Tomato Delivery

I got REALLY carried away with starting tomato plants this year. Let's skip right over all the pictures of things growing lushly in the greenhouse to how things look currently: tons and tons of almost-root-bound tomato plants that need homes spread out over every conceivable surface both inside and outside the greenhouse. Between the three gardens on the property up here I've planted 20 tomato plants. Of course, the crazy person in me wonders if that is enough... THIS year I plan to preserve tomatoes! Last year I said I would, and had 5 healthy bushes, but we ate every single tomato fresh, and I was left with zero jars of anything tomato. But this is the year of tomato sauce, tomato paste, salsa, sun dried tomatoes... 20 plants should be enough, right???

The plants we couldn't fit have been given away to people, and today Titus and I made our final delivery to the next door neighbor. He (Titus) was very excited to hear I needed his help and that it involved his tractor. He was not excited to hear that he would have to drive SLOWLY down the driveway with the precious plants in tow, and that he was not allowed to purposely crash into anything on the way there. Boy did it feel good to get those things out of here!

Our trusty side-kick came along for the trip, limping along because he jammed his paw into a thistle plant before we left. Stepping in thistles is one of his spring-time traditions, though he's getting pretty darn old and these things are more difficult to recover from. He's taking a nap in the dirt next to some dust-bathing chickens right now.

It was nice to make an event out of The Tomato Delivery, rather than rushing around and cramming it in between errands. It is so beautiful outside these days - almost completely spring-like except for the slight chill in the air. The flowering pear tree that grows where we park our car is dropping showers of white petals down so thickly that it feels like snow when the wind blows. Too bad those blossoms smell like a huge pile of dirty socks - every time we get in the car the kids say "It smells like a dead animal around here..." and start looking for a dead chicken. Too bad, as well, that my children can so easily identify the smell of a dead animal. Hm. Another beautiful word picture ruined.

Things are very exciting and busy around here. Lots of planting, building, bird-netting, and waiting, as one of the hens is sitting on 6 eggs that should hatch next week, and one of the rabbits is due to have a litter the week after that. Spring is one of my very favorite times of year, so much to do, so much to look forward to. And of course, Easter. This year I feel especially full of tearful gratitude when I think about what Jesus did for me, for you. So grateful for joy and peace, and loving our simple little life.

Chicken Doctor

Please forgive my rare appearance here on the ol' blog. I like to post something a few times per week, but this has been a doozie of a week. We began with Strep Throat and ear infections, progressed to allergic reactions to antibiotics, threw in some Pink Eye, and capped it all off with a literal flying leap from the top of Grandma's stairs, resulting in a broken 4-year-old foot. You're welcome, Kaiser. Anywho, I have been doing much less farming than I would like, and a lot more health care.



As the kids and I pulled into the driveway after having Titus' leg casted, we noticed one of my dad's hens, an old Pompadour who has always been at the bottom of the pecking order of his flock, milling about our yard. The two flocks tend to stay pretty separate from one another, so we wondered why she had left those other bullies in favor of ours. Moses quickly noticed that she had a long piece of twine tangled around her legs which was preventing her from taking full strides. She has always been a docile hen, so she allowed Moses to pick her up without much difficulty. The hard part was getting that twine off her dinosaur leg. It was so tangled in little knots that were digging into her skin, and I was so afraid of accidentally nipping her with the scissors, that it took about 20 minutes for me to cut it off. She sat placidly in Moses' lap the entire time, occasionally pecking the scissors curiously or peering up at my face through her mop of white feathers. It was a very nice moment. In my experience, helping animals on the farm usually involves pinning them down and working as fast and desperately as you can while they panic and try to escape, the end result being that everyone involved feels a bit traumatized. This, on the other hand, was a calm moment, and Moses and I could both tell that the hen appreciated our help. When we were finished and set her free, she didn't even go running off, but stayed near us, happily scratching and pecking up bugs.



Strangely, Madame Pompadour never returned to my dad's chicken coop after we untangled her. That night she didn't turn up in the nightly head count, and the next morning she could be seen happily wandering around the sand pit on the opposite end of the property, far from any other chickens. She didn't return to the coop that night either. The next day, I spotted her down by the edge of the pond where the grass is greenest and lucky chickens can even find baby frogs to eat. Her shiny black feathers and funny white poofy head made quite a contrast against the green grass and sparkly water. It was a beautiful sight. She looked so happy down there, though it was curious to see her all alone. Even bullied chickens like to stay with the group. She seemed to need some time to herself, though, and spent the entire morning scratching and pecking around the pond.

That afternoon, my dad came over to tell us that he had found her lying dead at the edge of the pond. Nothing had killed her; she seemed to have died of old age. Moses and I were both sad to hear this, but I also felt a soft touch of happiness as well. I was glad she decided to wander over to our house when she needed help, glad to have untangled her and have a chance to hold her a bit. I was proud of her for having such a good death - she had removed herself from the flock, which is natural in animals who know they are about to die - and gone to the prettiest spot on the property where she could live out her last days in peace. I'm glad I got to see her pecking around down there, and happy that this is a place that chickens (even the ones who end up on our table) get to roam free and enjoy themselves.

Violets in Winter

I made two statements in the last week that nobody should every say. The first was "I don't get sick." The second: "I don't believe in hand sanitizer." I am being punished for both of those statements.



Stuck at home for yet another day, we made do with what we had lying around. We painted rocks, assembled some left-over sun-catcher kits, read MANY chapters of How To Speak Dragonese, and snuck in a few games of handball between torrential downpours of rain and hail. None of us are inside-all-day folks, even when sick, so the combination of germs and inclement weather has us a bit stir crazy. As I was washing dishes at the sink, my oldest son said "Mom, it's SNOWING!!!" "No, Moses, that is hail," I replied without looking up. "Mom, it really is snow! Look!" And, as usual, he was right. Amongst the rain drops, huge fluffy white snow flakes were floating down from the sky. Each one melted before even touching the ground, but they were enchanting. The three of us stood there with our pathetic drippy noses, gazing out the sliding glass door in silence, enjoying the excitement of snowflakes. It was nice.



I wonder how the violets on the lawn are holding up to all this weather. They show their pretty little faces every February and it excites me every time. Until moving "up the hill" when I was in high school, I had never seen purple flowers growing in a green lawn before. It seems so rebellious of nature to think up something like that. Everything seems so excited for spring - violets on the ground and lots of blossoms on trees. All while we are being told that we may wake up to a fresh blanket of snow tomorrow. I wonder how my freshly sprouted pea plants are doing out there with all this cold and hail. I'll check tomorrow - for now I'll sit here and enjoy my tea.

Chicken Molt

It is the first day of October ... naturally it is 95 degrees outside. What? I had to pull the summer clothes out from under the bed so we could all shed our extra fall layers. Seems the chickens have the same idea - everyone is molting! I actually thought this chicken had been attacked when I saw her yesterday - she has shed her feathers down to the skin over most of her body.

It is really weird seeing a plucked chicken running around acting like it has no idea it is naked. Normally when our chickens molt they go into hiding and act grouchier than usual. You can tell they are embarrassed just by looking at their bald dejected heads. But not this lady - she seems to have a double dose of either self-esteem or oblivion. She has been pecking her way merrily around the yard leaving a trail of fluffy feathers behind her as if she hasn't a care in the world.

The other mature chickens are molting too, but not to this extent. When we got home from picking up kids from school they were all huddled under the rose bushes, trying to cool off in the shade. Only this hen was out and about, for once not having to compete for the bugs and seeds in the yard. Seems there are benefits to running around naked on the first day of October.

Ever had one of those days when you thought you were going to get a lot of stuff done but ended up doing nothing? Me too.

He might be too sick to go to school, but he certainly isn't too sick to hang out with the chickens. He made me promise that "chickens can't get germs" before picking up his girlfriend; such a considerate boy.

(The sheep is fine, by the way. Turns out she's found a new shady spot to hang out in away from pesky flies. She was happy to see me. Good ol' Chloe.)

Jackpot and a lesson about eggs

Both my dad and husband are out of town on business trips, so the kids and I are holding down the fort. It is actually a lot more work to water my dad's huge garden and take care of all his chickens in addition to ours. We don't mind it, though, and there always seems to be an adventure waiting for us when it's just the three of us. Take today, for example.

Titus and I decided to wander out to the hay barn - though the door is kept bolted shut, the window is broken and occasionally chickens will fly in through the hole to lay eggs. (The breaking of the hay barn window is a story in itself. Maybe one day I'll be short on current stories and have to tell you that one...) It took a bit of convincing on my part - Titus is terrified of Chloe the sheep and rarely dares walk through this particular pasture to the hay barn because of the possibility of a chance encounter with her. Today Chloe was nowhere to be seen (note to self: check on the sheep), so we made it to the hay barn without incident.

Well, it is a good thing we went out there, because there were more than a few eggs in there sitting around getting old. Half of the eggs were turquoise, answering the question of where in the heck the Araucana has been laying. It was the next best thing to discovering a real chest of buried treasure in the yard - kind of like a surprise Easter Egg hunt. First we found this gross area of eggs in an old hay-filled barrel, where chickens seemed to be sitting on and breaking each other's eggs in order to lay their own... we saved what we could.

Then there was the Araucana nest - I wish this picture had turned out better so you could see how pretty those turquoise eggs are. Over on the other side of the barn were two huge clutches of white eggs.

All in all, just over two dozen eggs. But our work wasn't done, of course. Not only were the eggs filthy, but they could have been a month old and rotten for all we knew. The only solution: float them. This is an easy way to tell if eggs are fresh, and we do it pretty frequently since chickens around here are always hiding their eggs. Whenever we happen upon a new hiding spot, we have to do the float test to see if the eggs are suitable to eat.

Here's the idea: egg shells have tiny microscopic pores in them that allow the wet inside of the egg to slowly evaporate out over time. Think about the last egg you hard-boiled. Remember the small dent in the cooked egg, kind of like there was an air pocket in the egg before you cooked it? That is due to the amount of egg that had evaporated out of the egg over time (and is an indication that your egg wasn't laid very recently). The fresher the egg, the heavier it is because none of the inside has evaporated out. SO, fresh eggs placed in a deep bowl of water sink straight to the bottom and lay flat like a stone. Eggs that are a little bit older will stand up straight on their tip. Old eggs float.

All together we had three floaters. Those got chucked. Of the remaining eggs, about half of them were fresh and the other half stood up straight. I usually try to use the straight-standing eggs within the next few days, either in baked goods or I hard boil them and we eat egg salad sandwiches for lunch. The fresh ones are for eating for breakfast, and for selling to friends. Egg floating is a pretty fun activity to do with kids - think of how educational you can make it! I'm off to peel hard-boiled eggs!

Through the eyes of a three year old

Sometimes all one needs is a perspective shift. I have taken plenty of pictures of this old weathered tree in the front pasture, but it never looked beautiful until my 3 year old got his hands on the camera. Would you like to see what our morning looked like? He's done a pretty nice job documenting things...

Picking plums and pears from the orchard and feeding all the yucky ones to the obliging dog...

Getting the mail... This shot took a particular amount of skill, especially when you learn that he was holding two pears in his non-camera hand.

Checking ALL the secret egg hiding spots...

Hauling all our loot home to be washed and distributed to friends...

Enjoying a beautiful day together, mommy, son, and good ol' dog. Happy Friday!

Chicken Foster Care

Look at that cute little face. This little guy (my kids insist that this chick is a girl but for some reason I think it's a boy. We'll find out whenever he starts crowing...) is an orphan. If you've been reading for a while, you'll remember that Crazy White Hen hatched a couple chicks in the barn attic about a month ago. Well, we moved the little family down to ground-level, putting them in a small triangular chicken coop on the lawn. We have to keep baby chicks enclosed because there are so many predators around here, not to mention other full-grown chickens who will happily gang up on babies and kill them. (That's right - chickens can be pretty terrible animals. If you don't believe me now, you will by the end of this post.)

One morning one of the babies was missing from the coop - we can only figure that it squeezed out under a small hole in the bottom of the coop and got gobbled up by something. So the remaining chick was an only child, happily scratching around with its mom.

The time came to move mom and baby to their new home - the baby chick was big enough now to live in one of our larger chicken coops. This area is much bigger so they can take really good dust baths, chase around flies and do all that other good chicken stuff while still enclosed safely away from dangerous outsiders. I usually keep mother and baby chicks together in the larger enclosed coop area until the mother begins acting like she doesn't like her babies any more - the babies are usually fully feathered by that time and don't need their mom any more. Usually I'll notice the mom fighting with her half-grown babies over food and realize it's time to cut her loose. Then the babies stay enclosed for a little while longer until they are old enough to hold their own against the other full-grown chickens. It is a sure thing that the other chickens will bully new chickens, so they need to be old and tough enough to defend themselves and establish their place in the pecking order.

SO, with my husband's help, we went into the tiny coop to pick up mom and baby and transfer them. My husband grabbed Crazy White Hen, who put up a terrible fuss and started screeching like a wild banshee. I crawled in and tried to get the baby, but it FLEW over my head and out the door and was off like a shot. Then, as you can imagine, chaos ensued. The tiny chick was running all over the entire property like a miniature road-runner and the kids, my husband (still holding the shrieking mother hen), and I were all chasing after it. It was small enough to run through the holes in all the chain-link fences, which made cornering it even more difficult. I managed to find an old pool net and added that to the mix, trying to gently net the little baby before it hurt itself or ran across the cat or the other chickens decided to join in the hunt. My husband is the one who finally caught the little guy, and we hurriedly took both frazzled chickens to their new home.

All of this proved to be too much for Crazy White Hen to take. While a more well-adjusted mother might have been able to deal with such a terrible ordeal, this one simply lost her mind. As soon as we put the mother and baby in their new larger home, the mom began attacking her baby. It started as a few well-aimed pecks, the turned into a full fledged emergency situation. Brett snatched the hen up and got her out of there right away, and we were left with a poor little traumatized orphan chick. I still feel terrible about it. If the baby chick hadn't gotten out of the original coop I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened. I've moved Crazy White Hen along with babies many times and she's never rejected them afterwards. From now on I will always move chickens at night when they are more subdued.

I'm no chicken expert, but I'm pretty sure they aren't happy by themselves. It just broke my heart every time we went outside to cuddle our little orphan - there was only so much time we could spend with it and it was obviously in need of companionship. Enter my friend Jessica. Towards the beginning of the year she got five baby chicks of her own and raised them in her house. She and her four kids carried those chicks around and took them outside for supervised dust baths and gave them more attention than any chicken has ever dreamed of. I knew that they would be the perfect foster family for our little orphan. They agreed to raise the chick until it is old enough to be introduced into my own flock. I told them they can keep it if they want to, but she is at her maximum of allowed chicks (she lives in the city and is only allowed 5 backyard birds) and said they will give it back. We'll see how everyone feels by then.

Titus was pretty sad when I told him about the foster care arrangement. He loves birds and was pretty fond of this particular chick. His older brother explained to him that the chick will be happier at Jessica's house, and he eventually came to terms with everything. It helped that I let him hold the box when we took the chick to its new home. I hear everything is going well and "Cheepy" is doing great. Thanks Jess!

Tomatillos

Today I come before you with my head hung in gardening shame. Remember my bountiful crop of Chinese Lanterns? Well, yesterday I went out there having made up my mind: though they are pretty, they needed to be pulled out. They were beginning to sprawl all over the place and were choking out my brussels sprouts. I decided to pull up the plants and take the "flowers" inside to dry and use for decoration. I yanked out the first two huge plants without much trouble, then reached down to pick up one of the pretty green flowers that had fallen off during the yanking. To my surprise, I found that inside the "flower" was a golf-ball-sized fruit, nothing like the "Chinese Lantern Berries" I had read about. This looked and felt rather like a hard unripe green tomato... almost exactly like a... TOMATILLO.

Still in dumb-dumb land, I stood there wondering if maybe Chinese Lantern Berries are really really big and somehow in the same family as tomatillos? I picked all the mysterious green, um, things off of the plants I had uprooted (I later discovered that I had harvested 2 pounds of them), took them inside and hit the internet. I believe my search was: Chinese Lanterns or Tomatillos? And what did I discover? Well, first of all, and probably the most obvious flaw in my original and hasty diagnosis is that Chinese Lanterns are ORANGE. Sheesh, how did I miss that? What I had accidentally grown, and then blogged about incorrectly like an idiot, were TOMATILLOS. The only bit of information I found to make me feel less stupid is the fact that Chinese Lanterns and Tomatillos are in the same family, the husks of the tomatillo closely resembling the Chinese lantern in all but color and size.

This actually makes a lot more sense, because I do have tomatillo seeds, which could have easily gotten mixed in with my brussels sprouts seeds. (My seed storage system consists of all seed packets stuffed happily into a gallon-sized ziplock bag and jammed into the linen closet.) I tried sprouting my tomatillo seeds in February, at the same time I started all my tomato seeds. They did not do well. All you need to do, apparently, to grow tomatillos, is toss them in some good dirt around August and wait to see what happens. Now I know.

Possibly the worst part of this whole thing is that I KILLED two tomatillo bushes! I would never in a million years do that on purpose, even if I was worried that they were shading my brussels sprouts. Maybe I could have pruned them back or something. Fortunately, there are still 2 bushes left in the bed, both of which are covered with tomatillos. I think the ones I accidentally harvested are a tad under ripe, but from what I read that won't make too much of a difference in the salsa verde I plan to make with them. The ones left on the bushes to ripen are destined for this Chicken Tomatillo stew, which looks divine. My excitement about having a bumper crop of surprise tomatillos almost overshadows my embarrassment over telling you all they were Chinese Lanterns. I'm sure some of you were suspicious ... you are much too nice. :)

Farm Stud

See that guy in the picture - the one without ice cream on his face? Yeah, that's my man. I don't often brag about how awesome he is, even though I tell myself every day how blessed I am that I ended up with such a fabulous husband. When you are 18 and in love, you don't ask yourself the big questions about the man proposing marriage to you. I knew I loved him and wanted to go through the adventure of life with him, but I had no idea, nor did I even have enough life under my belt, to consider what kind of man he would be in 12 years. How would he handle losing a job? How would he deal with me being completely immobilized by several pregnancies and having tons of health issues after each birth? How would he treat me when I was so sad about my mom's death that I couldn't even get out of bed? How would he deal with me being a WOMAN and never quite knowing what mood I would be in from day to day? How would he react to me deciding to raise a bunch of crazy chickens when I could barely keep our tiny house clean? The answer, it turns out, is that he would always treat me with more respect and love than I even deserved.

Last night at 4 am he and I awoke to the sounds of "chicken trouble." If you have chickens, you know what I mean; they do not make noises at night unless something is wrong. Always ready for a fight, Brett leaped out of bed and was outside in the pitch dark wearing nothing but his underwear before I even realized what was happening. Right outside our back deck, our largest rooster was engaged in the fight of his life against a coyote. Crazy old rooster - he thinks he is too special to come in at night and has been roosting in various secret places at night rather than allowing us to lock him up somewhere safe. Well, last night he was discovered, and, thanks to Brett's quick reflexes, the coyote was chased off before it got more than a mouthful of rooster tail feathers.

That wasn't the end of it, however. For the next 45 minutes my husband ran around the blackened pasture in his boxers trying to catch that dang rooster in order to put him away somewhere safe. That's some kind of wonderful. I'm pretty sure my husband isn't emotionally attached to that rooster, who is actually a bit more trouble than he's worth. Especially at 4 in the morning. But Brett chased that bird around until the rooster just gave up and stood still, allowing himself to be caught. After a quick check-up to determine he hadn't been hurt, it was off to the coop with him. Needless to say, we didn't get much sleep last night. But Brett still had enough whatever-it-is to get up before 6 and go to the men's Bible study he leads (while the kids and I slept in past 8, by the way). THAT'S a good man. I guess the way to my heart is through my chickens. And since the way to his heart is through delicious baked goods, I've made 4 loaves of zucchini bread this morning. Now he'll be stocked up on his latest favorite treat and I'll feel a little like I repaid him for his night-time rescue. But the greatest thing about it is that I don't need to repay him. And he would do it again in a heartbeat.

Goals for the week

We're a LONG way from being self-sufficient around here, but both my husband and I want to become increasingly able to provide for ourselves with what we grow, raise, catch, or somehow russle up. So this week my goal is to not buy any meat or fruit, using just what we have around here.

Earlier this year we raised and "harvested" chickens for meat. "Meat birds," as I call them, or "Fryers" as my great-grandma used to call them, are a special breed of bird that is much meatier than your average laying hen. They grow up fast, too, so don't cost very much money to feed during the time you are raising them. I'm sure all my vegan and vegetarian friends are considering removing me from their blog reader list... sorry! We aren't vegetarians around here, and in an effort to raise hormone-free, organic meat that doesn't cost a fortune, this is the solution I came up with. No, I don't love killing the birds, but we feel good about the fact that they have a very nice life while they are with us. Lots of sunshine and fresh air, real food (leaves, grass, snails, you know: the yummy stuff chickens are supposed to eat) and lots of attention from the kids. Despite my warnings to them not to get attached to the meat birds, my kids couldn't help but sit around with those big white chickens and play with them. I was surprised that the kids didn't get upset on "harvest day." They have seen us slaughter chickens before, but I thought that since they had played with these ones they would be sad. However, the kids knew that the birds were destined for the freezer since day one, so they were ok with the whole process. They even get more excited when they know we are eating "one of our chickens" rather than a store-bought one. Plus, they taste better. Much, MUCH better.

SO. This week we will be eating chicken, as well as a couple trout that have been waiting in the freezer since my husband's last fishing trip. As for fruit, blackberries are just coming into their prime. Aside from a few straggly vines creeping into my garden, there is a huge patch of blackberry bushes just up the road. I'm looking forward to walking up there with the boys and our buckets - it's one of my favorite end-of-summer traditions. We also have one tree full of little cherry-sized yellow plums. I'm hoping we have enough to make jam, in addition to whatever my three-year-old fruit monster consumes this week.

Of course, we also have eggs. I always make at least one egg-based dinner per week since that is one thing we always have more than enough of. Probably an egg and kale frittata or something... we'll see. There is some bounty from the garden. To be truthful, I have been disappointed with my garden this year. The zucchini haven't been nearly as productive as they were last year, and my tomatoes aren't ripening. I simply didn't plant enough seeds to grow as many vegetables as we eat. But, there are collard greens and a bit of kale, plus the occasional zucchini. It certainly won't get us through the week in terms of veggies, but we'll do what we can. Either way, we are much more self-sufficient than we were last year, and progress is good. I'd love to hear what you are growing!

The real deal

We were with new friends. A woman in my Bible study had taken me up on my invitation to ride with us to the beach. After managing to fit all 4 of our collective car seats in the car, along with sand toys, lounge chairs, blankets, diapers, ice chests, etc. we were ready to go. Her newborn was sleeping peacefully while her 2 year-old raptly absorbed my sons' tales of how wonderful it is to live on a farm. All was smiles and innocent fun. Until my kids got a little too real. I heard it happen - it went something like this:

"And then we play ultimate frisbee with my Uncle Michael on the HUGE lawn and run around and gather eggs, and one of our chickens, the crazy red one, she sat on a bunch of eggs and she hatched out SIX BABY CHICKS in the lavender bush and then we moved them to a safe place so the owls wouldn't eat them and then my mom put a container of water in there for them and three of the baby chicks jumped into it and drowned. My papa found them dead in there and threw them in the garbage." Wah-wah...

That was kind of a mood killer. It made me realize one of the ultimate truths to living on a farm that I have neglected to teach my kids: We don't tell people what it is REALLY like up here.

If you live on a farm you know what I mean. It isn't that you are trying to be deceitful, or that you are trying to make other people jealous by painting a rosy picture of your life, and it isn't that you are embarrassed about what happens on the farm. It is just that most people don't quite have the stomach for the reality of what happens when you put a bunch of animals together in one spot and let them live their lives.

Unfortunately for my friends (and my pride), these "natural animal happenings" always seem to occur when we have guests. There was the time my dad's dog somehow knocked out one of his teeth while chasing a squirrel and left a trail of blood across the entire driveway just as my friend and her two little boys arrived in their nice clean minivan. Not content with grossing them out a little bit, the dog then proceeded to rub his injured mouth all over the side of my dad's white house, leaving a grizzly blood-painting on the siding as our friends stood there gaping in horror. Then there was the time my husband's BOSS came up for dinner. While he was receiving the tour of the property, our dog snatched a gopher straight out of the ground in front of the poor man and crunched down the entire juicy thing, bones and all. And our poor babysitter came up for the first time on the day we discovered a dismembered chicken carcass in the yard, courtesy of the neighboring coyote pack. I've tried various responses to these occurrences in an attempt to ease people's shock and make them see that we are not heathens. None of it works, so I usually end up silently getting the shovel and disposing of whatever has died (while my kids explain to them that no, we do not burry the dead animals: if we did that there would be no room to plant a garden), hosing the rest of the evidence off the driveway, and offering them some cookies or something.

Terrible animal deaths don't happen all the time, and we are not callused to our animals dying. I am actually STILL sad about those poor baby chicks (lesson learned: don't put an open-topped waterer in with baby chicks) and my boys and I have been known to cry together over every lost hen. But the reality is that one gets used to these types of things when living on a farm. We just have to remember that our friends (all of whom live in the suburbs) aren't used to it. I try to ease them into our reality by saying things like "Yes, we used to have six chicks but now we have three. The other three are in heaven." Or "Wow, that rooster sure likes to wrestle with the hens!" or "Hm... I wonder what all that red stuff is? Oh well!" And to be honest, I'm still trying to decide which strategy to take here on this blog. Should I only tell you the cute cuddly stories, or can you stomach the real ones? I promise not to take any pictures of dead animals, but I think it would be good to show what it is really like up here. What do you think? .

An informal introduction

Last night my dad came over with his usual deliveries of our mail (we share a mailbox) and the update on his garden. He has three baby zucchinis, one bell pepper, and japanese beetles in his sunflowers. After we commiserated over garden pests and exchanged rumored home-remedies, talk turned to my great-grandparents' farm. I have heard my dad's stories about his grandpa's farm too many times to count, but this is one of the stories that I don't ever get tired of. He told about how Grandpa had two sows and raised piglets every year - two to keep and the rest for market. How Grandma milked their one diary cow every day and ended up with several gallons of milk, which she would let separate in a huge glass milk jug. After skimming the cream off the top and using the milk for baking, she would churn the cream into butter every Friday. They had one acre devoted to their vegetable garden, which provided all the fresh food they needed. The surplus Grandma took to the local market, along with any extra eggs, and she traded these for dry goods such as flour, sugar, coffee, and yeast. Every day Grandma would watch two hours of soap operas while she either cleaned fruit from the orchard for canning, or (depending on the season) shelled peas. Thanks to her devotion to General Hospital, they always had canned fruits and pickled vegetables to eat through the winter when the fresh varieties weren't available.

My dad explained that his grandparents were referred to as "General Farmers," folks farming the land without any one particular crop. Folks living off the land, dabbling in a little bit of everything they might need or want to raise on their own.

This time as I listened to my dad tell the same old story and my mind filled with happy images of my ancestors using their creativity and determination to survive, something clicked in my mind: This is in my blood! Maybe this is why I have always preferred to make something rather than buy it. Perhaps this explains that thrilling feeling I have when picking green beans from the garden, and my need to grow MORE next time. It is possible that my Great-Grandparents are, in part, responsible for the fact that I, a city-raised girl who wouldn't miss a haircut or eyebrow appointment for the world, am living with my husband and two kids in an 800 square foot house on 3 acres of land, doing my best to raise chickens, turn compost, and grow as much of our produce as I possibly can. This has not been a graceful transition, this morphing from a clean-finger-nailed, well-groomed lady to a slightly grubby farmish mom. But I am enjoying the adventure of it all, and hoping to share some of that adventure with you.