Things to be Grateful for

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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!