old now, and they're looking and acting more and more like little adults. They are fully feathered and often test their wings on short flights. Their mom, Silver, has decided it's time for her to return to the trees for roosting at night. I'm not sure how or where the little guys spend their nights all alone. We're down to seven from an initial twelve, but I'm feeling pretty hopeful about at least one or two of this batch making it to adulthood.

The family that primps together, stays together

Big babies, little babies!

2011-09-27T16:28:00.001-04:00

All summer long it seemed like we were living in a desert. Now that it is fall, the weather conditions more closely resemble that of a rainforest. Whereas I've never been to a rainforest myself, I imagine them to be filled with beautiful parrots and funny monkeys. Our newly emerging rainforest, however, has neither parrots nor monkeys, but it is hosting a plague of slugs! More specifically, my garden bed of fall greens is hosting a plague of slugs. Yesterday morning, still in my pajamas, I handpicked at least a hundred slugs off of the broccoli, kale and cabbage plants, and I was just barely scratching the surface. I found another 30 or so drowned in the beer traps I set out the night before. The whole endeavor almost killed my appetite for breakfast.

All of the gray rainy weather has limited my outdoor activities, so I've finally gotten around to an indoor project that I've had in mind for a long time. For about a year, I've been saving my empty poly-weave chicken feed bags and have now begun the process of "up-cycling" them into tote bags!

My sewing machine handled the job like a champ, and I am quite pleased with the results. My chickens only go through about one bag a month, or less in good foraging season, so I will run out of raw materials shortly. Joe's uncle has about 50 chickens, so I'm hoping he'll save his feed bags for me. I've had several people encourage me to try selling them at the farmer's market. Who knows….


Chickens in a haybale bed

Louise is still slightly bedraggled but is doing great. You can see her wing feather are even starting to grow back.

2011-09-15T17:23:00.000-04:00

Over a week after her near death experience, Louise seems to be doing fine. (Before this incident, I couldn't tell Thelma and Louise apart, but I've now decided that this must be Louise, as that sounds the most like Lazarus.) I was home all day on Monday and decided to use that occasion to supervise her first day back out with the rest of the flock. It took her over an hour after I opened the coop door to decide she was ready to come out. When she finally did leave the coop, she seemed very cautious and spent most of the morning hanging out in the edge of the woods by herself. The rest of the birds completely ignored her as they went about their important chicken business.

Late morning, I was working on a project over at the outdoor kitchen, and all of the birds were hanging around to see if there would be anything interesting in it for them. Louise timidly came over to see what was going on. Most of the birds continued to ignore her, but Chickadena went running over to her. My worries that I would have to protect her from bullying were completely unfounded. Chickadena spent the next hour or so just standing beside Louise, moving only when she moved. The rest of the day I rarely saw Louise without Chickadena right by her side. Maybe I am just a complete sap, but it totally warmed my cockles. Chickadena continues to amaze me with how he defies all chicken stereotypes, male or female.

I was delighted when Louise chose to roost by herself in the little coop Monday night because I was able to effortlessly close her up in solitary again. I had to work Tuesday and Wednesday and I was worried about how she'd fare cooped up with the rest of the flock with no one around to keep the peace. I let everyone out again today, Thursday, and the positive trend seems to be continuing. Louise is more active in chicken like behaviors, although she still keeps to herself with only Chickadena for company. The other old hens are not seeking her out to bully her but they are getting very territorial and treating her like a newcomer when it comes to food supplies. Louise is not taking it laying down though. I've had to step in and break up several overly intense staring matches. I spent a couple of hours today digging potatoes and I seemed to be harvesting three to four times as many giant, juicy grubs as I was potatoes. They were everywhere in the soil! I think they are Japanese beetle grubs?? Anyway, I did my best to make sure I got every last one I could find and then treated the chickens to a disgusting, squirming feast. It definitely set off a feeding frenzy. Louise was eager to partake as well, and I was glad to see that her appetite has returned.

It has been a deliciously cool, gray, fall-like day. I'm seeing the first maples starting to turn. Makes me want some hot tea and warm apple pie. Mmmmmm...

2011-09-12T15:57:00.000-04:00

I've always worried what would happen if our neighbor's dog, Hank, came back to visit while we weren't home to intervene or entertain. Sadly, we got the answer to our question last Tuesday. Lisa, Joe, Wilson and I came home from a long, rainy day of work/school to find a yard full of feathers and one of our Buff Orpington hens (Thelma or Louise) lying in the mud in the driveway. I was actually horrified to find that the hen was still alive. Joe wrapped her in a towel and put her in the dog crate to live out what we assumed would be her last few minutes. I did a head count of the other chickens and found that one of our young Barred Rock hens was missing. It could have been two separate unrelated instances, but it is awful coincidental. There were large dog prints in the mud of our driveway, and Hank did not have an alibi for at least one hour of the day, so I felt pretty confident assigning him the blame. I kick myself for not going out in the rain the night before to close the pen, and the chickens beat me out of bed in the morning, otherwise they'd have been safe(r) and sound(er) in their pen while we were gone.Joe, Lisa and I debated whether or not to help hasten the end of the injured hen. I had not seen the wounds myself, but Joe described them as "bad, really bad". The hen seemed pretty calm and I did not want our fumbling attempts at euthanasia to make her final moments worse than they would be otherwise. No sooner had we decided to leave it alone and let nature run its course when the hen was up on her feet, clucking and looking for a way out of her prison. We transferred her from the dog crate to the vacant goat house chicken coop with some food and water. Time would tell if she was going to continue to mend or take a turn for the worse again. During the transfer, I did catch sight of her wounds. Not to gross anyone out, but in addition to having lost much of her feathers she had a hole in her neck the size of a quarter and the skin on her back between her wings was peeled back to bare muscle (at least this is the best I could tell from the glimpse I got). I really did not see how she would survive.That was a full five days ago. After she dried off, her remaining feathers fluffed back out and make her look just slightly bedraggled rather than half naked. Her neck feathers now cover the wounded areas of her back and neck, so I don't really know what's going on with them. All I know is she is still alive, and seems to be doing fine. Mostly she seems bored by her confinement. Now I am facing another tough decision of when to let her rejoin the flock. Although I've been amazed at her seeming recovery and happy to have her alive, I'm still cautious as I know that we are not out of the woods yet. When an animal has a will to live, though, they often seem to defy all odds. She definitely seems to have that will. Whereas I'm nervous about letting her rejoin the flock so soon, I worry that keeping her isolated too long may drain some of that will to live. I've been going to check on her several times a day since the incident, and she seems to enjoy the company. She especially likes being sung to, she cocks her head and mumbles (what exactly do you call that purring thing chickens do?). My favorite song for these situations is one I learned from the movie "Babe" where the farmer sings to Babe when he is sick, and of course Babe gets better!

"If I had words to make a day for you,
I'd sing you a morning golden and new.
I would make this day last for all time,
then fill your nights deep in moonshine."

I'm going to be home all day tomorrow, so I'm thinking I'll take that opportunity to supervise her reassimilation into the flock. Wish us luck!

Links to the Past

2011-09-06T14:08:00.000-04:00

I had a surreal experience the other day. You may recall my posts from earlier this year (see archived posts from April 2011 if curious) when Joe and I had done some local cross country adventuring while investigating routes to visit our friends at the Light Morning Community on foot. I posted quite a few photos of an old homestead we passed through, tucked away in a little hollow far from any road. Here's a couple of those photos to jog your memory.

I've always loved exploring old homesites and abandoned houses. I find it fascinating to imagine who might have lived there and what their lives were like. This homestead in particular seemed quite elaborate with many little outbuildings scattered all over the hillside. Fast forward almost five months and I am reading through a National Geographic Park Profiles book entitled "Blue Ridge Range: The Gentle Mountains", by Ron Fisher. The book is loaded with beautiful pictures, and one of them was of the very same homestead I've just mentioned. There was no mistaking it. Plus, they had the names and photos of the inhabitants - Lonnie and Nettie Graham, brother and sister. According to the photo caption they "lived off their land for more than 76 years without electricity or running water."

The book was published in 1992, and based on their apparent ages in these photographs, they're certainly not still around almost 20 years later. Oh, how I would love to have met them! Actually, I do kinda feel like I've met them. I've peered into the windows of their old home, nosed around in their outbuildings. I now know that it was probably Lonnie and Nettie that gathered, split and stacked all of the stovewood piled in the shed. It really makes me want to revisit this spot, now that I have names and faces to put into my imagined world. Unfortunately, it was on the neighboring property that Joe was escorted off while hiking to Light Morning, and the man who did the escorting warned that his neighbor, aka Boundary Bob, was even more adamant about not allowing strangers on his land. I've been lucky enough to know some similar people in my life. Our neighbors Hattie and Libby, two elderly sisters who did eventually get electricity and had one lightbulb in the living room of their 3 (or was it 2) room house. Due to their lack of teeth, I never understood a word they said when I'd encounter them out for a walk, but they were always smiling, so I would just smile and nod, hoping that was the appropriate response. Another neighbor, Raymond Pruitt, who lived by himself until his death sometime in his 90's. When we first met him, he promised us a cabbage if we could guess his age. Even my own beautiful great grandparents, who had all the modern conveniences, but lived with a grace and simplicity rarely seen today. I feel blessed to have known these and other people like them, but now that I'm old enough to truly appreciate their value, are there any Lonnies and Netties left?

Rainy days and Mondays...Yay!!

2011-09-05T13:57:00.000-04:00

It's a rainy day!! An honest to goodness rainy day! Because of this rain, and several recent thunderstorms, our rain barrels are all full again, and I'm taking a nice break from the work and worry of garden watering. The broccoli, kale and cabbage I put in the ground last week is looking great. We've already harvested a mess of kale. In fact, here's a photo of that delightful meal. Except for a few seasonings and some olive oil, everything on this plate came from right here. Lately, at least one meal a day is like this, requiring only a trip to the garden to stock up on ingredients. So why, then, isn't our grocery bill reflecting these benefits?

Silver's nest-sitting was a success, and we've had a dozen baby guineas running around for about a week now. The other female is following suit and sitting on a nest of her own. Meanwhile, her mate has decided to share fathering duties for the current brood with Ranger. They're quite the modern family. So far, Silver has been a relatively calm mother, quite at ease with me being around her brood as long as I don't make sudden moves. There was one morning, however, when she took a cheap shot at me when I was going to let the chickens out, still in my pajamas and bleary eyed from sleep.

The young chickens have not been as lucky where her good graces are concerned. I can't imagine what threat she thinks they pose, but for some reason she ruthlessly attacks them! I had to step in yesterday to save two of the teenagers because Silver and her two baby daddies had them cornered in the pen and were vigorously plucking feathers out of them while they screamed and attempted to squeeze themselves through the tiny gaps in the chicken wire. Of course, even after I'd gotten the three guineas blocked off in one corner of the pen, it took almost five minutes for the two traumatized chickens to figure out they could now exit the pen in safety, bless their little pea-brained hearts.

2011-08-29T15:15:00.000-04:00

Dear Hurricane Irene,

Thanks for NOTHING! Not a DROP of rain! Okay, so there were a couple of drops, but if I can count the number of individual drops, it doesn't count (no pun intended). So, I've just spend another hour or so carrying buckets of water to the remaining productive plants in my garden. I was going to plant lettuce, but I just can't bring myself to voluntarily bring another being that requires constant watering into this world. I did plant broccoli, kale and cabbage transplants the other day, and they are more than enough extra work at the moment.

Whereas my fall garden crops may be few and far between this year, we're making good use of the summer crops. We've been digging up the potatoes as we need them, which so far is working great. Of course, we'll have to get them out of the ground before it freezes, but it is nice to not have to figure out where to store them just yet. Joe and I cooked up this beautiful, straight from the garden, root vegetable medley to take to a back-to-school potluck hosted by one of Joe's new professors. Joe almost didn't want to take it because he didn't think they'd appreciate it. He was right, they didn't. In fact, they hardly touched it. But, it was a win-win situation because we got credit for bringing a dish and we got to bring it home and enjoy it for dinner last night and lunch today!

Photo courtesy of Joe, who's into the artsy, angled camera look. This photo was taken before the veggies went in the oven. When they came out, they were all bright red from the beets.

Speaking of professors, today is Joe's first day of classes at Radford!! He started his graduate assistantship job last week, but now the real adventure begins. It looks like between classes and work, he's going to have a packed schedule all day Monday through Thursday. He's hoping to have most of his Fridays free, but we'll see how it goes. He's pretty excited, and I'm very excited for him. Now that Joe's back to school, he's gone through a complete wardrobe transformation. From somewhere deep under the bed came a tote of clothes that I didn't even know he had. Five years of marriage, and I've never seen these outfits before. The Joe I know isn't completely gone, though, because he is talking about making a pair of nice duck pants, suitable for school. ;)

Sourdough Saga

2011-08-27T16:17:00.000-04:00

On several occasions, I have done some petsitting/farm tending for our friends and neighbors, Greg and Robyn. So far, except for one dead horse and one dead chicken, my track record has been pretty good. This most recent time, in addition to the cats, the livestock and a couple houseplants, my list of charges included a sourdough starter. Now, Joe and I have had several sourdough starters over the years, and they've all done quite well for a time, but they've also all taken a turn for the worse and ended up quite foul and dead. I was a little bit nervous that we'd somehow jinx this sourdough, but what could really go wrong in a week, eh?

We transported the starter to our house for the week so we'd be sure to remember to feed and stir it daily. Things were a little iffy right from the start. On the first day they were gone, I was leaving our friends' house with the bowl full of starter when I tripped on the step from their kitchen down into the mudroom. It was one of those weird, slow motion falls, and after a couple of twists and turns, I miraculously ended up on my feet, up against a wall, tangled in a pile of shoes. I was still holding the bowl of starter and canister of flour and had managed to not drop or spill either one. Whew!

From there, things mostly went smoothly. Mid-week I noticed some small patches of mold growing on the upper edges of the starter bowl. I scraped them off, and Joe, our main sourdough expert, assured me it was fine.

Greg, Robyn and family were returning from their beach vacation this afternoon, so I had only to return the starter to their house and do the morning chores. I also needed to look up some directions to a baby shower I'm attending momentarily, so I grabbed the computer to make use of their internet connection while I was over there. So, with the computer bag over one shoulder, and the starter bowl and flour canister in my arms, I headed out the door. This time I tripped at the top of my own porch steps, and had another harrowing slow motion fall, from a much higher point than before. I screamed the whole way down with this one, but once again, with a couple of mid-air twists and hops, I miraculously managed to land on my feet. I even held on to the bowl of starter, although I definitely spilled some this time! The computer bag, the flour canister and myself were all covered in sticky sourdough starter. Although I was unharmed, I was definitely shaken. Joe had heard my screams and left his yoga session in the yurt to see what was wrong. When he found me sitting in the yard covered in globs of sticky white stuff, his first thought was that the guineas had flown over and dropped some serious poop on me.


Our computer bag does kinda look like a huge bird pooped on it. Smells pretty bad, too. :(

We managed to get most of the mess cleaned up, and there was even a substantial amount of the starter left in the now incredibly sticky bowl. I had planned to switch the starter to a fresh new bowl and wash out the old one, so it was just as well. Back in my friends' kitchen, I was just about to pour the starter into the new bowl when I noticed something moving around. Looking closer I could see that there were several dozen little fruit fly grubs happily swimming around in the starter. Yuck!! That was definitely the final straw. The whole batch was immediately dumped in the field and the bowl hosed and scrubbed clean.

When I called to explain why there'd be no sourdough starter waiting for them when they got home, Greg had to hang up quickly because their daughter had just tripped and fallen down some stairs. Hmmm…sounds like we were having similar mornings. Sorry Greg! As Joe said, there was definitely some bad joo-joo (sp?) around this sourdough, so maybe it is best to just start over.

When Chickens Attack

2011-08-25T09:20:00.000-04:00

This is the gruesome scene I found in my boss' garden the other day. The chickens had a secret tunnel under the fence and had gone to town on one of the tomato plants! They weren't nice enough to just eat one tomato completely. No, they had to eat 1/3 of EVERY tomato. Oh well, guess they'll be laying red eggs for the next few days. :)

Speaking of tomatoes, today is the day that I finally am home and have time to can my own tomatoes. I've been stashing some in my cousin-in-laws freezer as they ripen, so I've got a 2-gallon bucket full of sliced tomatoes plus a big bowl full in the house and whatever comes off the plants. Joe's mom is bringing down her ripe tomatoes to add to the mix, so it should be a worthwhile canning venture. Time to go fire up the outdoor cookstove!

P.S. Chickens are sometimes the attacker, and sometimes the attacked. Sadly, Bebop has gone missing. Joe says that at least since Bebop and Rocksteady are both gone, and weren't with us long at all, that we can reuse their names. As fun as those "Top Hat" chickens were, I'm thinking their goofy head feathers put them at a serious disadvantag and make them more vulnerable to predators. The remaining young chicks, who are almost full chicken sized at this point, have made the move to the big house without a hitch. On the guinea front, Silver has been sitting on a nest for several weeks now. I wish I could say I'm excited, but experience has taught me this will be a brief moment of super cuteness followed by a relentless slaughter and if we're lucky we won't come out at the end with fewer guineas than we have now. I guess we'll find out soon enough.

Chicken Transition

2011-08-17T15:47:00.001-04:00

Last night the little chicks (not going to be able to call them that much longer) got moved to the big house! Thanks to Ranger (or rather NO thanks), we had to do it the hard way. The easy way would have been to tempt all of the chickens, large and small, into the pen in the evening with some chicken scratch. Then, while everyone is happily pecking away, close the door and lock 'em in. I had this exact scenario going last night, but in addition to all the chickens, I managed to snag Ranger (the guinea) as well. There have been a few mild, seniority scuffles between the older and younger chickens, but nothing serious. Ranger, however, has been a menace to the younger chickens! He's always been at the bottom of the totem pole himself, chased away from the chicken scratch by the other guineas, and I've always shown mercy on him by giving him a separate pile of scratch out of sight of the rest of the birds. Rather than return the favor to those who are now farther down the totem pole than himself, Ranger has become the tyrant of the chicken scratch and seems to relish chasing all the young chickens as far away as possible. So, having him locked up in the chicken pen with the little chickens was nothing but mayhem! Since I couldn't figure out a way, on my own, to extricate just Ranger from the pen, I had to turn them all loose.

Back to plan B - The Hard Way. We waited until dusk, when all the birds were roosting in their preferred locations (luckily, Ranger's preferred location at the moment is the top of a locust tree). We then snagged the little chickens one by one off their perch in the old goat house and switched them to a perch in the chicken coop. There wasn't anything hard about this as far as Joe and I were concerned, but it was very traumatic for the chicks. Each one fought and screamed, convinced they were living out their final moments. But, a minute or two after the transfer was complete, everyone had settled down again and was quiet.

This morning when I turned the chickens out of the house, everything seemed fine. I observed the dynamics for a few minutes and all I noticed was a little bit of grouchiness from one of the hens about sharing the waterer with the little guys. I put an extra bowl of water and extra feeder in the pen/coop to hopefully diffuse any tensions. My goal is to leave everyone in the pen until at least Sunday so the little guys can learn where their new food, water and roosts are. Then, maybe on Sunday, we'll have a little Bible reading from Matthew 18:23-34, about the Unmerciful Servant, with mandatory attendance from Ranger.

2011-08-13T18:34:00.000-04:00

"Why can't we come out and play?" these chickens are asking. The answer is "Because Joe, Wilson and I all have to be gone today and I don't want to come home this evening to find that more of you have vanished without a trace!" Sadly, on Wednesday Rocksteady and Ms. Peeps both vanished while Joe, Wilson and I were spending a day in town. The list of potential culprits is long, and we'll never know what happened. In addition to our recent bear visitor and the ever present threat of raccoons, there's been a Cooper's hawk hanging around the past few days. Plus, our neighbor's three dogs, bored of being completely ignored at home, have been roaming as far back as our place looking for some action. Given the lack of complete carnage, I'd put my money on the hawk. So for now, better to be a bored chicken than a dead chicken.

Between the summer's drought and the plethora of voracious bugs, I've at times been a very discouraged gardener this year. It doesn't help that I have two gardens I'm responsible for. The garden I get paid to tend has some definite advantages in that it usually gets first dibs on my gardening energy, has amazing soil and a ready supply of water. However, no amount of advantages could stop the onslaught of Mexican bean beetles, squash bugs and cucumber beetles in either garden. (Note: Those bronze-y lady bug looking things living alongside the spiny, squishy yellow bugs that are turning your green bean plants into crispy skeletons are NOT lady bugs that have gotten a little jaundiced from eating so many squishy yellow larvae. They are indeed the adult version of the squishy yellow bugs and are the reason you're in this mess to begin with. There seems to be some confusion about this amongst the general public.) However, I should focus on the positives, and there have been some serious successes in both gardens. In my boss' garden, one of the shining stars has been the black-eyed peas. They never seem to have anything bother them, and they're producing prolifically. In my own garden, I have some lush, healthy bell pepper plants with some huge red and orange peppers on them. The hard part is waiting for them to turn colors so I can pick them! I also harvested three 5-gallon buckets of decent sized onions from my garden the other day.


Beautiful pepper patch!

And BEAUTIFUL peppers! :)

The squash bugs have left my butternut bed a little sparse looking,

but there's a decent amount of butternuts in there!

Art Imitates Life

2011-08-10T18:35:00.000-04:00

On Sunday morning, I got up about 7 a.m., went to the outhouse and let out the chickens before heading back to spend a few more precious moments relaxing in bed. About 7:20 a.m., the guineas started screaming and squawking. Despite their reputation as reliable intruder alarms, I find that our guineas are more often crying wolf or just enjoying the sound of their own raucous vocal cords. Occasionally, their chatter will be announcing a surprise visit from our neighbor's dog, Hank. Something about this particular squawk fest seemed more urgent than usual, and when I look out my bedside window, the chickens in the yard were all standing at attention or scurrying for cover. I asked Joe, who was making breakfast, to check it out. He poked his head outside briefly, announced "I don't see Hank anywhere" and went back to what he'd been doing. But, a moment later he stepped back out onto the porch and, much to my surprise, said "Amanda, if you want to see a bear, come out here."

Well, that sure got me out of bed! Sure enough, there was a bear over by the chicken pen. He was just attempting to climb into the old goat house/new chick house when I realized we should probably quit gawking and start staking our territory! I was very close to the chicken pen, but still within the safety of the garden fence, when I told the bear to 'get on out of here!'. It was likely a young-ish black bear, but easily 200 pounds. He looked at me, startled, and ran a short distance into the edge of the woods. By this time, Joe and I were both through the other side of the garden and standing by the chicken coop where he'd just been. The bear had stopped, half hidden behind a tree, pretending to be interested in something at the base of said tree. Several times he peered around the tree to check if we were still there, interfering with his chicken feed breakfast plans. After a few minutes, he moseyed on down the hill, into the woods and out of sight.

The bear had made an unsuccessful attempt to break into our pickle-barrel chicken feed container (the noise of which had made Joe look again), but had managed to roll it into the edge of the woods. Wilson had been quietly observing the goings on from the safety of the garden. Once the bear was out of sight, we let him out of the garden, but he still was in no hurry to chase after the intruder. I appreciate a beagle with a healthy sense of caution.

This exciting wildlife encounter makes this handmade mug I bought at Steppin' Out from Kirstens Clay very appropriate! Yes, Steppin' Out has come and gone. While it is a depressing tale if you were to consider the full economic scope of the venture, on the bright side I can say that I at least covered my booth costs plus $23, which accounts for the gas to and from for two days in a row and parking garage fees.

Oh well, life goes back to normal. I'm happy to have the time to catch back up on everything that's been sliding by. After mostly taking Sunday to rest and recuperate, I hit the ground running on Monday with some outdoor tomato canning. It wasn't a huge batch, but the tomatoes are still going fairly strong, so there'll hopefully be more canning to do soon.

2011-08-03T16:41:00.000-04:00

The summer is flying by, and as usual it feels like a marathon! Last weekend was FloydFest. I performed with the Hoorah Cloggers twice at the festival in what may well have been two of our hottest performances ever (in a sweaty sense, that is). Now that our biggest gig of the year is behind us, I'll be taking a break from weekly clogging practices for a little bit so I can catch up on my home life.

In addition to FF, last week was the week of the Laurens. We had not one, but two friends named Lauren visiting, at separate times but back to back. Since Joe and I have been sleeping primarily in the Starpod, our bed was available for guests. It was fun having friends stay overnight. All of our extra bedding/padding is currently in use in the Starpod, but once we get a bed set up in the yurt, we'll have even more guest space. Maybe we should open a hotel? ;) In addition to sleeping accommodations, we also had first class entertainment options for our guests. I had a spare ticket to FF, so one of the Laurens spent a day at the festival with us. And the other Lauren got to enjoy a potluck and puppet show hosted by Joe's cousin. All in all a very fun week. The fun continues the day after tomorrow with Steppin' Out in Blacksburg. I'm as prepared as I can be at this point, so here's hoping for a fun and profitable festival!

After all this fun is over, I'm definitely turning my attention back to my own little homestead. I'm way behind on the harvesting and preserving part of my garden duties. I'm pretty sure I missed the train on blackberry season, but we're still hoping to make the most of local peach harvests. I have managed to sneak in some quick tomato harvesting and chopping and have a two gallon bucket (half of which are from Joe's mom's garden) of tomatoes in the freezer up at Joe's cousin's house just waiting for me to have some canning time.

Here are a few more photos of the yurt, fully completed.

2011-07-26T15:49:00.002-04:00

While Joe and I were sailing in the Caribbean in 2006, he taught me some basics of bead weaving. Since then, I've done quite a bit of beading, usually in the evenings while watching movies. In an effort to continue to pursue my hobby without drowning us in beaded items (although it is fun having such an expansive collection of beaded jewelry on hand), I opened an Etsy shop and last year I had a booth at Steppin' Out in Blacksburg - a large, annual craft and art street festival. Neither venture has warranted quitting my day job yet, but I did have fun at Steppin' Out last year, and covered my expenses, so I've decided to give it another run.

Steppin' Out 2011 is happening on August 5th and 6th, very soon! I've been using this as the perfect excuse to spend the hottest part of the afternoon inside beading of late. Here are some photos of the resulting creations. And, if the festival doesn't go as well as I hope, at least I've got birthday and Christmas presents made...for the next decade!

2011-07-25T15:49:00.000-04:00


Although you should not leave your pet IN your car on these beastly hot days, my pets have found a creative way of utilizing the automobile to stay cool.

Thanks goodness for the StarPod! It has made these hot humid nights bearable, even delightful. For days on the radio, they've been announcing "excessive heat warnings". It sounds like much of the nation is in the same predicament, so at least we're not alone. I can't imagine what dealing with a heat wave like this would be like in a city. I may not have air-conditioning, but at least I have deep shaded woods, a creek, and the StarPod. What would one do in a concrete jungle without AC?

As I write this, almost noon on a Sunday, I am listening to the creaks and pops of my metal roof heating up in the sun. I'm biding my time, waiting for the grass to dry so I can mow it. This particular task defies my normal strategy for surviving hot summer days without completely sacrificing productivity, which is doing as much outdoor work as possible before the sun tops the trees to the east of us. I've usually spent an hour watering the garden, sometimes still in PJs, before I stop for breakfast. But, we were blessed with a thunderstorm that brought us an inch of rain yesterday, so I'm off garden watering duty for the next few days (yay!!). I was going to clean the chicken house out this morning, but that conflicted with egg laying time, and my hens are pretty fussy about wanting peace and privacy to do their business. I couldn't seem to find much motivation for weeding the strawberries, so instead I'm sitting inside using the computer.

Whereas the heat makes me a cranky, limp noodle incapable of accomplishing much, Joe is mostly unfazed. He has been on a super industrious streak as of late. Our place has gotten a complete makeover and reorganization. Instead of weedy, overgrown piles of random lumber scraps and odd materials, we now have neatly stacked piles whose contents can be accessed as needed. The back of the outdoor kitchen has now been enclosed, giving us space for a tool and misc storage room and a meditation room for Joe.

Joe's neatly stacked and organized lumber piles with the remnants of last night's bonfire that ate up the brush piles that had been growing around here.

Later that same day...
I was laying on the porch with Wilson in a post lunch and lawn mowing stupor when Joe's cousin and his girlfriend came jogging past on their way down to the creek. In passing they nonchalantly remarked - "You might want to lock your dog up. There's a rabid raccoon right over there. Lookin' pretty freaky!" And then they were gone. This is not a statement that you make without allowing for follow-up questions! Where exactly does "right over there" mean? And by what means did you determine it was rabid? I put Wilson inside, and went to look around "over there". I got spooked by a stump and decided to lock myself up as well, seeing as how I'm not up to date on my rabies shots. ;)

I never did see any rabid raccoons, but I did find this little guy while weedeating.

What's in a name?

2011-07-20T11:03:00.001-04:00

I love naming things. There used to be a time in my life where I had
more names picked out than I had things to name. I had pre-named future pets for years to come. However, this was before I had chickens and had nine creatures to name all at once. As I mentioned earlier, Joe named two of our chickens Bebop and Rocksteady. Rocksteady, pictured at left, is definitely turning out to be a rooster. I've seen him and my young Salmon Favorelle (as yet unnamed) rooster sparring, or rather having very close range staring contests.

Below is a picture of the original Bebop and Rocksteady, namesakes for my two little chickens. Tough characters, these two!

I've decided to collectively name the three barred rock hens The Spice Girls, as they all look alike and make me think of salt and pepper. The two salmon favorelle hens will most likely get stuck with the moniker The Peepers 2.0 as our current favorelle hen was the original Peeper, which has now morphed into Ms. Peeps.

I think it is funny how names and nicknames find their origins. For instance, Joe named Bebop and Rocksteady because to him the two polish chickens were the bobble heads, so the black and white polish became black bobble head, which got shortened to b bob, which immediately jumped to Bebop, which brought back childhood ninja turtle memories, and there you have it!

This still leaves me with the favorelle rooster and the speckled sussex hen to name..and I'm drawing a blank. I'm thinking the rooster should be given some time to grow up and prove his personality, earn his name, so to speak. As for the sussex, I decided to Google chicken names and see what I came up with. The top names on one list I looked at were Fingerlicken and Sunday Roast. Hmmm, we'll keep looking. On another website I noticed the names Britney, Paris and Nicole were quite popular amongst the chicken world. Since I actually want my chickens to like me and lay eggs for me one day...I'll keep looking. So, anyone got any good chickens names?

Animal Updates

2011-07-13T10:30:00.000-04:00

Just under two weeks after Wilson's shoulder-dislocating automobile incident, we took the cast off. By this point, the cast/bandage was filthy and tattered, leaving trails of stuffing everywhere he went. Now that the cast is off and he's had a good bath, he looks like our old beagle again! So far so good on the shoulder staying in place, but he is limping on it just a little. We're still going to be keeping him on very limited activity for a while until we're sure that shoulder is gonna stay put!

Wilson has been on the phenobarbital for 13 days now. He's had 3 or 4 seizures during that time, but they have been very short (5 mins as opposed to his usual 45 mins). I was hoping we'd be able to decrease his dosage sometime soon as I'm worried about the side effects of this drug, but the vet says we need to up the dosage since he's still having seizures. It's kind of a trial and error thing at this point, with hopefully not too much error.

In other animal updates, one by one, all of the baby guineas disappeared. We even lost one of the adult guineas recently. The upside of this is that Ranger is no longer alone. Apparently it was Silver's boyfriend that got snatched, and Ranger has happily stepped in to fill his role. So, we're down to four guineas - two happily mated pairs. I would love it if it would stay at that level. I'm not too keen on any more babies, despite how cute they are, because it is just too much of a bummer watching them all disappear.

Our chicken population has more than doubled because I brought home our teenage chickens from my boss' farm. In addition to my barred rocks, speckled sussex and salmon favorelle chicks, I also ended up with two polish chickens, one buff and one black with a white crest. Polish chickens, if you haven't seen one, have goofy puffball crests of feathers on their heads. Joe has named the two of them Bebop and Rock Steady, apparently after some characters from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Since my childhood TV diet consisted almost entirely of Mr. Rogers, I wasn't familiar with these names, but they definitely seem appropriate for these chickens.

In the last week or so, we have FINALLY gotten some rain. I think we've gotten just over 2.5 inches in several rain events. Things are starting to turn green again. I leave you with this picture of a stealthy visitor to my day lily patch.

Yurt photos, round 3

2011-07-08T14:10:00.000-04:00

It's a spaceship!

Yurt photos, round 2

2011-07-06T15:25:00.000-04:00

There is some chronological overlap between these and the previous ones I posted, but these were pretty fun. All photos in this batch taken by our friend, and yurt helper, Robert.

Many hands make light work.

Do what?

Herman and Joe Logan, most likely Carroll and Patrick counties' only official yurt contractor.

It's all about the grunt, Mariah.

It all came together with a little help from my mom..

and Joe's mom!

Yay!!

Yurt photos, round 1

2011-07-03T09:31:00.000-04:00

Interior floor is finished. Starting to spread the lattice walls.

The walls and doors are up!


First four rafters and center ring are in place.

It's a complete yurt skeleton!

Happy birthday to me!

2011-07-02T12:54:00.001-04:00

It's my birthday!! So, this will be short. I've already spent too much of my birthday on the computer.

First, the bad news. On Wednesday I ran over Wilson with our car. He was having a seizure under the car, and I didn't see him. Every dog I had ever owned has been hit by a car, half of them have died. Wilson is now on that list (no exceptions, apparently), but miraculously he on the survived half of the list. I was horrified when I realized what had happened, and oh so relieved when it appeared that he did not have any life threatening injuries. An immediate trip to the vet (we were the first ones in their parking lot when they opened) turned up the diagnosis of a dislocated shoulder and nothing else apparent. Whew!! The vet was very worried about the seizure business. When we talked to a vet about it 5 years ago when we first got Wilson, we were told that it was more a quality of life issue than a health risk and that if the seizures were happening every two weeks or less he wouldn't recommend medicating. So, that's what we've been going on. This new vet was horrified at that notion and said we should absolutely be medicating him, so now Wilson is on phenabarbitol (or however it is spelled) and hopefully won't be having as many seizures. I still have the concern I had 5 years ago of keeping him constantly medicated, especially with something that is a sedative when he is such a mellow dog to begin with. The current vet said that the long term side effects of all these seizures was worse than the side effects of the drug. So, we're gonna give it a try. Wilson also tested positive for Lyme's (no huge surprise there) and is on 30 days of antibiotics for it. The vet also called me yesterday saying that he found potential thyroid problems in Wilson's bloodwork and wants to run another test. I'm a little bit nervous that we're getting sucked into the black hole of constant medications and mysterious ailments when just a few days ago I had a happy healthy beagle who happened to have seizures. We'll see how it goes. In the meantime, Wilson is all wrapped up like a mummy and on lockdown (sort of) until his re-located shoulder heals.

Now the good news. The yurt is up!!! In an amazing span of two days we went from having an unfinished deck to having a fully erected yurt. My dad and little brother came Thursday and Friday and worked two very long days to make it happen. On Friday we had help from my mom, Joe's mom, my brother's fiancee and a good friend as well. I will have more pictures to come soon, but here's one for now.

2011-06-27T13:35:00.000-04:00

The other morning, we had the very unusual experience of waking up to find that overnight we'd gone from two baby guineas to three! While this sounds like it's going to be a happy story, I'll go ahead and warn you that it's not. The reappeared third keet was obviously weak and lagging behind its siblings. By mid-afternoon, I found the baby over by the chicken pen sprawled out on it's side, eyes closed, looking quite dead. When I picked it up, however, I noticed that it was still breathing. I assumed I would be holding it for its final few breaths, but 15 minutes later, it was still breathing. So, I switched from hospice mode into intensive care mode. I have absolutely no idea how to care for a baby bird, but for a while it looked like I might be doing some good. I brought the baby inside, gave it a warm, safe place to recover some strength and attempted to get some fluids into it every so often. Within a couple of hours it was up and frantically trying to get out of its dishpan prison. It could hear the other guineas outside and was quite desperate to rejoin them. I took it back outside and set it in the yard near Silver and the other two babies. For a moment, there was a joyful reunion, but when Silver started to wander off it became obvious that my little patient was not going to be able to keep up. Silver kept looking back over her shoulder, but she seemed to have realized it was a lost cause and was moving on. At this point, the baby seemed to give up as well. It was still alive at bedtime, but it did not make it through the night. So, we are back to two babies. Here are a couple of photos of the forlorn little baby. You can really see what I mean about them having bright orange feet!

Are you my mother?

Starry StarPod Nights

2011-06-22T12:02:00.000-04:00

There is definitely something magical about sleeping in the starpod. You can feel every breeze, see every star, watch the clouds and the airplanes roll by, and hear every noise. People think that living way out in the country is quiet, but the night is actually quite noisy. There are the standard nature sounds such as crickets, frogs, whippoorwills and occasionally coyotes. Then there are the "domesticated nature" sounds like cows mooing, dogs barking and guineas squawking. Finally you have the actual human noises, such as cars, radios blaring, and redneck shouting matches (Yes, unfortunately the starpod is situated in a unique sound current that carries all the noises from one of our nearby neighbors - a family swarming with cats and shirtless teenage boys that all got kicked out of a local trailer park for causing trouble. Comforting, eh?)

Joe is one-hundred-percent head over heels in love with the starpod. I'm pretty sure it will take below freezing temperatures to convince him to ever sleep inside again. In fact, I sleep in the starpod half because I truly enjoy it and half because it's the only way I get to sleep with my husband anymore. Joe is also completely immune to all of the nighttime noises and will literally sleep through anything. Last night, for instance, we had cloud cover rather than the usual stars. Somewhere in the middle of the night, that cloud cover turned into serious winds, lightning and thunder and just enough rain to cover the bottom of a bucket (yay!!). Whereas the glass roof kept all the rain off of us, the screened walls let all the wind through and it was quite an experience to have lightning dancing right over my head! I was tempted to abandon ship and head back to the house, but I actually managed to fall back asleep. I was woken again later, after the storm had passed and the winds had died down, by very loud and insistent guinea squawking. Guineas are known for "sounding the alarm" so to speak, but they are (mine anyway) also known for crying wolf a lot. I tried to ignore them and go back to sleep, but thoughts of the vulnerable little keets got me hiking back down to the house with the flashlight. Of course, as soon as I got down there, all the birds got quiet and I didn't see anything going on. The squawkers were three of the adult guineas perched in a locust tree, and nothing seemed to be harassing them in particular. So, back to the starpod I went to finish out my night's sleep uninterrupted.

This morning I was very sad, but not at all surprised, to find that Silver only had two babies trailing behind her. I have read in several places that guineas are not good mothers. That does not at all seem to be the case. They are very devoted mothers, but their barely-domesticated personalities put them at the same risk as every other wild mother out there. I just looked up a wildlife study done in 2005 that estimated a survival rate of 1.1 poults (baby turkeys) per wild turkey hen. It's a tough world out there!! When you're a juicy little nugget (depending on your perspective) the size of a golf ball, you hardly stand a chance. I'm amazed that any wild baby birds make it to adulthood, and my guineas are no different. They just happen to be the "wild" baby birds that run around my yard, so I am keenly aware of the trials they face. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that at least 1.1 of these little guys makes it to adulthood.

2011-06-21T15:20:00.000-04:00

I don't have a rain gauge, but we are in the middle of what appears to be our weekly rain event measuring "not enough to cover the bottom of a bucket". All morning long I have been watching the dark clouds roll past...just to the north of us. Yet again, Blacksburg is literally stealing our thunder. The storms are SO close this time that I actually hear the sounds of downpours just behind the house. It seems the radar maps have teemed up with the Verizon Wireless service area maps and put a tiny white square directly over our property that signals a no service/rain zone. Yep, in the time it has taken to write this paragraph, the rain is over and the blue skies are here. As you can tell, I'm a little bitter about this whole extremely localized drought thing, so we'll move on to happier topics now.

I've been adding buckets of water to the pond lately to keep it from disappearing, and these little guys are very glad that I have! Even frogs go through that awkward development stage on the precipice of adulthood. These little guys still have tails, but they're climbing out of the water to test their new lungs and legs.

It has been a delight to watch how devoted these two guineas are to caring for their babies. The whole flock of guineas even get involved at times. The other morning, they bravely worked together as a group to distract and even slightly intimidate our neighbor's dog, Hank (aka the world's largest dog), while Silver herded her babies into the cover of a thick stand of weeds. (Hank regularly makes early morning visits, and I can always count on the guineas to announce his presence. This is a good thing because while he is really a sweet, goofy giant, he does have a history of chicken killing. Yikes!) Despite the expert parental care, we are down to five keets at the moment.

Finally, and at the risk of being late for work, here's a photo of our peach tree harvest! We had to fight the worms for the best parts, but what we did get was delicious!!

2011-06-15T16:52:00.004-04:00

Well, it turns out I do remember how to pull weeds. This is a good thing because the weeds did not take a vacation from growing while we were gone. Overall though, the garden looked great. It seems to have survived the week without us, and the lack of rain, just fine. The potatoes are starting to look kinda rough. I'm not sure if they're just finishing their cycle (early, it seems) or if the potato beetles are taking a toll. There don't seem to be a serious enough infestation to be causing the lack of vigor, but who knows. The strawberries have definitely finished their peak. They are "Everbearers", so hopefully we will continue to get a moderate amount through the summer.

When I was out picking the strawberries yesterday evening, I had a wonderful surprise! As usual, the whole group of chickens and guineas was hovering outside the garden fence waiting to snatch up the rotten berries I toss out, but this time Silver was there as well...and she brought along her new keets (that's the technical term for baby guinea)!! There are six babies in this batch, three of which are light colored like Silver. If you haven't seen one in person, it is hard to describe how adorable a baby guinea is. They are half the size of a baby chicken, like a fuzzy little golf ball with bright orange feet. Silver seems to be a very calm, confident, capable mother. Last night I woke up to the sound of at least two barred owls hooting very loudly and rapidly to each other. It sounded like they were on the front porch! I was very nervous for the new babies, but this morning there were still six. Whew!

I'll try to take some good keet pictures, but in the meantime, here are some beach photos, courtesy of Anne Elise and Olga.

Anne Elise and Kerry, two very pregnant beach babes!

Our gracious hosts.

Lots of gourmet cooking went on at this beach house. This was pizza night!

Wait a second....

She's walking!

Beach Week

2011-06-10T19:18:00.003-04:00

Once again, my wonderful boss and his family invited us along on their beach vacation. This time we were at a beautiful house in Duck, NC right on the beach. You didn't even need flip flops to get to the ocean. We spent three full days and four nights enjoying the sand, the sun, the company and the delicious food! When you combine the cooking skills and creativity of all our beach-house-mates, you couldn't find better food at any gourmet restaurant.

The ocean was down right ice cold in the early morning, but warmed up nicely by the afternoon. The waves were calm, so we did a lot of playing in the ocean. Joe even dusted off his rusty surfing skills and had a blast!

Since we were only two hours from Va Beach, we decided to split our week in half and come visit Joe's family. On Sunday, we head back to the mountains. This week has totally spoiled me. I haven't done one single productive thing in days! I don't know if I'll even remember how to pull weeds when I get home. The only downside to this trip has been leaving Wilson behind. I am definitely looking forward to seeing that lousy beagle again. (Wilson is under the impression that lousy is a compliment, so don't tell him otherwise.)

Even though I did bring my camera with me on this vacation, I've been too lazy to even take it out and use it. Hopefully I can filch some photos from one of my vacation companions.

2011-06-03T16:58:00.002-04:00

I DO have tadpoles! They are small and spend alot of time hiding under all the lilypads, but they are there. I'm pretty sure they're wood frog tadpoles. So exciting!

This brings me to answer the question my cousin Ashlee asked me, and probably many of you are wondering - "Why exactly do you want frogs in the pond? Just to have more animals around?" Good question, Ashlee.

Well, I guess the general reason is that I do love animals. I get immense enjoyment from my dog, my cat, my chickens and guineas. I'm easily entertained, and I've spent countless hours engaged in the sport of chicken watching. Even without tadpoles, I find my little pond mesmerizing and will sit beside it watching the honeybees come to drink. (Maybe this is what happens when you don't have TV.) It makes me happy to find snakes in the compost pile or hear a family of coyotes yipping at the moon. I have a degree in wildlife sciences, and although I don't currently use it for any gainful employment purposes, I love living amongst a thriving wildlife population (despite the occasional conflict in interests, but I'd love it if the local tick population wasn't quite so thriving [make that any blood sucking, disease transmitting critter, and squash bugs too because I just don't like them] .)

The slightly more specific reason is that the farm I've worked on for seven years now has a beautiful, terraced rock garden, and in the middle is a little pond. It is always FULL of leopard frogs of all life stages, and lots of lily pads and flowers. I've always loved it and wanted to have one of my own, and now I do! Complete with tadpoles. :)

2011-06-01T10:44:00.002-04:00

Somewhere in this mix of fluff balls are my new chickens! My friend and I combined an order, and she is taking care of them all until they are big enough to come home and join the rest of the flock. It's impossible to tell who is who at this point. They are living at the farm I work on, so I'll get to watch them grow. So exciting!

Check out this ferocious lion I found down at the watering hole! ;)

Sadly, it looks like another year without tadpoles in the pond, but I do have these beauties to enjoy.

Strawberries and strep

2011-05-27T15:23:00.003-04:00

The 100+ strawberry plants we put in the ground last spring have turned into all we could have dreamed of, and more....and more! We now have a virtual strawberry forest (or at least that is what it looks like to the poor little blueberry bushes that are being completely enveloped) that is producing goo-gobs of the most BEAUTIFUL huge berries. I would be even more excited about this except that I've been out of commission with a case of strep throat for the past few days and haven't been able to keep up with the harvest. My hope is to someday soon have the time, and energy, to both harvest and process the bounty; I'm thinking strawberry jam. In the meantime, we've been parceling out strawberries on a "pick your own" basis. I did manage to pick HALF of the plants the other night and came up with this giant bowlful that ended up topping my grandfather's 85th birthday pound cake. YUM!! I think this bowl holds a couple of gallons, at least.

2011-05-18T12:23:00.003-04:00

Rain, rain, rain! We've spent the last week or more making up for the dry winter we had. I just hope we're not using up our summer supply of rain too! If I have interpreted the very confusing climate summary for the month of May from the NOAA website, we (well Blacksburg, VA anyway) have had rain for 14 out of the 18 days so far this month, and only 4 "clear" days. Hmm, great for the watertable, but not so great for the solar panels, although I'm always surprised with how much they manage to do with even a little burst of sunshine.

All the clouds and wet weather have made for good transplanting conditions between showers. The greenhouse is getting emptier and emptier while the garden is starting to look like something productive. I still have lots of seeds to plant, but cultivating mud just isn't my idea of fun. The slugs are LOVIN' this wet weather, and I'm having to fight them for the bounty of large, luscious strawberries we're starting to harvest. Luckily, the strawberries are big enough that even after you cut away the occasional slug munched area, you're still left with plenty of berry.

The wet weather has also seemed to reinvigorate the amphibians in the area. I had given up on having any tadpoles in my pond this year, but the other day I caught two woodfrogs (I think) engaged in...you guessed it, amplexus! This is, of course, the polite and scientific way of saying they were ensuring the survival of their species. I didn't want to disturb them, so I haven't inspected the pond yet to see if there are any signs of eggs or tadpoles, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

(Photo courtesy of Wikipedia, these are not the aforementioned frogs.)

I have a sneaking suspicion that the guineas are also working on the next generation. Silver has been MIA for large chunks of the day in the past week or so, and I didn't see her at all yesterday. So, she's either gotten snatched by something, or she's working on a nest somewhere. Time will tell! I am excited at the thought of adorable baby guineas; realistic about the fact that this will initiate another feeding frenzy among the local predators; and apprehensive at the thought of dealing with possessive guinea mamas who bring their babies right to my feet and then attack me for being too close.

On Monday, Joe and I celebrated our fifth anniversary. One of us, and I won't say who, forgot our anniversary (despite the other one of us having mentioned it many times over the preceding weeks) and made plans to spend the day with a friend (not the one they are married to). All's well that ends well, though, and we spent the evening together exploring the backroads of Floyd. Co and eating pizza in the car. Next year, though, one of us is going to steal the other one's planner and highlight May 16th in bold colors. :)

Random farm photos

2011-05-14T15:31:00.002-04:00

Raindrops on lambsquarter, a common, edible weed - delicious and nutritious! This particular example is a hybridized version of the wild variety and a cultivated variety we planted in our garden several years ago, known as "Magenta Spreen".

A paw paw flower.

The birds have assembled and are patiently waiting for me to stop taking pictures of paw paw flowers and give them their scratch grains.

Miss Peeps, the goofy Salmon Favorelle hen. She's an avid eater of pansies, but she's so darn cute I can't get too mad at her for it.

Introducing the Starpod 2000!

2011-05-12T15:26:00.000-04:00

That husband of mine is always up to something. His latest genius project is the "StarPod" - an elevated, screened, glass-roofed platform perfect for breezy, bug-free summertime sleeping and stargazing. How's THAT for a sales pitch!

Many of Joe's projects sound crazy at first but turn out to be great additions to our compound, and this one is no exception. It was built all from salvaged materials (minus the screen). It has still been a bit chilly at night for sleeping in it, but we have tested it out for stargazing. What an amazing view!!

As we were laying there the other night, staring at the sky and listening to the melodiously chaotic sound of two whippoorwills singing out of step with each other, Joe said "What do you bet in 5 years we'll know 10 people with one of these?" :)

Wedding Pics

2011-05-05T17:41:00.000-04:00

It takes a village to get into a wedding dress! Good thing my mom is well qualified.

Honorary flower girl, my niece Ruby

Happy couple sitting down for a brief moment

Sisters, now spread across WAY TOO MANY MILES!!!

The ladies

She looks like the runaway bride here, but really she's the cloggin' bride!

Catchin' up

2011-05-04T17:31:00.001-04:00

What a crazy busy few weeks! As of this writing, though, my sister is officially married and U-Haulin' it to Alaska with her new husband, and my boss and his farm hosted a very successful square dance calling workshop weekend/dance party attended by over 50 people. My job descriptions for the first major event included bridesmaid and lead-packer, and farm beautification manager (aka head bush-hogger) for the latter. Plus, for 11 of the days leading up to these events, Joe was serving at a Vippassana meditation course, which put me solely in charge of our little universe as well. I have certainly earned myself some guilt free hammock time, but the weather today has taken a turn for the cooler, so I think I'll pass.

Maybe after I've had a day or two to catch my breath, I'll pilfer some wedding pictures from my friend, and fellow bridesmaid, to post on here.

Meanwhile, overnight it seems, the trees are all leafed out, the grass is growing a mile-a-minute, the birds are all back..but still no tadpoles in my pond. :( The switch from winter to spring means a shift in our daily living patterns which I'm finding myself slower at adapting to this year. The perks of winter, which are now over, include free refrigeration courtesy of Mother Nature, hot water on demand from the woodstove, and a relaxed work schedule. Now that it is warm weather, though, we are enjoying the convenience of H2O in its liquid form, no thawing or ice breaking necessary; no more coats, scarves and hats everywhere nor buckets of water taking up valuable floorspace; and homegrown salads everyday! But, and especially after the last couple of weeks, I'm already needing a vacation.

This past Sunday we were pleased to host, if only for an hour or so, my grandparents, two great aunts and one great uncle, two aunts, one uncle and one cousin from GA who stopped in on their way back down south after the wedding. It was a lot of fun to show off our place, which I think there were many misconceptions about (my grandmother had this idea we slept in bunkbeds and didn't have light switches). My aunts and uncle, who have been on multiple mission trips to Africa, were excited to see the correlations between our lifestyle and that of the communities they had visited in Africa - we even had guineas running around! :) They were all very impressed with the beauty and non-offensiveness of the World's Nicest Outhouse, all except my cousin who let the term "outhouse" keep her from even going near it. (Maybe we should call it the "World's Nicest Freestanding Organic Sanitary Facility")

Weekend goals

2011-04-23T10:44:00.000-04:00

It's been a busy week of strenuous farm work and helping my sister pack for her impending move to Alaska. But, I'm setting aside some home-time, and my goal for the weekend is to get these tomato seedlings into bigger pots so they can quickly grow into big strong tomato plants!! I love greenhousing.

My rosemary bush in bloom.

Rain barrel redo

2011-04-22T10:25:00.003-04:00

I awoke early this morning to two glorious sounds - a whippoorwill singing near my window and a gentle rain falling on my roof. I'm especially happy to have a rainy day today to test out the new and improved "back of the house rainwater catchement system". We've had these two, linked rain barrels set up back there for several years now, but it was definitely time for some improvements. In the old system, the downspout fed straight into the top of the rain barrels, which put the barrels right up against the siding. They were also sitting on separate concrete block bases which had settled unevenly and so the barrels were tilted all funky. The only overflow we had was a hole in the side of the barrels so extra water just formed a marshy area right near one of our foundation posts. Joe did a serious rain barrel renovation last year on the front of the house (where we have a series of 5 linked barrels), but the back of the house never made it onto the priority to-do list.

Joe is off serving at a 10-day meditation course near here, so I decided to buckle down and finally tackle this project on my own. I had help from Joe's uncles setting the barrels in place (even when fully drained they still hold at least 5 gallons a piece) and deciding how to reconfigure the downspout diverter to allow the barrels to be positioned where I wanted them, but I'm still feeling a major sense of accomplishment and pride in my work at having done this on my own. I can't wait for Joe to see it. :) Now we just need a good heavy rain (it'll take 2 inches to fill the barrels) to make sure nothing is leaking and that the downspout diverter is doing its job and sending water back down the downspout and away from the house when the barrels are full.

In case you can't tell from the photo, those barrels are completely level. And hopefully there'll be no settling this time because I dug down almost six inches and did some serious tamping.

The boots are back in bloom!

Near-epic adventure, final installment

2011-04-19T11:18:00.000-04:00

A few more woodland wildflower photos

Rue anenome (Thalictrum thalictroides)

An unfolding violet

Some of my own "wildflowers". These little violas/Johnny-jump-ups have been volunteering all over my yard and garden! It makes it hard to weedeat because I don't want to chop down any of them.

Fresh, delicious salad for dinner.

One tuckered out beagle!

Near-epic adventure, pt.4

2011-04-18T11:03:00.000-04:00

I was so exhausted by the time we actually reached our property, that I was happy for the excuse to slow down and take some pictures. Here are some of the early spring woodland flowers in bloom right now.

Fiddlehead of the maidenhair fern (Asplenium trichomanes)

Not sure what this is, possibly a spring beauty? (Claytonia virginica?)

Fiddlehead of a Christmas fern (Polystichum acrostichoides)

Star chickweed (Stellaria pubera)

Stinking Benjamin (my favorite of it's several common names)(Trillium erectum)

Near-epic adventure, pt. 3

2011-04-17T10:51:00.000-04:00

An interesting little lean-to?? Not sure I'd want to be sitting in it's shade when that hood came crashing down.

Some people like to put plastic penguins in their yards. I guess we have a different aesthetic here in the mountains.

As I was walkin' - I saw a sign there
And that sign said - no tress passin'
But on the other side .... it didn't say nothin!
Now that side was made for you and me! - Woody Guthrie, "This Land is Your Land"

Near-epic adventure, pt. 2

2011-04-16T10:43:00.000-04:00

Side note - The whippoorwills are back! I've been anxiously awaiting this moment.

Now, some more photos from our hike on Thursday. Here are some more photos from the old homestead we passed.

These people were well stocked with firewood, especially cooking stove wood. This was just one of several outbuildings stacked full.

This and the others we found will be going in a morel and ramp omelette for dinner. Yum! :)

The view from one of the hilltops we crossed.

Near-epic adventure, pt. 1

2011-04-15T10:16:00.003-04:00

Yesterday, Joe and I went on a near-epic cross country adventure. On Wednesday, Joe completed a true epic cross country adventure when he hiked 4.6 miles through the woods and over a couple of high ridges, leaving from our back door and showing up at the Light Morning community. In order to visit our friends at Light Morning, it usually requires a 35-40 minute drive around 3 sides of a rectangle as there is no direct road between us (this is because of the "high ridges", aka mountains, I mentioned earlier). For several years, we've thrown around the idea that "we could hike from our place to yours!", but haven't actively pursued it. But, with the help of my little brother's GPS, Joe made it a reality. He completed the grueling hike in around 3 hours. However, he decided that there were probably some spots along the way where he could have found a better path. This brings us back to the near-epic adventure in which I also participated yesterday. Before returning the GPS to my brother (also Joe, btw), Joe wanted to re-hike some of the stickier portions of the trail, so we had his mom drop us and Wilson off at a point roughly 3.5 miles from our place.

The very first part of the hike was scaling one of the ridges. I'm a horrible estimator, but I would say it was at least a 30 degree slope, and we gained ~500 feet in a very short linear distance. Joe kept assuring me that was the toughest part of the whole hike, and he was right, and a good thing it was too. Good grief I am out of shape! From their the hike was much easier as we mostly followed the ridge we'd just climbed. Of course, we were crossing over many people's properties, sometimes right through their back yards, but we never ran into anyone. Three hours and all of my energy reserves later, we popped up in our own back yard, right by the chicken house.

Here are some photos of an old homestead we passed by in a little valley. There must have been 8-10 little outbuildings, at least. I didn't venture into the main house, but peering through the windows I saw walls papered in newspaper/magazine pages, an old bed and an old treadle sewing machine, surrounded by piles and piles of junk.

Spiffed up

2011-04-10T14:51:00.004-04:00

It is a BEAUTIFUL day and I'm sitting inside at the computer!! This will be very short. :) Just wanted to post a photo taken at our friend's wedding last weekend - proof that every so often Joe and I do manage to clean up a little bit. Joe's suit was stashed under the bed, very wrinkled and still with paraphernalia from the last time he wore it (another friend's wedding three years ago) in the pockets. I decided that the garment care business is not up my alley, but we did manage to make it semi presentable. Since my sister is getting married in just a few weeks, we've decided to just leave it out until then rather than putting it back under the bed. So, for the moment, this suit has been hung on the back of one of our two chairs, and we are tiptoeing around it so as to not put any more stains or wrinkles in it. I don't even have a coat hanger to put it on! :)

Okay, off to plant beets and carrots now!

Springtime in Atlanta

2011-03-31T16:23:00.003-04:00

Last weekend I went to Atlanta to a bridal shower for my sister thrown by my grandmother. Whereas winter seems to be having its last say here in VA, down in GA spring was in full swing! Here are some pictures of my Daddy Bob's prize flowers.

My oldest sister and her two young'ns came down to the shower as well, so I got to spend lots of quality time with my nephew, Logan.

Danger! Adorable purse snatcher on the loose!

I didn't bother fixing the red eye in these photos because you can always tell it was edited and the color matches his shirt so nicely. :)

2011-03-27T12:00:00.000-04:00

This is what happens when you forget to check on what's cooking in the earth oven. Hard to do this much damage in a conventional oven! When we pulled it out, it was actually glowing. Joe had prepared this beautiful medley of homegrown sweetpotatoes and onions, fired up the earth oven....and then left to attend a meeting, leaving the final task of monitoring the cooking process in my forgetful hands. :(

2011-03-26T12:00:00.000-04:00

I must be seriously out of the loop because apparently they are enacting much stricter regulations on road kill these days. It's not enough to just run over it, now you have to season it, bake it and hermetically seal it! Below is an actual photo of some "roadkill" I encountered in the middle of a back country road on the way to work the other day. Whereas I usually make it a point to spend as little time engaged with roadkill as possible (well, there was that tail collecting phase I went through as a teenager…but that's another story), I had to stop and pick this one up. After all, nobody doesn't like Sara Lee, right?

Wilson certainly thinks we should stop to pick up roadkill more often, and Wilson was exactly who I had in mind when stopped to collect it. This thing oughta feed him for a week! I sliced it up and put most of it in my boss' freezer; the rest will be eaten over the next few days by a very lucky beagle. I was interested to note that ingesting large quantities of turkey apparently makes beagles as sleepy as it does humans. (Phew! And gassy, judging by the vapors wafting up from the beagle sleeping down below me.)

On a less disgusting note, here are some photos of the spring beauty popping up everywhere you look.

I find myself constantly inventorying the birdcalls I hear and noting which new birds are settling back in after their winters down south. Towhees and phoebes are two of the most recent ones. I heard a screech owl the other night, and I think I heard a turkey calling one morning (that would be the wild, live variety, not the shrink wrapped, oven roasted Sara Lee kind). I'm anxiously awaiting the day my two favorites make their presence known - the whippoorwills and the wood thrushes.

"Wild Kingdom" meets "The Young and the Restless"

2011-03-25T09:24:00.006-04:00

This morning, my breakfast preparations were interrupted by a flurry of activity and excitement in the front yard. When I stepped out on the porch to see what was going on, this was the scene I discovered - two guineas (Ranger and Guinea 1) were engaged in a full on battle, one guinea (Silver) was standing nearby, uninvolved but squawking loudly, and two guineas (Guineas 2 and 3) were at the other side of the yard, uninvolved and uninterested. It didn't take me long to figure out what pivotal event I was bearing witness to. Guineas mates for life, and Guineas 2 and 3 were obviously a happily partnered pair (male and female guineas look identical), the dramas of the dating world far behind them. Ranger and Guinea 1 were vigorously engaged in a competition for the affections of Silver, the last girl in the world as far as they knew (those of you familiar with the musical "Camelot" can now join me in singing "The Simple Joys of Maidenhood"*).

Ranger and Silver are the only two guineas I can tell apart from the group, hence the fact they got named. Silver is named for her beautiful silvery lavender plumage and is one of the babies hatched here last summer, now fully grown. Ranger has dark, almost black, feathers and was one of the original batch of guineas we acquired almost two years ago. We started out with 10 guineas, a nice even number, but predators reduced us to an odd numbered flock pretty early in the game. From the very beginning, Ranger has been the outcast of the group (he was named after the Lone Ranger of course) and mostly hangs out with the chickens.

But, spring has sprung and love is in the air. Maybe this was Ranger's moment to win himself a partner and a better position in the flock hierarchy. After all,
Guinea 1 was also one of last year's babies, not even a full year old. He should be an easy opponent to best, right? Sadly, not so. The battle being fought in the front yard consisted primarily of chest butting, feather grabbing, and high speed chases. Even my untrained eye could see that Ranger was not maintaining the upper hand. Guinea 1 was always the one in pursuit rather than the one being pursued, and Ranger was certainly losing the bulk of the feathers. However, Ranger was determined. Several times I thought the battle was over, with Ranger admitting defeat, but then, after a brief moment to catch his breath, he'd be the one to start it all up again. I was afraid that the skirmish would not end until someone was seriously injured, and I've always had a soft spot for Ranger, so I attempted to step in with some very authoritative lecturing and arm waving from up on the porch, but I was completely ignored. I guess I'd just have to trust nature to take its course.

At this point, the chickens (who are late sleepers) arrived on the scene. First Mopsy rounded the corner. She seemed a little dazed and confused, probably still waking up, and just stood there blinking and flinching whenever the action got a little too close for comfort. Just behind her was Thelma**, one of our two Buff Orpington hens. She took one look at the melee and jumped right in! I'm not sure if her goal was to join in on a good fight or maintain law and order, but her participation had the immediate effect of breaking up the argument.

My cream of wheat was threatening to boil over, so I had to take a quick break from the action to tend to breakfast. When I next looked out the window, Guinea 1 and Silver were standing side by side, preening, and Ranger was all by himself, off to the side of the yard, decidedly disheveled. Oh the woes of an odd numbered flock. Poor Ranger holds true to his name, and another man will be calling "Hi ho Silver, away!" (Sorry, I couldn't help myself.)

The Lone Ranger

*Excerpted lyrics from the aforementioned song:

Where are the simple joys of maidenhood?
Where are all those adoring daring boys?
Where's the knight pining so for me
he leaps to death in woe for me?
Oh where are a maiden's simple joys?

Shan't I have the normal life a maiden should?
Shall I never be rescued in the wood?
Shall two knights never tilt for me
and let their blood be spilt for me?
Oh where are the simple joys of maidenhood?

Shall I not be on a pedestal,
Worshipped and competed for?
Not be carried off, or better st'll,
Cause a little war?

**In all honesty, I can't verify that it was Thelma that broke up the fight. I can't actually distinguish between Thelma and Louise, the other buff orpington hen, but it does seem like something a Thelma would do, doesn't it?

2011-03-16T14:32:00.002-04:00

Joe and I had our first few hours of garden playtime the other day. We started by planning out our garden layout for the season (it's always funny to look back and see how far we diverged from our blueprint by the end of the year). We've tried to take into account some of the lessons we learned last year, such as it IS possible to have too many sungold tomatoes and ditto on ground cherries until we come up with an efficient way to dry them. We're going to try to focus more on the low maintenance, high producers, good winter keepers such as potatoes, sweet potatoes and butternuts. We'll see how it goes I guess.

It is still a little early to jump in full force, which is good because I don't think I'm ready to yet, but we did spend some time pulling up the remnants of fall crops and some of the tenacious weeds that made it through the winter. I weeded one half of our strawberries, and if all goes well we should be dealing with a ridiculous quantity of berries this year. We planted 200 plants last spring, and they look like they've made it through the winter without any problems.

This winter seemed much shorter and far busier to me than usual, which leaves me facing this spring feeling like I do when waking up to a busy day after a shortened night of sleep. I need the seasonal equivalent of a cup of tea. A vacation maybe? :)

Martha, my dear

2011-03-10T13:04:00.003-05:00

As I'm making up the bed in the morning, I often find myself glancing out the window and taking inventory of the guineas and chickens that are within my sight range. The official head count comes during the morning ritual of a scoop of cracked corn, an event that brings all the birds running.

5 guineas - check
3 yellow chickens - check
1 white chicken - check
1 peeper (aka Salmon Favorelle) - check
2 red chickens - sadly, only one :(

This is a number that fluctuates. The guineas have varied wildly as they first had a population explosion last summer followed by a population crash as autumn neared. Over the course of two years, we've had four chickens vanish without a trace, about one every six months or so. This is a sad side effect of an otherwise blissful free range lifestyle, but it's a balance of healthy wildlife populations and happy chickens that I'm willing to accept. Our latest disappearance is taking me longer than normal to adjust to as it was my favorite chicken, Martha, who vanished. Martha had serious personality and was definitely the tamest of our flock. She was always the first to come running when I'd bring out a handful of cabbage worms from the garden, and she was always right underfoot, mumbling away in her distinctive voice, whenever I was out and about working in the yard. The flock as a whole responds to the call of "Here chick chick chick!", but Martha also responded to her name.

On May 23rd we'll be getting 8 new little chicks in the mail. I'm excited about adding some new breeds to our flock, and who knows, maybe the next Martha will be in the mix.

Front: Martha
Back, L to R: Mopsy and Victoria (There use to be a Flopsy and a Cottontail as well, which made Mopsy's name make much more sense. However, Flopsy and Cottontail were two of the previous chicken disappearances. I've really got to keep this in mind when I'm naming chickens in the future.)

2011-03-07T10:36:00.002-05:00

I spent Saturday night at my friend Kerri's house in honor of her 29th birthday. Since her own family was down and out with sickness she was hoping to avoid, my sister Lynn and I decided to keep her company with a sleepover/movie night followed by whipping up a special breakfast for her on her birthday morning. Well, the movie night part went off with out a hitch, but the torrents of rain and wind whipped up their own surprise for us on Sunday morning - no electricity. Happy birthday! Hmm, so much for the special breakfast. All of the local businesses were out of power as well, so going out for food wasn't an option either. We did manage to get her gas fireplace started, and by removing a few of the ceramic "logs" I was able to make a place to set a pot of water (luckily she was on city water or else I would have been giving a tutorial on the joys of rainwater catchment.) so the all essential cup of coffee could be made. We also were able to warm up a pan of lemon pecan danishes Lynn had brought, with the exciting ending that the pan lost its tenuous perch on the uneven logs and came shooting out of the fireplace, skidding to a stop right at the edge of the hearth. Hot cross buns anyone??

During this whole scenario, I couldn't help but be struck by the irony that here I was in a modern home with all the standard amenities and luxuries, but without that power grid umbilical cord it had very little to offer besides a dry place to camp out. Meanwhile, Joe was back home in a cozy cabin eating a hot breakfast, bustling around getting pies ready to bake in the earth oven. There was plenty of hot water on the woodstove for a nice warm bath. A whole week of sunny weather had filled the batteries with electricity for lights, music, movies, and the toilet always works! There's no place like home.

I spent Wednesday through Friday in bed sick. I'm usually done with most illnesses in 24 hours, so this one was definitely something stronger. Joe has been fortunate enough to slide through this sickly season unscathed so far. I hope his streak continues. We had scheduled a work together day on Thursday, and the weather provided the perfect day for us - one I got to experience through a window only. Joe continued on with a solo work day and got all of the wooden parts of the yurt oiled, repaired, and restacked ready for use. I'm hoping to go this Wednesday and talk with the Blue Ridge Yurts folks about whether they could fabricate us a new wall and for how much. Can't hurt to ask!

Signs of spring

2011-02-28T15:36:00.002-05:00

This morning I woke to the sounds of birds singing. Not any new voices, but all of the winter residents are starting to stake their territory - Carolina wrens, chickadees, titmice, etc. It is such a beautiful sound! I also heard a sound that took a few sleepy minutes to identify. My first thought was that Foxy had captured a small duck and was holding it hostage on the porch. I crawled out of bed to find Foxy indeed sitting on the welcome mat waiting to be let in, but he had no captives. It was then that I realized the strange croaking noise was a FROG in my frog pond!! The pond has only been thawed for a week or two, and already the frogs are back! It wasn't even a spring peeper either; it was a pickerel frog.

After that great start to the day, I was motivated to do some serious spring-y things. First I did some organizing in the greenhouse and planted a couple of flats of broccoli, kale, lettuce and spinach. I LOVE greenhoue time of year. Everything in the greenhouse is so manageable. It's only once you move all those precious plants out into the wide open garden that you realy start to lose all control of the situation.

I then moved on to removing the debris from the flower beds around the greenhouse in order to ~~make it easier for the chickens to wreck havoc~~ expose the beautiful crocuses and snowdrops that are blooming. My cute little twine fence didn't fare well over the winter, but the posts are still standing strong, so I can easily redo it. It was more of a looks thing anyway as it totally failed at his intended purpose of keeping the chickens out. I now have scraps of fencing laid down over the newly uncovered area in hopes that it will be less inviting for scratching in. At least I won't have the goats eating the hyacinths and crocuses this year. I might actually get to enjoy them for once. (Famous last words, but I am setting a warm weather resolution for myself to work on having less attachment to perfectly groomed flower beds, or flowers at all for that matter should the situation get that dire.)

At this point my sunny spring day turned into a real soaker, and I abandoned any further outdoor projects.

2011-02-24T13:04:00.003-05:00

Is a half a yurt better than no yurt at all?? Well, yes, but only if you're willing to make the investment to acquire the other half of the yurt; otherwise, no. This is the predicament we currently find ourselves in. We had BEAUTIFUL sunny, warm weather last week, and I took the whole week off of work to tackle the job of cleaning and inventorying yurt parts to ready them for assembly. It was then that I discovered we are missing one half of the exterior wall. Bummer. Considering we have already invested a sizeable chunk in building the deck the yurt will sit on, we are definitely going to continue the investment and order a new half-wall. I just spoke with a delightful representative of the Pacific Yurts company, and he informed me it will cost about $910.00 plus shipping. I wasn't shocked as I had already figured as much. Oh well, it's just money, and then we'll REALLY have a yurt! :)

The good news is the rest of the yurt pieces looked pretty good. The HEAVY-duty vinyl roof has a few spots that need repair, but they will be shipping me a repair kit with the wall. Some of the interior wall linings have some stains on them, but the delightful representative supported my decision to paint over them. All in all I'm feeling pretty good about the whole thing.

Of course, the inventorying process required unstacking Joe's very neatly stacked and well protected yurt pile, the pieces of which we then spread all over the deck where the yurt will soon stand. Several of the wooden pieces need some repair, and I'd like to give them all a recoating of tung oil, so we've left them spread out for the moment. We purchased a huge tarp (was I the only one who did not realize how expensive tarps are??) to cover the whole kit and kaboodle. There is apparently no amount of weights, logs, boards, etc. that will hold that tarp in place. Last night, anticipating two days of rain and wind ahead, I went out for the umpteenth time to recover and resecure the tarp. This time I have used bungee cords to tie the tarp to the deck posts, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

In other news, after only a few strokes of the pen from a judge happy to see so many smiling faces in his courtroom, Logan Samuel Harding has become my legal nephew!! Two days later he celebrated his first birthday!! As a party gift to the supporting friends and family in attendance, the proud new father gave everyone a stomach bug. Oh well, the family that vomits together stays together, isn't that what they say? Totally unrelated but also exciting - my chickens are now laying 4-5 eggs a day!!

Battle of the Bugs

2011-02-08T15:30:00.005-05:00

Like seemingly everyone else in the country, Joe and I are unwillingly sharing our house with scores of stink bugs and ladybugs. For the most part they have stealthily sneaked in and hidden themselves away in little seen nooks and crannies, but when the conditions are just right, they come out in force! The conditions which turn a lazy ladybug into avid explorer are mostly centered around temperature. Most evenings, we go through a complex series of mental calculations and deliberations in order to make the very important decision of when to stop loading the woodstove in order to achieve the perfect sleeping temperature. This is not a fool-proof equation, and we often err, usually on the side of making it uncomfortably warm. The aforementioned unwelcome insects, however, do not find the heat uncomfortable and just when we are getting ready for bed, the bugs are coming out to party!

After a few late(ish) nights in a row recently, Joe was looking forward to a strict early to bed night to get himself back on track. Lights out (for him) at 9 o'clock sharp! I was happy to support him in this cause, but I was nowhere near sleep myself when 9 o'clock rolled around (I rarely am). Luckily, Joe is not bothered by having a light on while he sleeps, so I usually leave my LED reading light on over my head and read for an hour or so past when he goes to sleep. This night in particular, though, we had made the mistake of throwing one too many logs on the fire, and the shanty was toasty to say the least. All of the bugs that were coming alive due to the warmth were of course headed straight for the "sun" (aka the reading light over my head).

I was determined to ignore the dive bombing bugs and even bite my lip and tolerate being crawled all over to avoid disturbing Joe....but then the ladybugs started biting! I can handle a lot of things, but I will NOT put up with being BITTEN by a LADYBUG!! So, I grabbed our bug-catching cup and decided I'd just capture each one that came my way. Easy solution. Well, I never got to read more than two words in my book before I was stopping to shake shake shake the cup (to disorient the previously caught ladybugs of course) and grab another bug. Joe's a pretty good sleep-through-anything kind of guy, but the heat and all the activity were definitely keeping him awake. Since it was too hot to get under the covers, the ladybugs were biting him too.

The final straw came when our cat, Foxy, came through the dog door with a live vole. Joe and I both instantly kicked into action to grab Foxy and throw him back outside before he had a chance to release his quarry in the house. At that point, Joe decided to forget the early to bed plan and go meditate for an hour in the outhouse. I tried to read for another fifteen minutes or so, but I was soon fed up with fighting the bugs and gave it up. The whole ordeal had tired me out and I fell right asleep. I'm not even sure when Joe came back in. Poor guy...good thing he's so good natured! :)

P.S. I always like blog posts with pictures, so I was looking up a good, scary stink bug picture to go along with this one. Google led me to a photo of a kid EATING stink bugs, which of course my morbid curiosity led me to follow to its original source. I then ended up on a well illustrated web page about bug eating around the world and had to read the entire article. I am literally feeling nauseous right now. I was going to share the web link, but on second thought, I'll spare you.

Yurt Progress

2011-02-03T15:55:00.004-05:00

Some photos of our most recent yurt work day, last Saturday.

Zen and the Art of Sweeping

2011-01-25T16:23:00.002-05:00

Excerpt from " For the Time Being" by Annie Dillard:

"Earth sifts over things. If you stay still, earth buries you, ready or not. The debris on the tops of your feet or shoes thickens, windblown dirt piles around it, and pretty soon your feet are underground. Then the ground rises over your ankles and up your shins. If the sergeant holds his platoon at attention long enough, he and his ranks will stand upright and buried like the Chinese emperor's army. ….. "Quick: Why aren't you dusting? On every continent, we sweep floors and wipe tabletops not only to shine the place, but to forestall burial."

I first read this passage almost ten years ago, but it comes to mind often, especially when I am on my second or third round of sweeping my house in one day. I spent a whole morning the other day fighting to forestall the impending burial, and I'm feeling at the moment that I may have at least won a battle if not the war. We have had a fair amount of sunshine and blue skies the past few days, and despite the continued cold temperatures, I've been in a spring cleaning kind of mood. I even went so far as to mop (sort of) my floor, something I haven't officially done since we moved in here.

Even more noticeable than sweeping up dirt is the de-cluttering I accomplished. Stuff has a way of landing on a surface, be it floor or tabletop, and staying there….indefinitely. Classic example - we have a half full bottle of motor oil sitting on the floor by the front door. It has been there for years, and I could not begin to give you a reason why. I regularly pick it up, sweep under it, and put it back in its spot. I almost can't bring myself to find a better home/use for it as I don't know that our house would feel right without it. The winter is a particularly tough time for clutter as it seems like our house gets smaller during this season. We have stacked crates of sweet potatoes that can't freeze, stacked buckets of water that we collect on above-freezing days so we can have it available when everything outside turns to ice, emptied canning jars that need to reach a critical mass before warranting a trip out to the outhouse-loft-storage-space, piles of winter apparel, etc. I finally did gather up the two-dozen or so empty canning jars and take them out to the outhouse and that alone freed up almost 3 square feet of floor space. That may not sound like much, but in a house of 192 square feet, it's a considerable chunk!

Tuesday, Jan 25: My winter life seems unusually busy this year, and it has been several days since I first started this post. In that span of time, my clean, de-cluttered house has been like the homesteading version of a Buddhist sand mandala - a beautiful work of art created and then "ritualistically destroyed to symbolize the transitory nature of material life." (Paraphrased from Wikipedia) You can only forestall the burial for so long… Tomorrow we are forecasted to be buried in a blanket of snow. I am looking forward to a day at home watching the world turn white while I burn a few calories dancing with the broom. :)

Sand mandala photo courtesy of this website.

WhOOO hung out the Chick-Fil-A sign??

2011-01-14T12:23:00.006-05:00

It's that time of year when all the glossy catalogs start coming in the mail and I begin to fantasize about lush flower beds and gardens bursting with hundreds of varieties of gourmet, heirloom vegetables, as if it was all as simple as making a collage of photos from these catalogs. Usually it is the seed catalogs that get me going, but so far only a few have arrived, not enough to reach the critical mass necessary to trigger my imagination muscle. At the moment it is chicken catalogs. We've only received one catalog from a hatchery, but for some reason it has got me dreaming of expanding our chicken flock with a few flashier breeds. Our poultry flock currently consists of five laying hens, one closeted rooster, one young pullet and five guineas. The past couple of nights I have stayed up late pouring over the catalog and imagining how nice our primarily red and yellow flock would look with the addition of a few Plymouth Barred Rocks, or maybe some Speckled Sussex?

Photos courtesy of here and here respectively.

(Of course at the moment I'm actively choosing to forget the fact that only in an imaginary world do flocks of free ranging brilliantly patterned chickens peacefully coexist with lush flower beds.)

I was just about to turn out the light last night and join Joe in dreamland when one of our real live birds started sounding the alarm. All day long our guineas wander the compound and squawk their heads off for no apparent reason, but if they open their mouths at night…it means trouble! So, off went the deep layer of cozy warm blankets, on went the robe and the snowboots, and armed with a small flashlight, I ventured out into the cold dark night. I found one of the guineas on the ground just outside the garden fence. It appeared unharmed, but was definitely flustered. I scanned the surrounding treeline to see if any of the other guineas had opted for roosts outside the safety of the chicken house. What I did find perched in a small locust tree at the edge of the woods was a barred owl, cooly staring straight into the beam of my flashlight, obviously unperturbed by my presence.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

I couldn't help but stand and admire him for a few minutes, amazed by the fact that he appeared to be no bigger than the guinea he was hoping to have for dinner. I tried to make some snowballs to hurl at him and dislodge him from his perch, but the snow wouldn't cooperate and stick together. Instead I was only throwing handfuls of light fluffy powder, as if I was trying to anoint him with fairy dust rather than put the fear of God into him. This bird had obviously not read his Bible lately and did not subscribe to the notion of me having any dominion over him.

The frightened guinea was still cowering behind me, so I decided to switch to plan B and see if I could convince him to bunk in the chicken house for the rest of the night. Whereas the guinea didn't want me to pick him up, he did cooperate with my herding him into the chicken pen, which I quickly locked shut behind him. By this point the owl had flown over us and settled in a large pine just behind the chicken pen, still intently watching our every move. The guinea didn't go up into the chicken house right away, but I at least felt better that the somewhat tattered netting covering the top of the pen would protect him from any aerial attacks. I tried again with a few chunks of ice to scare the owl away, but my seriously bad aim didn't so much as make him blink. By this point I decided to settle for what I had accomplished and head back to bed. Luckily Joe, deep in sleep this whole time, had kept the bed warm for me, but it took a long time for me to wind back down into sleep mode. My ears were perked for any hint of further attack.

I did finally fall asleep, and I woke up this morning anxious to do a head count and see if we'd lost any birds. I was delighted to find that we had all 7 chickens and all 5 guineas!! Despite the snow, they were all clambering to get out of the pen this morning. I have no grudge against Mr./Ms. Barred Owl. I'm happy to know he's our neighbor. I love hearing the mated pairs calling to each other in early spring. But, I'm even happier to know that he had to look elsewhere for a full belly last night.

Benefits of having a tiny house

2011-01-10T10:44:00.002-05:00

After being gone all day yesterday, Joe and I came home at 8:30 pm to a 41 degree house. Within 20-30 minutes of lighting a fire in the woodstove, it was a comfortable 75 degrees in the house. I arrived this morning at my boss' house to find it had dropped to 45 degrees over a weekend of being unoccupied with lows in the single digits. Two hours after lighting and regularly feeding a raging fire in his woodstove, we're up to a balmy 50 degrees. I haven't taken my coat or hat off yet. Of course, it took all weekend for his large, timber framed house to drop into the 40's, but I think I prefer the quick warm-up of our house.

Thursday

2011-01-07T12:56:00.005-05:00

By the time I got over to our friends' house at 8:30 a.m. yesterday to care for the animals, the backhoe operator had already come and gone. He had buried the horse pretty much where he lay, and it wasn't until you got right on top of the spot that you could even tell the ground had been disturbed. The remaining draft horse, Charlie, and I spent a few minutes standing down by the grave. Charlie would sniff at the disturbed ground for a few moments and then raise his head and give a loud knicker that echoed throughout the field, waiting for a reply that didn't come. He was really breaking my heart.

My dad and brother came up again to continue with the yurt deck building. It is SOO exciting to see real progress being made! I had intended to spend the day helping them, but right after I got home from my petsitting chores, my little sister called to say that her water had just broken. She has been impatiently awaiting the arrival of her fourth child for many weeks now, although technically it was a still one day until her due date. Her birthing history has been one of very quick deliveries, the last two of which I barely made it in time for. I wasted no time on this one and got down there shortly after 10 a.m. Like her previous births, this was to be a home birth, and one of the midwives was already there when I arrived and the other one was on her way. For once time was on my side. Besides her water breaking, Jenny was having no other signs of impending labor. The other midwife arrived and we all had lunch together and then spent the afternoon playing games, watching movies, chatting, just waiting for things to kick into high gear. Finally, at 7:15 PM, Jenny went to the bathroom and came out a few minutes later with a grimace on her face. At 7:49, after only two pushes, the baby was born in a birthing pool set up in the kitchen. Another 15 minutes or so and she was propped up in bed, happily nursing her baby girl. Elizabeth Rose was 8 pounds 11 ounces and as beautiful and healthy as can be.

My niece Savannah and her new little sister. She was there for the whole birth and was worried it wasn't going to happen before her bedtime!

"...and then you give a REALLY big sneeze, and that's how a baby is born!"

This is the progress that occurred on the yurt while we ladies were playing games, I mean having babies. Looks like weather will put a halt on the project for a little while, but it is actually looking like something now! In fact, it's actually looking like a square, which is very comforting. :)

Wacky Wednesday

2011-01-05T23:30:00.001-05:00

Somewhere in between the discovery of a dead horse and standing on the side of the road with two police officers after dark, we did in fact have a productively exciting day. Our good friends and neighbors have been virtually living in hospitals around the country for the past two months while going through a major medical ordeal with their young daughter. We have been happy to be able to help in some small way by caring for their animals while they are gone. Up until now, I was feeling pretty good that in all this time a lone chicken had been our only casualty. My confidence took a sharp turn downwards this morning when I arrived at their place to find one of their two draft horses lying dead in the field. There were no signs of foul play on the body, and he had been fine the day before, so I have no solid explanation as to what happened.

Back at our own place, my dad and little brother came up to spend the day helping us move forward with the yurt project. We had gotten as far as clearing the site and gathering and setting 16 locust posts. Due to the nature of working with round posts of various sizes, the lay of the land and our own limited capabilities, our jobsite didn't exactly meet the desired specifications of square, plumb, parallel, etc. It is a true testament to my dad's craftmanship and supreme problem solving prowess that he is turning our rustic mess into ordered chaos. It turns out the yurt deck will be more of a rhombus than a square, but we were aiming for that earthy feel anyway, and where do you ever see right angles in nature??

Master Craftsmen Herman and Joe Logan

When taking an inventory of our remaining building materials, we realized we'd miscalculated some of the lumber and were short on the supplies we'd need to proceed the next day. So, late afternoon Joe and I borrowed our friend's truck to make a materials run to town. It was after dark by the time we got everything purchased, loaded up and strapped down. We were halfway back home, making our way up a steep, twisty stretch of road, when our entire load slid right out of the back of the truck and scattered itself on the road behind us. There were several cars following us, but luckily none of them were following too close and everyone was able to stop without incident. Everyone sprang into action and with the help of some other motorists, we quickly moved the lumber into the thin strip of ground between the road and the guard rail. At least one piece of lumber went sliding down the side of the mountain, but that was the least of our worries! It took a few moments to regain our wits, but we decided to reload only half of the wood, drive it home and come back for the other half. The fact that all of the wood was covered in ice from sitting in an outdoor lumber yard is what made it so difficult to safely secure the load. After about 10 minutes of reloading on our own, a police car pulled up. My few previous encounters with police cars have always involved getting a ticket of some sort, and I was half expecting to get a ticket in this case just for being the cause of general chaos, but the officer was very sympathetic to our plight. He and another officer directed traffic around us while we ferried the wood up to a gas station at the top of the hill. The gas station owners were nice enough to let us stash half of the wood behind their store while we took the first half back to our house, at a very, very slow pace.

Joe dropped me off at a neighbor's house so I could make arrangements for having the horse buried, and he went back for the other half of the wood. I had dinner waiting and was anxiously pacing the floor when Joe showed up after the second wood trip. He had lost the load again, but in our own driveway this time, so he decided to call it a night and deal with it in the morning. The whole experience left us pretty shaken, and it took at least three "Seinfeld"s for us to decompress enough to think about sleeping peacefully.

2011-01-02T11:02:00.003-05:00

In honor of the new year, the ground has made a reappearance. Warm temperatures (actually quite balmy) and rain have melted almost all of the snow over the past couple of days. We actually drove all the way down our driveway last night, the first time that's been possible in weeks. This is good because losing weight is not one of my new year's resolutions, and all that hiking back and forth was burning way too many hard earned calories.

The chickens have also made a reappearance. They are full of pent up energy after hanging out in the coop for so long. It was quite amusing watching their antics this morning. They didn't walk anywhere, it was all running and bursts of flying-running. As soon as they'd all get to Spot A, one of them would take off running to Spot B and they'd all follow suit. Nothing productive was ever accomplished at Spot A or Spot B, but I guess this is how chickens get a workout. The guineas were working off their steam with lots of actual flying and loud squawking. I'm glad they're putting all that chicken feed to good use. Now, how about some egg laying?? :)

It looks like the upcoming week will be clear with temperatures above freezing in the daytime, so my gears are already turning, churning out scads of outdoor to-do lists. Now I just need to find a way to accomplish everything at home and fit in some gainful employment on the side - a venture that has suffered greatly the past few weeks due to travels, holidays, sickness and bad driving conditions. Therefore, my first new year's resolution should be to get off this computer right now and get some work done! I've already had a productive house cleaning morning, so I'm gonna strike while the iron's hot.

Happy New Year everyone!

2010-12-26T10:50:00.002-05:00

Merry day after Christmas! Joe and I returned on Christmas Eve from a week long visit to friends and family in Va Beach. Many people take vacations to get away from people and just spend some time by themselves. Joe and I take reverse vacations and take some time away from ourselves to spend time with people. :) Joe had every single waking moment we were there booked with a social engagement. It is very important to him to spend some quality time with all his Va Beach family and friends. I didn't have quite as packed a schedule as he did because he likes one-on-one conversations, and that makes me a third-wheel. He did, however, make it a point not to leave me alone for more than 2-4 hours each day. I was never bored or lonely, though, as we were staying with his aunt and uncle and three cousins, ages 4-14. There was always someone around to play with me, and let's just say I got quite proficient at Strawberry Shortcake Memory. All in all, it was a wonderful trip with wonderful people and even a week was not enough time to see everyone we would have liked to see.

We had left the mountains behind with snow on the ground, and came back to find a fair amount of bare ground and many areas of solid, thick ice! We had barely made it home when a snowstorm that I had heard was bringing "less than an inch of possible accumulation" dumped, and is dumping, 5-6 inches and counting of beautiful, fluffy snow. Of course, all of this is landing on top of the patches of ice I just mentioned, and throughout the course of hiking to our car and back, caring for animals, hitting up the outhouse, etc., wipeouts are becoming increasingly common. Tis the season for YakTrax! The irony is that I had my first wipeout while searching for where I had stashed the YakTrax this summer, back when it seemed a preposterous notion that they'd ever be used again. :) Even with YakTrax, extreme caution is needed, as Joe's mom learned first hand when she was hiking down from her cabin to spend Christmas morning with us.

One of our chickens died while we were gone, one of my favorites. :( There was no apparent cause of death, just one of those mysterious poultry die-offs. The chickens are not steeping foot out of the coop these days (the guineas are a little more adventurous), and I'm worrying about how to keep them healthy when they're not getting any green stuff or sunlight in their diet. I sneaked some apple cider vinegar in their water this morning, and I'm thinking about trying a recipe for some garlic infused olive oil coated bird seed as an immune booster.

I'm not sure what to do with the carcass as it's too frozen to dig even a shallow grave. I was too attached to this chicken to be comfortable just tossing her in the woods to be dragged back by Wilson as a Christmas chew toy. Hmmm, maybe the compost pile?? Oh the conundrums winter brings.

I hope everyone has had a wonderful Christmas doing whatever it is that brings joy to your heart (within appropriate legal boundaries of course). I've already decided that I'm leaving my decorations up for at least a couple more months. Joe has determined to limit his sugar intake for a little while, which just means more holiday treats for me! Life is good. :)

Winter wonderland

2010-12-17T13:21:00.004-05:00

I woke yesterday morning to the delightful hush of falling snow. I love snowy days! I had just fixed myself a large cup of tea and settled in with a magazine, when Joe came bounding in from his morning mediations in the outhouse. (Note: Joe really does meditate in the outhouse, this is not a joke.) He asked what my plans for the day were, and I described to him a most delicious day of watching movies, beading, reading, etc. His plans, however, began with a hike to the waterfall. Did I want to come too??!! Hmmm…hiking miles through the woods in fresh snow and snow/sleet showers was hardly in line with my idea of a lazy snowy day…but it would be beautiful!

So, somehow I let Joe's enthusiasm win me over, and we bundled up for a hike to the waterfall. If we head out the eastern corner of our yard and continue down to the creek, within several miles of following the creek downstream through uninhabited woods, we end up at the top of an impressive waterfall. It can be a difficult hike at times as there is no real trail, and often the easiest way to travel is in the creek itself. We had the advantage of more than a week of temperatures that didn't top the mid-20's, so the creek, for the most part, was a solid sheet of ice. Just because ice is strong enough to support your weight, however, does not mean that it cares whether or not your weight is on your feet! I had at least one full wipeout, and we both had many close calls.

Here are a few photos from our snowy adventure.

About halfway to the waterfall, there's the ruins of an old homestead. It's been a long time since there was a fire in this fireplace!

Except for the first trek down to the creek, the hike crosses several people's property. At one point, we came across signs of someone else marking the trail. We decided to appreciate the guidance and ignore the subliminal message. Joe and I are shameless, but harmless, trespassers. We take only pictures and leave only footprints. :)

Joe stopping for an icy cold sip an unfrozen pool. Although we could walk on most of the creek, there are deeper pools that were free of ice, and we could hear the water rushing and gurgling underneath the whole way. Pretty cool!

Wilson was one big beagle icicle and appreciated Joe sharing his coveralls for a few minutes. Like me, he had initially planned on a lazy day by the woodstove, warm and cozy. How did he get suckered into this!

And here it is, Stiles Falls! The cold and snow had turned the falls into terraces of snow covered ice. I know this photo is anticlimactic, but there was no way I was risking life and limb to climb down these rocks and take a photo from the bottom, a venture that is dangerous enough sans ice! These falls are named after someone who died falling down them, and I had no desire to see them renamed "Wareing Falls".

So, my relaxing snow day had a four hour intermission of serious, cold exercise, but it was well worth it, and made the woodstove all that more enjoyable when we returned. :)

2010-12-15T09:30:00.003-05:00

When the weather outside is frightful, and it sure has been these last couple of weeks, find yourself a snuggly warm baby to cuddle up with! That's exactly what my friend Kerri and I did last weekend. We headed up to Fredericksburg to have some quality bonding time with little Ruby Denise and her 9-mo-old big brother Logan. It was a whirlwind trip, but well worth it.

Although it is still officially fall for a few more days, the balmy autumn weather is but a distant memory at this point. We're back to the winter puzzle of keeping water available in liquid form for all the various carbon based lifeforms that need it. I carry a pitcher full of near boiling water out to the chickens everyday and combine it with some snow or ice chunks to bring it down to a drinkable temperature. The other day one of the young chickens got a little antsy and tried to drink straight from the pitcher of hot water. That was one shocked chicken! The chickens have taken a total vacation from egg laying and are hardly sticking a toe out of the coop these days. I'm sure the guineas are regretting ever leaving Africa, and the chickens are wishing they could return to their ancestral, jungle fowl roots. Wilson and Foxy, as they snuggle in their blankets by the woodstove, seem pretty content with their ancestors' decision to link up with humans.

Joe and I are headed to the beach for a week come Saturday for some quality, holiday time with the Wareing's et al. This sounds like a delightful escape from the cold, but we're only going to Va Beach, pretty much due east and not much warmer. Oh well, even ten extra degrees will feel luxurious, but we'll probably leave the bathing suits at home.

2010-12-08T11:24:00.004-05:00

Winter is here! It has been so cold, even the bugs are huddling together for warmth. I found these ladybugs hiding in a crevice of our siding behind the front porch woodpile. We've had our first snow of three inches or so and arctic, windy temperatures that have kept the snow on the ground, and the roads in our area, for days now.

This cold, snowy weather has thrown a temporary wrench into our yurt construction plans. We did managed to get all of the posts set and marked off just before the snow hit, and all the materials are in place for building the deck when the snow melts and the sun shines again.

Speaking of the yurt and icy weather, Joe retrieved this slab of ice out of the upturned plexiglass dome that will be the skylight at the very top of the yurt.

Lately it feels like I've only been at my house long enough to sleep, eat breakfast and hit the road again first thing in the morning. I'm really looking forward to that whole winter down-time thing to kick in. I did manage to find time to get my "Christmas window" decorated. It makes me so happy. I've even forgiven Joe for being in the house for an hour and a half before he noticed the decorations.

Ruby Denise

2010-12-01T15:05:00.006-05:00

Long before the sun came up on Sunday morning (Nov 28), I was on my way to Fredericksburg, VA to witness and support in whatever way I could the birth of my new niece, Ruby Denise. My sister, Lauralee, had a whole slew of attendants at her home birth (including three very capable midwives), but in the end none of us could do the really hard work for her, and hard work it was! After almost 28 hours of labor, the final four of which were serious pushing, Ruby Denise (her gender had been a surprise to the very end) finally made her grand appearance, weighing in at a whopping 9 lbs 10 oz. No wonder getting her out of there took so much effort!

Although the delivery was long and arduous, all went smoothly and Ruby is as perfect as can be. She jumped right into nursing like an old pro. The only major glitches in the process were a bladder that refused to be emptied, a birthing pool whose only apparent purpose was to provide a large obstacle in the center of the birthing room, a rug that refused to lay flat (fixed with some duct tape) and a squeaky, dust covered fan (fixed with some WD-40 of course). Although the birthing pool ended up not being used, it was a water birth regardless since the delivery took place on a water bed, not the ideal surface it turns out.

Here are a couple of pictures of the new addition.

Lauralee won't be running any marathons any time soon. :)

Explaining the concept of little sisters to Logan.

2010-11-25T17:33:00.002-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving! This day has been an interesting mix of exciting and melancholy for me. I love traditions and the comforting consistency they bring, and my family has a wonderful Thanksgiving tradition. Every year for a very long time we've been going to Atlanta to my mom's parents and having the classic feast with a HUGE crowd of aunt, uncles, grandparents, great grandparents, great aunts and uncles and more first and second cousins than you can shake a stick at! This year, however, due to the fact that my sister Lauralee is working very hard to add another cousin to the mix any moment now (one week overdue and counting!!!), my immediate family canceled travel plans in order to be able to attend to the impending baby and new mother-to-be. So, for various and a sundry (sp?) reasons, I did not have a single sibling at my Thanksgiving meal today.

While it was sad to break from the tradition, it was exciting to try something all new. This year's crowd, held on my own stomping grounds, included my dad and grandparents (his parents), Joe's aunt and uncle and a whole family of local Floyd-ian friends. The food was just as delicious as ever, and the company was heart warming. We had at least three musicians in the bunch, so we ended with them passing the guitar around and sharing some songs with us all. Now everyone has gone home, and I have my own little cabin to return home to, with a fire crackling in the woodstove, and some of my favorite creatures on two and four legs waiting for me. I have oh so much to be thankful for. The refrain from one of the songs my dad sang has been a resounding echo in my head - "It is well, it is well with my soul."

Now Lauralee, start having that baby!!!!

2010-11-19T21:49:00.000-05:00

I spent about an hour the other day on a blogpost, and in the end I abandoned it. In my mind it was going to be pretty funny, mostly about chickens, and slightly philosophical. Somehow it came out barely funny, mostly about people, and heavy on the philosophy. Oh well, you win some, you lose some.

At the moment Joe and I are in Virginia Beach to attend his cousin's wedding. Every three to four years one of these dress-up events comes along and totally throws me for a loop. It's always the shoes that get me. I have my really nasty work boots, my decent pair of work boots, my nice pair of hiking boots and my rain boots. (That's maybe an exaggeration, but only a slight one.) After wrestling with the idea of going and buying a whole new outfit from the ground up, I remembered that many years ago my mother bought me a pair of nice, general purpose dress shoes. At the time I thought it a silly purchase, but she insisted that "You need at least one nice pair of shoes." She was right! I had to go dig them out of a plastic tote in our rickety little, mice infested storage shed, but they're still in great shape, and they still fit. That takes care of my outfit, however Joe is still convinced that he can find the perfect tie to go with his homemade duck/brush pants.

It's a Small World After All

2010-11-12T17:27:00.000-05:00

Warning: The following story has been known to cause a certain Disney song to loop incessantly through one's subconscious.

Wednesday night, Joe and I met my parents in Christiansburg for dinner. After our meal, we were by the front entrance to the restaurant saying our goodbyes when a waitress came up to me and asked me where I got my hoodie. (There were a few moments of confusion because I thought she had asked me where I got my honey, the irony being that my parents were off to the beekeepers meeting. I wasn't sure if she had overheard our conversation and was interested in beekeeping or if she was looking to find herself a guy like Joe.) I was sporting a Wareing's Gym sweatshirt, and explained to her that my husband's family owned a gym in Virginia Beach. At that point, a guy sitting nearby at the bar spoke up and said "Hey man, we're kin!". The stranger's grandfather and Joe's grandfather were brothers, making them second cousins (trust me on this one)! He grew up in this area and still lives here, so we're looking forward to getting to know the local branch of the Wareing family.

We had a great time in Washington DC last week. Aside from being swept into the middle of a four-way girl fight in an inner city DC school, we mostly managed to stay out of trouble. :) Back home on the ranch, I'm finding myself in a weird state of limbo. I have this feeling like I'm an actor in a play that is between scenes or in the middle of a set change. I'm backstage, fiddling around, not quite sure what I should be doing until someone calls "Action!" again. I spent some time today dismantling the garden, pulling up frost bitten peppers and tomatoes. The garden paths were littered with tomatoes, ground cherries and peppers that had been rendered squishy and inedible by freezing temperatures, and this made for a VERY messy weedeating experience. I tried raking them up first, but overripe tomatoes don't rake very well. :(

The yurt project is still in motion, albeit slow motion. There are signs that we may resume activity soon. We've gotten a quote for the deck/platform materials, although we haven't actually placed the order yet. Now, if I could just find a way to switch Joe's attention from firewood to setting posts...

Rally Recap

2010-10-31T16:13:00.006-04:00

Here are a few photo highlights from the "Rally to Restore Sanity" in Washington DC yesterday. We had a lot of fun. As Joe put it, it's nice to encounter such a large swath of humanity every so often. We both love people watching, and this was certainly a good gig for it. I know there's always controversy about how many people attend these things, and I won't even begin to argue for a specific number. All I can say is it was ALOT of people! The entire journey from the Metro to the Mall and back again was accomplished in very cramped baby steps amidst a throng of people.

The masses emerge from underground!!

An arms length aerial view of the people in front of me.

An arms length aerial view of the people behind me. Start counting and let me know what you come up with. :)

With my camera on full zoom, I was able to get this shot of Jon Stewart on the closest screen to us, even that barely visible to the naked eye. After a few rounds of chanting "Louder, louder!" they turned the volume up enough that we could sort of hear what was going on.

Joe said I couldn't post this picture on Facebook, but he didn't say anything about the blog. :)

Some incredibly sane horses.

Some incredibly sane horses, rear view.

Ahh, back to real life, where warfare is big business. This is one of a string of "Raytheon" warfare billboards at the Pentagon subway stop, how apropos.

We left the rally a little bit early to try and beat some of the crowds back to the subway, so we missed the final, serious moments of the rally. But upon reading Jon Stewart's closing remarks I can say "Hear hear!", glad I was there. :)

Joe and Wilson recovering from the rally.

2010-10-29T15:12:00.002-04:00

This'll have to be the "highlights" version today because I've got a fire going in the earth oven awaiting a pumpkin pie I've yet to get ready.

Joe's home!! Yay!!! He had a great meditation course, and I managed to keep all the loose ends together while he was gone.

We've gotten the four corner posts set for the yurt!! Yay!! It's actually starting to look like we're up to something productive rather than destructive. Thanks so much to our friend Ben from Alaska for the extra muscle power required to make it happen. :)

Tomorrow morning we leave at 5 a.m. to head to Washington DC where we will attend Jon Stewart's "Rally to Restore Sanity"!! Yay!!! We've done our civic duty and voted early by mail, and now we're off to have some political fun. We'll be spending the whole week in DC helping my friend and former Wildlife Sciences classmate with a greenhouse project at a DC highschool. She has been putting her college degree to good use as an environmental educator in DC, and I'm looking forward to being able to help out a good cause.

2010-10-22T13:21:00.003-04:00

Joe comes home in three days!! This is good because I ate my last Daddy Bob brownie (world famous brownies made by my grandfather) last night. I do have some chocolate chips in the house, though, so I guess that'll have to suffice for these last few days. :)

On Wednesday, I had the wonderful experience of unwittingly playing a part in my little brother's plans to propose to his girlfriend. It was truly a divinely inspired coincidence, there's just no other good way to look at it. I had been working in the office all day and just as I was leaving, my sister and her friend invited me out to the Olive Garden for dinner. Upon arriving at the restaurant, I found my little brother Joe and girlfriend Mariah waiting to be seated for their special, 6-month anniversary dinner! They were, of course, happy to expand their reservation to a table for 5 (well, Mariah was happy to :). Joe acted a little bit grouchy about the whole situation, but it turns out that was just nerves due to the fact that he was planning to pop the question later that night!! And she said yes!! So, the evening didn't exactly follow his plans, but it does make for a much better story. :)

Stink Bug Mania Sweeps the Nation!

2010-10-20T18:05:00.002-04:00

Like apparently everyone else in the nation, I have been dealing with stink bugs in every crack and crevice of my house. I didn't realize how national a problem it was until just now Google tried to read my mind and automatically assumed that stink bug eradication was high on my priority list. I was going to do an internet search on early voting in VA as I'll be out of town on Nov 2nd, but all I had gotten typed into the search box was "How do I" and up popped 121,000 results for getting rid of stink bugs! Do I detect a theme in our collective consciousness??? :)

2010-10-17T15:27:00.002-04:00

Yesterday, my travels spanned three states and kept me out until almost 2 a.m. Today I am hiding the car keys from myself and not going anywhere my feet won't take me! It has been WONDERFUL to have a day at home. It is the first day this whole week that I have not had to be away from home for the better part of the day. I am dividing my home day up into spurts of incredible productivity followed by periods of general inactivity (chicken watching, beagle petting, staring at flowers and pretty trees, etc.). I believe in keeping a healthy balance. :)

Joe has been gone on his Massachusetts meditating adventure since Tuesday afternoon. I'm missing him terribly, but I'm still in that period of enjoying missing him. I haven't become desperate, yet. So far we've had no disasters in his absence. There've been no more guinea deaths. The adult guineas continue to roost in the chicken house each night, but the two young guineas can't seem to make up their minds. One night they'll sleep in the coop, the next night they choose the trees. So far they've been lucky. I'm just hoping that the coop eventually wins out over the trees, but you can't tell teenagers anything.

Fall seems to be progressing at a leisurely pace this year. The weather has been mild and beautiful. There's yet to be a single explosion of beauty, but there are small wonders everywhere I look. I feel the strong urge to be in the woods this time of year.

The other morning, while putting my shoes on to head to work, I looked up to find myself in the direct gaze of a deer standing in the middle of my yard. I'd been running around attending to my various husbandry chores all morning, and the first thought that popped into my mind was "Wait, am I supposed to feed you?". It was my laughter that scared the deer away.

Hallelujah!

2010-10-12T10:29:00.002-04:00

We made it through last night without a single death!!! So exciting. I was going to make an attempt to convince the guineas to roost in the chicken house for the night, but I got home too late from work and they had already gone to roost. But! The GOOD news is, they had all VOLUNTARILY decided that maybe the chicken house was a better bet than the tree tops, and so all I had to do was close the door on everyone and they all slept safe and sound and made it to this morning alive. :)

I'm SO relieved that a collective lightbulb went on in the guineas heads. If I had tried to force them into the chicken house, it would not have gone over well. I can just imagine them discussing/thinking: "Have you noticed how none of the chickens have gotten eaten in the past weeks? Yeah, they sometimes have to wait an hour or so in the mornings for those lazy humans to get their act together and come turn them loose, but at least they're always alive. At the rate we're getting knocked off, we're not going to be around much longer. Do you want to be the one that gets eaten tonight? No? Me either! I vote for the sleeping in the chicken house!"

Good idea guineas!!! I really didn't want to watch them all disappear one by one, and I'm reluctant to take any violent measures against the owl either. I'm really in awe of owls and like having them around. I've always seen my role as animal protector rather than predator exterminator. This only works of course if the animals are willing to accept protection, and that seems to happen. Here's keeping my fingers crossed that their new change of heart sticks for a while so we can all sleep safe and sound. Sorry Mr. Owl, but I'm sure there's plenty of mice in the woods.

A sad little avian tale

2010-10-11T09:26:00.004-04:00

I now have cold hard proof that it is indeed an owl that has been decimating our guinea flock of late. Joe had a face to face encounter with the 'mythological creature' crouching over a freshly killed young guinea in our garden at dawn yesterday. Therefore, I leave him to tell the story in his own words. The following is an email that Joe sent to a friend:

Have you ever met a guinea fowl? We have some that live near us.

Usually when I talk about the guineas it is a funny story because I can't imagine any creature that more fully captures the mannerisms of the Three Stooges. But today I relate (ironically maybe) something that may be an unspeakable tragedy.

My wife and I are living in the center of a killing ground. In short succession I am hearing words out of Amanda's mouth like, "genocide, dark, vulnerable, and screaming murder." You can imagine how these words either reflect or affect (surely both) the atmosphere around us.

The long and the short of it is we have been sponsoring a flock of free range guineas for over a year. We started with a seed bunch of 8. And after a season of bird sex and true nesting periods we at one time had well over twenty guineas flitting, frolicking, and flocking about the compound. But that was all before the owl came to town.

A side note: I have been told that if I find myself doing CPR I ought to sing the song "Stayin' Alive" by the Beegees, because the ideal rate for pumping a persons heart is 100 beats per minute and "Stayin' Alive" is 102 beats per minute. I have also heard that the song "Another One Bites The Dust" by Queen has exactly 100 beats per minute but most CPR training courses don't use that song.

Anyway the second song has been coming to mind because we have been losing one guinea per night. And we are down to 5 guineas and one is injured.

As to my true feelings about the whole thing it is quite a muddy concoction. I know that my role in this nightly game is that of a lazy sports fan, I am rooting for my team but I am not willing to stay up late enough to see the game in real time. I just watch the highlights in the morning in the form of scattered feathers or burying bird remains. And I suffer the pains of rooting for a losing team.

Tomorrow I am off to a silent retreat for two weeks. I will be unplugged. So I am sorry to say I will not have the opportunity to shoot off a compensating upbeat email until after I return.

I wish for you peace filled days
Joe

Changes

2010-10-09T11:16:00.002-04:00

I'm not really someone who relishes change. I love my rut. :) But, if there is one lesson life seems intent on making sure you learn, it is that everything changes. The changing of the seasons is such a powerful and beautiful reminder of that lesson...and the good thing is that the seasons always change in such a predictable fashion, which pacifies the part of me that craves stability. :) This particular day is so completely beautiful and perfect that it is making it hard for me to hang on to the tinge of mournfulness I've been nursing lately.

I spent Monday and half of Tuesday in bed dealing with an ailment of some sort. My only symptoms were a sore stomach that felt like I'd been beaten, a complete lack of appetite or energy, general lacklusterness and a low grade fever for about two hours. I was especially grateful for all of the homemade applesauce we had on hand as my appetite started slowly returning. It was the only thing that sounded at all good to me.

The garden is looking very quiet and peaceful this time of year. Many of the beds have been harvested and cleared out. We got a nice crop of sweet potatoes, but we learned that they have to cure for several weeks before actually becoming sweet. The ones we ate straight out of the ground were most like regular potatoes than sweet potatoes - still delicious but not what we expected. We've also been enjoying that brief window where we get to enjoy both tomatoes and lettuce at the same time. The volunteer lettuces that sprouted several weeks ago are just now getting big enough to harvest for an occasional salad, and there are still tomatoes on the vines for a few more days.

I'm spending this day in Floyd while Joe works at his aunt's gallery, and the sunshine and lure of yardsales is drawing my attention outdoors.

B-A-T-H time

2010-09-27T11:22:00.004-04:00

We are on day two of the most delightful rain showers ever. Maybe now the garden soil will be workable enough to finish planting the garlic, and hopefully the lettuce seeds I planted the other day will be brave enough to sprout now. Our car is getting a much needed bath, and it's not the only one...

On Saturday, before the rain started, we gave Wilson a bath so he would be presentable enough to go to a friend's cookout with us. Wilson HATES baths, but he always comes when called, even when he knows the consequences. He has his own way of making you feel sufficiently guilty for tormenting him in such a fashion. Here's a video clip of Wilson's "abject bath crawl".

The Cobbler's Children

2010-09-22T16:31:00.006-04:00

What's that old saying about the cobbler's children having no shoes? Well, how about the professional gardener having no fall crops in her garden. The professional gardener, frantically trying to check off her to-do list also has an infrequently updated blog. Oh well, winter is coming. :) According to the calendar, we are counting down our final hours of summertime. Fall and spring are both so invigorating. I almost feel like I could check off everything on my to-do list....almost.

We spent most of last week enjoying a beautiful house, wonderful weather and fun times with friends and family at the beach in Ocracoke, NC. Joe said he hasn't had that much fun playing with the ocean in years! He even woke me up at 6 a.m. the morning of our departure for one last jaunt in the waves. I was game enough to get up, get dressed and go to the beach with him, but I left the wave riding to him while watched the sunrise. I don't think it's safe to take on the ocean when not fully awake.

A highly camouflaged sand crab, mere seconds before he attempted to leap up my shorts.

My boss Phil, wife Anne Elise and daughter Ayla - gracious sponsors of our beach vacation.

A black swallowtail caterpillar, one of six I found happily munching away on my fennel plants. Such pretty little fellers.