So, we finally got our chickens. When I say finally, I mean that the long hoped for event has occurred after waiting, dreaming, fantasizing, pouring over the Murray McMurray catalog, etc. They are, to put it mildly, wonderful. Well, mostly. The day that they arrived, our neighbors rescued them from the Post Office for us. I don't know exactly what misunderstanding took place, but when we were sold the chickens, we were convinced that they would be delivered to our door. We were mistaken. They were shipped to our Post Office, where they languished, thirsty and cold, until our dear neighbor boy of eight years was at the Post Office with his father. He heard them peeping and asked about them, and, learning that they were ours, and being privy to our misconception that they would appear at our door magically, they brought them home to us! Oh, shortest of knights in shining armor, how I thank thee! I don't think they realize just how grateful I am about that! I have, in the misty, glowing, dreamland that is my imagination, heard them clucking for years, as I collect eggs in a basket wearing a colorful apron and sun bonnet while humming contentedly under blue skies. I'm nothing if not idealistic. I've checked out books on fanciful hen houses. I've subscribed to Backyard Poultry. I remember aching to live on a farm six years ago, when we lived in North Dakota and consciously putting that dream away in the Hope Chest of my heart so that I could command myself to be content with life as it was. I wasn't very successful, by the way.
Now, I have a flock of chicks who peep away in our backyard oh, so sweetly. They live, right now, in a chicken tractor that was given to us by some good friends who hobby farm with goats and chickens and gardening. We plan on leaving some chickens in there... the ones we plan to put in the freezer. The laying flock is getting their very own blue house later. We love to watch the chicks! They are endlessly entertaining. For example, as the sun goes down, they all pile into one corner of the tractor, trying to get the place on the “preferred” roost. They play king of the mountain until the sun goes down, then they all spread out and go to sleep. While they're playing their “game”, though, there's tons of squawking, jumping to the top of the pile, stepping on the heads of each other, and jockeying for position. It looks like corporate America! I picked some whitefly larvae off my cauliflower plants the other day and fed the chicks the little caterpillars right out of my hand. Well, technically, only one chick, who would grab two or three on the run, gobble them up, and be back for more before any of the other chicks knew what was going on! We love to just sit and watch them. Really. We pull our chairs up, open the lid and watch for hours (I knit, too)! Who needs a television?! I told my husband it looked like only the Cornish Rocks were growing and he said that they were growing, but I couldn't tell because I stare at them for hours every day! He's only slightly exaggerating. If I could, I'd just meander back and forth between the chickens and the garden all day long... and knit!
Speaking of Cornish Rocks... they are just the ugliest, nastiest, most disgustingest chicks. They're like freaks of nature... except they're not really natural, in my opinion. They've been bred and bred to grow big fast on as little grain as possible, which is great for a factory farm, I guess. They don't forage, they don't scratch, they don't do anything natural, except eat grain, poop, and breathe. They're kind of naked and pink and ugly and blech. With grain prices getting higher, and hence chicken feed getting more expensive, I think I may just buy dual purpose breeds for meat from now on instead of meat birds. They may take longer to get big, but they'll feed themselves on bugs and grass instead of only eating grain. The Cornish Rocks make me feel kind of queasy when I look at them, actually. One already died... and I'd not be sad if the rest accidentally got eaten by a raccoon or something. Course, maybe that'll make it easier (emotionally) to cut them up and make into chicken noodle soup or something.
Hmmmm.
Anyway, I ended up buying five Americauna pullets, five Buff Orphington pullets, five Cornish X Rocks, and ten straight run Barred Rocks. I'm not sure, but there are four or five birds that were not ordered by us that might be Buffs, too. We ordered 25 and got 30 birds. What kind are the extras? Are they pullets or cockerels? What's the difference between a pullet and a hen, anyway? Do any breeds of chickens lay speckled eggs, or do I have to get guineas for those? Questions for the ages.....

Technical Difficulties

I no longer have broadband! I, essentially, have super-slow, force me to be offline dial up. I can still upload essays, but not pictures. I have stuff to write about, but I wanted to put pics with my entries and I can't!!! Wahhhhh Hahhhhh! Here is my solution, and I know you'll all understand: I'll go ahead and post my essays, and then post the pics that go with them when I have access to broadband. So, you'll get pictures, but perhaps later.

The Clothesline

“Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all.”
Many of you will know what I mean when I say I want to be a Proverbs 31 woman. I want to have a clean house, organized closets, and a cheerful demeanor at all times. I want to make homemade bread, cheese, and dinner from my homegrown food all the time. I want to have a giant garden that meets all our vegetable needs, and even our fruit needs. I want to take good care of our resources that I've been given: be it money, time, or raw materials. I want to be a good correspondent, a good friend, mother, sister, wife, and citizen. There's more, of course, but this list makes me want to implode, so I assume you're not feeling too comfortable, either.
Baby steps, as Flylady would say. I often go back to that. I think about what small changes I could make that could have a big impact on all the things I care about. I've made pretty major changes in my homemaking that started with little steps and little money. It started about six years ago when I switched to cloth diapers. My third baby had very sensitive skin and I decided to try them to see if it helped her, and it did, with a bonus of fewer “blow-outs”. So, I bought a bunch of Chinese prefolds, some Bummi Whisper Pants and some diaper pins and went to it. I actually found a pleasant sense of rightness when I washed those diapers, folded them, and stacked them in her changing table. I wasn't filling landfills with disgusting chemicals and I pretty much recouped my investment after I used the diapers five times (that was accomplished in less than a month). Then I thought about all the extra detergent and water and electricity I was using to wash them. Buzzkill. I decided to invest about $20 on clothesline, pins, an apron to hold them, and started hanging laundry out to dry. Well, to my surprise, that was really fun! My breezy, grassy, apple blossomy backyard was a much more fun place to be than my basement laundry area! I trooped out, basket on my hip, apron around my waist, and children underfoot, cheerful and happy. The baby enjoyed the laundry waving over her head and the leaves against the sky and the outdoor air, the toddlers liked to get a chance to ask mom to push them on the swing, and I was happy just to get out of the house a minute! I pinned and sang and breathed in the clean fresh scent of those diapers and decided that this was downright fun!
My time outdoors benefited other aspects of my life, too. I discovered that running outside for a little bit gave me a chance to say hi to the neighbors, invite them to play or to have tea (did I mention my desire to be more hospitable?). My garden was receiving more attention because I'd pop over to check on it as I piled the baby into the empty basket to take inside (weight bearing exercise, anyone?). I started to spread out a quilt to read to the children while I was out there. We all were cheerful, outside, and I was motivated to do laundry, of all things! Then we moved and started paying our own utility bills. You may not believe me, but hanging laundry on a line also enabled me to exchange the money I paid on dryer electricity for money to be spent on air conditioning electricity. (Yes, yes, I know, they're not responsible, either!) My clothesline led me to change to vegetable based detergents instead of petroleum based ones, which I have decided is patriotism as it reduces our country's dependence on oil. It inspired me to buy a whole lot of tea towels and inexpensive wash cloths and to buy flannel and do a little sewing to replace bibs, paper towels, baby wipes, napkins, sponges and many other disposable things! I also decided to purchase a front load washer instead of a top loader when we had to get a new washer so I could use less water, electricity, and detergents doing all that laundry. Finally, it gave me an opportunity, that I perhaps otherwise would have missed: to see Cedar Waxwings passing apple blossoms one to another in the spring.
So, my laundry load was increased by all this cloth, but remember how I enjoy the process of washing and drying and folding it all when my surroundings are the glories of creation! Remember that folding squares and rectangles is one of a toddler's first jobs in our house, that when a family can work together joyfully, it fosters bonding and companionship and mutual respect more than any family movie night will, and that a homemaker who finds joy in her work can change the whole atmosphere of home. The little steps I made led to a large behavioral change that makes me feel as though my large family is being more responsible in it's use of resources, and I feel that I'm truly being a good steward of what I've been given in the laundry genre...
You might want to know if I think I've got that aspect of my life settled, but now I'm trying to take all this a step further and make rags then rugs out of my worn out napkins, diapers, and tea towels... then, after all that has been used to it's fullest, I'll put those worn out rugs into the compost heap and let them feed us! Top that, disposable society! Also, I'm hoping to put more of us in wool in the winter as it repels stains and requires less washing (though you cover it with things like bibs and aprons which do require washing) and helps keep us warmer so we don't use so much energy heating the house in the winter. Oh, and you can compost wool, too! I think this beats a disposable lifestyle hands down, and it's good for the soul, as any hard work that produces good results is.

A Little Inspiration

Don't you love this blue and white against the city skyline! I loved this little nook in Millennium Park!

Grow, Baby, Grow!

I can show you a picture of my gardens completely planted, but you know, it's not very interesting, because I mostly planted seeds! I just walk out there in the mornings to water them and tell them to,”Grow, grow, grow! Make my food!” Yes, I talk to plants, but only when no one over three years old is around!
I've planted tomatoes, basil, cilantro, peppers, zucchini, summer squash, cucumbers (a first for me!), carrots, lettuce, spinach, okra (another first), parsley, lemon balm, green beans, butternut squash, watermelon, and sweet corn. I'm trying the “three sisters” approach for the corn. Planting them with beans and squash. The idea is that the corn is a trellis for the beans to climb, and the squash provides shade for the roots of the corn. The beans do the nitrogen fixing for the corn, and the squash and beans growing together supposedly confuse pests... we'll see! It's the sort of companion planting that's been done for thousands of years by Native Americans... except I left out the dead fish under every corn seed, not having any fish at hand. Plus, in theory, all those roots and leaves help deter soil erosion which is a problem with corn. A benefit to raising your own food by hand instead of letting big farms with big machines do it, perhaps?
Gardening inspires a lot of the same emotions in me that having a new baby does. I murmur and pet and fuss over each emerging sprout like it's my new baby. Yeah, OK, that's kind of weird. But there's a lot of satisfaction and warm fuzzies that can be derived from “raising” stuff. Hard work resulting in a good harvest is very good for the soul. In the square foot gardening method, you prune your vining plants to one main stem, which is really hard to do, because you think: more stems, more food. Supposedly, pruning those stems to one, and weaving that one stem up and down a trellis allows you to get a lot more food from a lot less space. Then, when the season winds to a close, you cut off the end of that one stem and it's supposed to help the fruit to ripen in a timely manner. I've no experience with this, however, it's all stuff from books I've read, and probably confused in my mind! All this pruning reminds me of training children to behave well! One does a lot of nipping behavior in the bud, hoping it will help the child “bear better fruit” later. Of course, the raising of children takes much longer than tomatoes, so one must just have faith that those that have done it before know what they're talking about.
Grow, baby, grow! Make good fruit! Be healthy! Grow tall and strong! Be productive!
Gardeners and mothers have a lot in common.

A Zoo, Sort Of

I'm a bit mad at myself today. I'm back from Chicago (had a LOVELY time!), but just not in the groove. Too relaxed, perhaps? I've had these really great photo opportunities recently, and I just wasn't fast enough to get good pictures! We have some sort of bird's nest outside our back door, pasted up in a corner under our eaves. At first you could see Mama Bird building her nest on top of another, older one. Not too much later you could hear little peeps coming from it, as long as you didn't step out the door. They were very obedient little birds and were completely silent when they saw danger. A little later you could look at them peeking over the edge of the nest, waiting to be fed, quietly watching us go about our business. Yesterday, they were gone, and there was a black rat snake on the ground four feet long to entertain us instead. The four baby birds were in our front yard, lined up on a tree branch, getting their flying lessons, and just in time, for those black snakes are really good climbers. I know, I looked it up online! My daughter saw the snake, and we all ran out to look at it, while I was yelling at them to, “Go back inside till I figure out what kind of snake it is!” I Googled Black Snake and found a picture that looked just like the one we saw: a shiny black snake, all kinked up, perfectly still. My kids wanted to kill it. I decided not... we've found plenty of evidence of rodents and I decided a little bit of natural predation was a good thing. Later that day, we heard five gunshots come from the neighbor's hen house. I was disturbed at the gunshots. After all, any kind of killing disturbs a woman like me. The three neighbor men had found two black snakes munching their eggs, and, well, when it comes to food, a man must protect his interests above the serpent's, naturally. One day I believe the lion will lie down with the lamb, but not yet!

Dining In

Hello there, dear readers! I know, it's been awhile, but I know you'll all forgive me, knowing I've been moving and that all is in an uproar... The sewing stuff is still all in boxes, my summer clothes still have not been located, and I'm off on a mini vacation to visit my sister and some old friends in Missouri and Chicago with the baby. I thought I'd just pipe in with a few suggestions for this time of year. I know I've mentioned square foot gardening before, and I still think that is a wonderful way to start to do a little to make life more healthy for you and your neighbors. Perhaps you're not really ready for that... perhaps you can't afford it, or you think it's too late in the season, or you don't think you can find all the ingredients. So I have another suggestion! Make your own dinner. Make it from scratch. Make it from local, fresh, seasonal food if you possibly can, but if you can't or don't want to go to the trouble, just make something for yourself for dinner. I know, you're busy, you're really, really busy and it's just easier to pick up some fast food and eat it on the way home, or get some tuna helper and cook it all in a skillet. But really, it's not very good for you or your taste buds or the environment or small family farmers or your beloved neighbors near and far. I have a few suggestions, just in case you want to try.
Mary Jane Butters came up with the wonderful idea of a Bakeover, which you can try, I've never tried her mixes, but one can always make their own.
A Crockpot is a great investment... if you use it! Think of it as an investment, as you'll save lots of money in the future by putting it to good use.
Try a pot of soup... I love this carrot top soup for spring, it's hearty enough for supper with some bread, but not too heavy for warm weather, and cooking stove top is waaaaay cooler in the kitchen than cooking in the oven.
Even better, try the rubber chicken idea. Roast a chicken... if you work, do it on a day off, like Saturday. (If you have a big family, try more than one chicken!) Eat it with some mashed potatoes, or try some roasted potatoes with fresh parsley or carrot top greens sprinkled over the top. How about a spinach salad with hard boiled eggs and bacon dressing? Have you ever made gravy from scratch? Mmmmm, I'm getting hungry.
After dinner, when the dishes are clean, grab that chicken and pick it clean with your fingers... yeah, it's messy and greasy, but it can be fun if you're listening to a book on tape, or chatting with someone you enjoy spending time with. Try to get them to help you! Put all the leftover pieces of chicken in a glass bowl and put some foil over it and save it for dinner tomorrow night! Then put that bony carcass away in the fridge, too, or, if you have time, throw it into a big soup pot, cover it with water and simmer it for a looooong time. While it's simmering, play cards or another game with your loved one(s)... it's fun! Or, make some dessert, we always do that on Saturday night. Make some chicken broth (here's some more detailed directions). Use it for your carrot top soup a couple of days from now!
On Sunday afternoon, depending on how much chicken is left either make chicken salad (I like this one from Martha Stewart) or black bean quesadillas. These are easily made with a can of black beans, some tortillas, plum tomatoes, and some cheese, don't forget the cumin and garlic and maybe some green onions, if you like. Or add salsa, or sour cream, or make it soft tacos or burritos with rice, or whatever strikes your fancy. If you drink alcohol, grab a couple of cervezas and a lime and make it a little event! If not, make yourself some sun tea or limeade with maraschino cherries and make it an event, anyway! There's your Sunday night dinner.
On Monday, eat your soup for dinner with a really good loaf of bread that YOU like, though, if I were you I'd remember the saying, “the whiter the bread, the sooner you're dead!” Try to make some! If you live alone, go shopping for a second hand thermos and take that soup to work every day to eat for lunch!
Now you know why they call it rubber chicken, it stretches to at least 3 meals!
If you're really into saving money, keep track of what you spend on those meals and compare it to what you would have spent on eating out. Then use the extra money to go shopping at the antique or thrift store for an old tablecloth that you think would make a good apron cause we're gonna do that for the next project! Don't forget to warm up that sewing machine, or get yourself some sewing needles and a thimble that your middle finger of your sewing hand and some thread to match, or contrast nicely with, your project. And don't forget to get some really sharp scissors, or get yours sharpened... it makes the work so much more pleasurable!