Chickens and Togetherness

This week it is spring, edging into summer. The roses are opening...the lawn needs constant babysitting and we wake up every morning to birdsong and open windows. Its beautiful and chaotic and relieving and its smells amazing outdoors.

A is finally back home after nearly a month away from us on the other side of the country. Its been both ridiculously hard to have him gone (we're staying very connected emotionally) and also so amazing to find our stride and realize that we as a family can actually hack insane things like living on two coasts periodically. Pom misses his Daddy more than he ever has before when A travels and he during this trip he did things like breakdown sobbing inconsolably at the sound of his voice over the phone. Its touching to see him getting more verbal and also more clear about his own feelings and about intangible things like missing someone who isn't present: 3 years old approaches.

The chickens are laying well and may be driving the neighbors crazy with their egg calls which thankfully happen when people are mostly at work and houses in the neighborhood are empty. We have to remember to check the coop twice a day to make sure that we don't end up with any silly broody hens or egg eating, because there are always 6 a day now. I have started bringing the girls a cabbage a week to entertain them and give extra summer vitamins. I am also tossing any weeds from the garden into their pen for eating and am impressed with how much them do actually seem to be able to tear off and consume. Chickens are funny because they don't have any teeth or sharp cutting tools and are mostly adapted for eating loose seeds and small bugs that can be gulped whole or else ripping off bits of leaves attached to rooted plants. When I toss in whole weeds I think a lot of them just get trampled since when they pluck on them the whole plant comes along, but if they get into a tug-of-war everyone can actually pull off pieces and sometimes I see a hen use her foot for a tool to hold down the food and help tear it apart.

My sister Lockbox is engaged! That's the other bit of really exciting news around our house. Lots of our idle talk these days is diamond admiring, dress discussion and flower arrangement planning. So much ethereal planning to savor and witness. A wedding is a pretty deliciously cheery occasion, and more importantly I am so pleased for my sister and her man. They're so happy together and the new brother is infinitely approved of.

I have taken a season off of doing a lot of personal watercolor painting this past semester because I was teaching a middle and high school class for our homeschool co-op but now that the school year has ended...I'm free to paint by myself again! I'm so glad I taught, it was empowering (never taught art before!) and fun. I'm hoping to start back to my artist group that meets on Tuesdays this week and cannot wait to get back to the brushes. I might need a trip to the art store for more fresh paper!Yum!

January Stillness

I keep coming down in the morning, turning the oven on and running back upstairs for a sweater. Its cold! Next, I turn on the coffee maker and sternly tell myself to caulk the ancient kitchen window. It really must be done. (I tell myself this every morning and some evenings) Then I stand on the cold tile and try to think of hot things to make for breakfast that aren't bad for us. Putting my fuzzy lined moccasins on helps me think. This morning I decided the answer was to bake sweet potatoes in the microwave and serve a half of a steaming potato onto each plate with mugs of tea as warming back-up.

The boys and I are enjoying quite a lot of sunshine right now, even if it isn't warm. The chickens are out scratching vigorously every morning in the morning rays...completely undeterred by their absurdly timed molting. There are feathers EVERYWHERE in the coop! It looks like a pillow exploded. The silly hens are doing their fall shedding in the middle of the peak cold time! Its a darn good thing they had the good fortune to be Southern Connecticut hens and not Northern Michigan biddies. Teach them to follow their own rhythms!

I am looking deeper and deeper into the freezer and the pantry and find myself thinking strategically about what to plant and harvest and buy and freeze and can this next summer. We could use more frozen veggies, frozen batches of quick breads, dried fruits, canned peaches and canned meats. Note to self....more of everything except bags of frozen zucchini chunks. We have enough of those.

Our hopeful plan to go see the desert of Arizona and visit our friends who have set up house there among the saguaro has melted away. I have learned a real life lesson about the wisdom of jumping on cheap tickets when they are spotted. This year, instead, we'll be flying to Florida and soaking up some rays in the Sunshine State. We found cheap tickets for the whole family to sunny Ft. Lauderdale so I am banking many hours dreaming about tanning in the sand while the boys play, doing almost nothing except letting my skin soak in warmth and my brain take a giant pause. Sounds so good. No theme parks, no marathon crazy plans, no insane amounts of highway to chase down and conqueror in a day. Just us. Just warmth. Just a break. March is coming.

In the meantime, there is tea, and mending with heart shaped patches for little boys jeans, there are friends to drop by and there are paints. .....the paints she had with her always.

Cold, Robots and Holiday Romoval

The winter cold has finally really found us. After a frozen pipe inventory (all bathroom sinks and toilets...) I pulled on extra layers to take the chickens their food scraps and also a new wad of straw for the next boxes and coop floor. Its amazing to me that the hens seem so fine in the cold but from what I've read they actually are in more danger during hot weather in the summer when we get into the 90 and 100 degree weather than they are from today's 9 degree chill. They might be fine running barefoot in the snow, but the girls still got warm water in their waterer and an extra handful of meal worms for a snack. The weather men tell us that there are days of super cold ahead of us so I'll be keeping a close eye on the hens, reading up on Pinterest recipes for breakfast porridge and turning our science walks into indoor reading time. Its still refreshing to go outside in weather that cold but it leaves you gasping and your hands burning after much less than a city block. Its reading weather.

Sometimes its nice to be the indoor pet.

I am slowly taking down Christmas. Today I am taking down the mini-tree on top of the bookcase and burning the branches that were on the mantle. I have put some of the special decorations from my grandparents collection on the mini tree. I like having them up out of the reach of little fingers but I love having them out and in sight of the whole family, being used and loved each year.

It has been grand to have them out but I'm really excited about putting Christmas away too. Tomorrow will be the day I attack the tree and haul it out to the curb! I'm intimidated and invigorated all at once at the prospect! All those pine needles! EEP!

The boys and I are painting a series of watercolor robots to hand on their bedroom walls. So much fun to be doing pen and ink outlines, non-realism, playful subjects and more cartoony lines. The boys are inspired and keep making new varieties of Lego robots. They are little figures, easy to slip into a coat pocket when running errands (even if Mommy does say to leave toys home) and just simple enough to teach to your little brother. Love finding them all over the house.

Loving The Hard Work Of Things

Whoops! Its tomorrow. I truly didn't mean to stay up quite that late.

When A is gone time becomes strangely plastic for me. I am astounded, even embarrassed by how much his existence keeps me on a schedule. Somehow, knowing that he is coming home at a certain time or that he is trying to get to the gym in the morning or that he will want to eat at such and such an hour is a major motivator for me. I'm glad that I care about him and notice what he wants and needs, I'm a little concerned (hence the embarrassment) that as much as I thrive on a schedule and feel that I own my own use of routine and timing....its rather quick to fall away and become a mangled mess as soon as A is out of the house. I am finding it terribly hard to do most any of the usual things with my former vigor: getting up on time, having proper meals, making sure the kids clear the table, getting the animals fed bright and early, etc. Someone tell me this does not equate to a complete lack of moral fiber and starch on my part. Anyone?

We did manage to get the chicken coop totally finished! I forgot to take a nice shot of the finished coop....I'll have to add one later in the week. Its incredibly nice, almost absurdly nice, really. The six hens seem to have settled right in and made themselves at home. They are laying without interruption and no longer having riots at the fence and trying to all moshpit themselves out the door everytime I open the pen. I'm glad to see them so occupied and happy. They're now stationed right next to the compost pile which is giving them lots of good material to scratch about in and for a chicken....life couldn't be sweeter than living in a redwood mansion over a pile of kitchen waste. Good times abound.

The boys are doing all kinds of little handicraft projects lately. Ru has been dabbling in woodcarving after one of our recent readalouds featured a Swiss woodcarver, Dee has discovered detailed paper cutting and paper chains and Nib is really into coloring books and has started some of his first clearly representational art lately. Even Pom has begun drawing his own little crayon scribble storms on paper....and only once in Sharpie on a dining room chair which I think is a pretty good score. I would love to get all of them to do a little bit of some kind of art to use for Christmas presents this year. Have to mull over how to work it all in. So many wonderful things to make and do in the world.

Off to bed now before the gremlins get me! I've got a full day tomorrow and brand new towels that I bought myself for a treat which require a hot shower during some mama alone-time early in the morning. Somebody remind me to let go of my insane need to procrastinate and actually stay on track with my schedule tomorrow. My guitar teacher wisely quipped this past week....."one of the great keys to life is to learn to find real motivation and personal pleasure in the practice and work of life because that is most of life." I feel the need. Have to figure out how that works and what you do to switch your inner switch.

What Do You Call An Egg With No Shell?

Check out this egg that one of my hens laid.

Pretty, right?

Pretty weird!!!!

Its an egg with no shell....just the thin, skin-like membrane that normally lines the inside of the shell. Reading a list of reasons why this could occur isn't particularly enlightening (stress, low calcium, too much salt, immaturity, old age). I am going to bet on stress as the most likely cause. Its hard for me to tell which hen laid this because the shell color is my normal way to tell any given hen's eggs from another but I'd venture to guess Pearl is our most stressed hen after her recent recovery and I'm in the process of putting together a whole new coop with lots more space in the house and the yard because I think all the girls are a little too short on room and that could be stressing any one of them.

Nature is strange and sometimes beyond believing. Time to fire up my drill and get that coop together lest our eggs keep arriving in little skin sacks!

Choose Your Marinade

Its a quiet day full of small things like egg gathering, working on the laundry, helping people sound out words in comic books and expressing awe every time the thunder booms outside the window. I have been to the mechanic to fix the random piece of plastic hanging down under the front end of the car (Zip ties? Alright!), have been to the bookstore to pick up the book I have been pouting about missing with my book club a couple of months ago, so that I have travel reading (The Orphan Train) and have made one last playdate/mama hang-out session appointment so that we leave town with our social tanks all full.

I have been learning in the past few months how important it is to accept your negative emotions but to not live in them. Learning to step outside of how I feel and observe it objectively is a really astoundingly life-giving skill. I'm still not super good at it but its in my toolbox. I love knowing that nothing I feel defines me, that emotions are real and important and yet they pass, that the weight we give to things is the weight they carry, and that I am mistress of my own ship. I can choose how I feel and what I focus on, and I can also solve the problems I feel badly about. Validation + Empowerment + Optimism. 

Any little small-time, rainy day can feel gloomy, closed-in, overwhelming or lacking in life, like a place where problems and hard feelings stew until they are your own private marinade, a flavor you own. Instead, I'm living deep, being brave, feeling peace, slowing down, looking my boys in their twinkling eyes, reading stories, dreaming up some new painting ideas and flipping through travel guides for The West Coast. 

My beehive swarmed which, basically means that the whole flock up and flew away because the queen said to. There's no telling why exactly, maybe they felt cramped, maybe they hatched a new queen and she was a rolling stone, maybe the girls didn't like the new plastic, comb frames I put in before I left for Michigan. This is disappointing, but its also a good reminder that we only give shelter to bees, we don't really "keep" them. They are wild animals and not really controllable in the sense that we normally reserve for livestock. 

The six chickens in the backyard are giving my five eggs a day, and just to keep themselves all in the running, they are rotating which lady hen is taking a rest that day. I feel slightly annoyed but if I step out of entitled ego, I realize that rest is good for bodies, even chicken bodies and I can chuckle imagining a chicken council with the elected madame being given her daily pass in rotation. Maybe they are holding out until I buy the larger coop I am saving towards!

May your day be full of quiet empowerment. May you know the power of validating your own feelings and the strength of stepping outside of them to see gratitude. May your marinade be peace and may humor cover it all. 

I'm off to start packing! 

Staying Outdoors Longer

We are spending all our time outdoors on every single warm day, soaking up every drop of sunshine, slowly mustering up tans and freckles and ignoring the dirty floors and the poor, sad houseplants.On cold days we feel dejected and don't even look out the windows, we curl up with good books and drink more tea and pretend it isn't spring yet, refusing to go out in the bitter chill and feel cheated when the wind is way colder than it looked and a hoodie isn't warm enough. Its that mid-ground season. Mentally we are living in full on spring but in truth its sometimes bitter and then randomly so warm you break a sweat walking across the yard.

Its whip-lash season. Time to make green juices, roast the last of the big cuts in the freezer, dream up spring soups for the cold days, check your stock of vases and make time for walks every single.darn.day.

I am trying to remind myself to go hard in the garden, pushing myself until my bones ache because I am feverish to stay outside on these sunny days and because I know once the weather really turns and its blazing June I'll feel like nothing but sitting in the shade with a lemonade. Now is the time to lay mulch like a crazy woman, divide plants, sprinkle grass seed, assemble the raised beds, put peas in the ground and dig up the email address of the lady I bought amazing tomato plants from last year. Time to go, go, go outdoors. I'll regret it later if I don't.

The boys and I found a pair of wooly bear caterpillars out in the garden who promptly spun cocoons on the glass sides of the mason jar they call home. They are now incubating on the kitchen window sill, next to a jar with a praying mantis egg case in it that we found two days ago. We are assembling  a small zoo, as we love to do. My next goal is to score some frogs eggs. Dee was asking me hopefully if we might be able to hunt up some turtle nests and raise baby turtles, this morning at breakfast. I explained that turtle eggs are a little more fussy to raise than frog's eggs and that there are laws protecting them but I loved his optimistic, sky's the limit outlook. Shoot for the moon! Raise turtles! Why not?!? Those little bits make me feel like a great mama.

The two blow-out diapers and one peeing all over the car by accident episode that also happened this week, not so much. Real life over here folks, don't get any funny ideas!