Saturday, February 14, 2009
Karen, bless her, has turned me on to Twitter. I've mailed the URL for her post What's Twitter, and why I love it to a few people, and now I'm sharing that URL with you here. If you've heard of Twitter and your reaction was along the lines of ??What?, Why?, or "That's just silly," check out Karen's post. And let me know when you sign up for Twitter.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
New chicks on order
I got an email yesterday from Ideal Poultry. My name came up on the waiting list for Barnevelders! Barnevelders are one of the breeds of chickens that lay dark, dark brown eggs. They're pretty rare, hence the waiting list.
I called Ideal today and placed my entire chick order with them:
They are scheduled to ship 5 March, so I'm hoping for an EARLY call from the post office on the morning of the 6th.
Himself plans to be building the chicken coop starting 20 March, when his classes let out. He assures me the work will go fast once it starts. He's going to scale it for 100 chickens, with two runs. That way everyone will still have space to stretch her wings and do all those other important chicken activities. And I'll be able to keep the new chicks separate from the adults.
Short term, we'll have the brooder cage on the back porch, which is still enclosed as a goat stall.
I called Ideal today and placed my entire chick order with them:
- 15 Barnevelders
- 6 Easter Eggers (EEs)
- 15 Australorps (Aussies)
- 6 Silver-laced Wyandottes
- 6 Gold-laced Wyandottes
- 8 Red sex-link
- 5 Gold sex-link
They are scheduled to ship 5 March, so I'm hoping for an EARLY call from the post office on the morning of the 6th.
Himself plans to be building the chicken coop starting 20 March, when his classes let out. He assures me the work will go fast once it starts. He's going to scale it for 100 chickens, with two runs. That way everyone will still have space to stretch her wings and do all those other important chicken activities. And I'll be able to keep the new chicks separate from the adults.
Short term, we'll have the brooder cage on the back porch, which is still enclosed as a goat stall.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Laid off, sorta
For the past couple of years I've had a dream gig, writing technical documentation part-time, from home, for a group of really nice people with a well thought out product. About a week and a half ago, in the middle of a mail thread on what they'd like me to work on next, I got the following message: "I was just talking to _____ to see what the high priorities are for the next few months and we feel we are in a great position (much thanks to you). For now we are going to hold off any new updates to the manuals and see where that takes us. We will definitely keep you informed if our needs change."
The suddenness of the shift threw me off for a day or two, but frankly I'm more excited about what might be next than I am concerned about what just went away. The world is changing (again), and in change there is always opportunity. I'm good with words, I'm good with critters, and I believe that there is the opportunity for depth and richness in everything we do. Surely I can combine all of that to make a life that supports me financially, emotionally, and spiritually.
While I was writing manuals in Word, Web-based writing and networking grew and morphed, and continues to do so. There it is again, change and opportunity. So I'm actively studying the current state of web-based writing, including blogging, networking, and things like Twitter. I'm studying search engine optimization (SEO). I'm looking for the next shift in this wonderful connected world the Web has brought us.
I'm watching for ways to draw together seemingly disparate skills and interests (animals, technology, psychology, bead work and textile arts, small farm management, ...). They all have one thing, at least, in common: they all live in me. Ergo, they all fit together, and they all describe the way that I fit into the world. My work right now is to find how I can offer them up in a way that supports me and mine in return.
The suddenness of the shift threw me off for a day or two, but frankly I'm more excited about what might be next than I am concerned about what just went away. The world is changing (again), and in change there is always opportunity. I'm good with words, I'm good with critters, and I believe that there is the opportunity for depth and richness in everything we do. Surely I can combine all of that to make a life that supports me financially, emotionally, and spiritually.
While I was writing manuals in Word, Web-based writing and networking grew and morphed, and continues to do so. There it is again, change and opportunity. So I'm actively studying the current state of web-based writing, including blogging, networking, and things like Twitter. I'm studying search engine optimization (SEO). I'm looking for the next shift in this wonderful connected world the Web has brought us.
I'm watching for ways to draw together seemingly disparate skills and interests (animals, technology, psychology, bead work and textile arts, small farm management, ...). They all have one thing, at least, in common: they all live in me. Ergo, they all fit together, and they all describe the way that I fit into the world. My work right now is to find how I can offer them up in a way that supports me and mine in return.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
FRESH Eggs!
Breakfast this morning included two fresh eggs for each of us. We are talking still warm from the chicken here. The whites are thick and the yolks are firm and round and deep orange. The flavor is great -- we had them over easy with not so much as salt and pepper and they held their own just fine.
Last week I started to have two eggs for dinner and ended up having four. I had them with Roasted Roots -- in this case a yam, a double handful of red potatoes, and a yellow onion, all cubed, tossed with lemon juice and olive oil, sprinkled with salt, pepper, and an Italian herb blend, and spread out on a foil-lined baking pan. Bake at 350 until tender and just starting to caramelize.
If you are thinking it might be nice to have a couple of chickens in your back yard, even just for the eggs, the answer is yes. Once you get set up with housing for them, their care takes minutes a day: Check that there is enough food & water, toss them food scraps from your kitchen and any weeds you've been pulling from your garden, and bring in the eggs. Most people end up hanging out with the chickens a bit more than that, though, because they are amusing. You'll want to really clean out the coop once or twice a year, say on some nice spring day as part of gardening. Other than that even cleanup is minimal (scatter food grade diatomaceous earth & wood chips once every week or two or three). All in all, a flock of chickens is much less work than a cat or a dog. And they do a great job on those garden weeds.
I've started selling eggs, too. Himself, watching the egg cartons pile up in the fridge, was threatening to serve chicken dinner if I didn't start selling eggs to subsidize their upkeep and housing. Our flock of twelve is producing almost five dozen eggs per week. So I ran an ad on Craigslist, and now have a few families that I'll be supplying on a regular basis.
Of course, that's encouraging me to get MORE chickens. I'll be putting in an order soon.
We have GOT to get that coop built. The big girls are OK in a sheltered run, but babies need better protection in the late winter and early spring.
Last week I started to have two eggs for dinner and ended up having four. I had them with Roasted Roots -- in this case a yam, a double handful of red potatoes, and a yellow onion, all cubed, tossed with lemon juice and olive oil, sprinkled with salt, pepper, and an Italian herb blend, and spread out on a foil-lined baking pan. Bake at 350 until tender and just starting to caramelize.
If you are thinking it might be nice to have a couple of chickens in your back yard, even just for the eggs, the answer is yes. Once you get set up with housing for them, their care takes minutes a day: Check that there is enough food & water, toss them food scraps from your kitchen and any weeds you've been pulling from your garden, and bring in the eggs. Most people end up hanging out with the chickens a bit more than that, though, because they are amusing. You'll want to really clean out the coop once or twice a year, say on some nice spring day as part of gardening. Other than that even cleanup is minimal (scatter food grade diatomaceous earth & wood chips once every week or two or three). All in all, a flock of chickens is much less work than a cat or a dog. And they do a great job on those garden weeds.
I've started selling eggs, too. Himself, watching the egg cartons pile up in the fridge, was threatening to serve chicken dinner if I didn't start selling eggs to subsidize their upkeep and housing. Our flock of twelve is producing almost five dozen eggs per week. So I ran an ad on Craigslist, and now have a few families that I'll be supplying on a regular basis.
Of course, that's encouraging me to get MORE chickens. I'll be putting in an order soon.
We have GOT to get that coop built. The big girls are OK in a sheltered run, but babies need better protection in the late winter and early spring.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
The creek is rising
There is a lovely little seasonal creek just behind our house. It usually runs from late fall to mid or late spring, maybe until early summer if it has been a wet winter.
At the moment, it is running the highest I've ever seen it. It's making a wonderful noise, and it's flooding much of the back yard. We've been clearing branches from the culvert to make sure it doesn't flood near the house.
The winter has, so far, been pretty extraordinary. A dusting of snow or a freezing night is usually a big deal here. We had snow on the ground from December 19th until this morning, and it was below freezing for most of that time. Here are some pics from the snow.
Now, of course, we have the high water (with plenty of rain coming down to join that snow melt). It's only January; we are getting into the winter weather season. I'm glad we have lots of firewood, and a generator.
At the moment, it is running the highest I've ever seen it. It's making a wonderful noise, and it's flooding much of the back yard. We've been clearing branches from the culvert to make sure it doesn't flood near the house.
The winter has, so far, been pretty extraordinary. A dusting of snow or a freezing night is usually a big deal here. We had snow on the ground from December 19th until this morning, and it was below freezing for most of that time. Here are some pics from the snow.
Now, of course, we have the high water (with plenty of rain coming down to join that snow melt). It's only January; we are getting into the winter weather season. I'm glad we have lots of firewood, and a generator.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
The Year of Prompt Solutions
The new year sputtered to a start in our neighborhood -- the pump went out on the community well sometime New Years Eve, and we all woke up to no water. Happily, it was fixed and the system recharged before nightfall. Maybe 2009 will be the Year of Prompt Solutions.
I've got some serious must-do items for the coming year: I need to get my house in order, literally and figuratively.
Literally:
We are still sorting through all the stuff -- from Jim's business closing, from my folks downsizing, from plain old unexamined accumulations. I am starting to see the light at the end of that tunnel, and that helps.
We still aren't really set up for the critters. We put temporary insulated walls up on the back porch to see the goats through our extra-severe winter weather. Gigi was still recovering when the cold hit and we really needed to keep them warm. We need a real goat shed for them. They won't appreciate it, though. They've gotten used to watching us in the living room at night. The chickens will appreciate a proper coop. They did amazingly well through the cold, partly by eating heroic quantities of layer pellets. But now the runoff from the melting snow is invading their run, and damp is worse for them than cold. Well, at least it is well-ventilated.
We managed to tear up the yard, front & back, last summer. Now we need to landscape and plant.
Figuratively cleaning house, now that's harder. I need to sort out some new directions for my work. I'm burned out on the kind of writing that has been my bread & butter for so long. Really, really burned out. It's a bit scary. So I'm looking at other ways to make a living. Faux finishing... I'm pretty good at it but this is not the economy to build a new business like that. (But, oooh, I do want to get into those traditional lime plasters. Beautiful stuff, natural materials, and it makes for a healthy indoor environment. That is what we will be wanting in our homes.) Writing is still my mainstay. I'm looking at ways to make money writing about things other than computers and software.
With the house clean and tidy, the animals properly housed, and work in front of me that doesn't constantly remind me of difficult times, I expect to have a lot more energy. Enough to get paying work done and still have the time and enegy to work in the garden and with the animals, doing the things that light me up.
I don't know how long your "must do" list is for this year. But I know we are all apprehensive about the economy, the ecosystem, etc. So let us raise our cups to the Year of Prompt Solutions.
I've got some serious must-do items for the coming year: I need to get my house in order, literally and figuratively.
Literally:
We are still sorting through all the stuff -- from Jim's business closing, from my folks downsizing, from plain old unexamined accumulations. I am starting to see the light at the end of that tunnel, and that helps.
We still aren't really set up for the critters. We put temporary insulated walls up on the back porch to see the goats through our extra-severe winter weather. Gigi was still recovering when the cold hit and we really needed to keep them warm. We need a real goat shed for them. They won't appreciate it, though. They've gotten used to watching us in the living room at night. The chickens will appreciate a proper coop. They did amazingly well through the cold, partly by eating heroic quantities of layer pellets. But now the runoff from the melting snow is invading their run, and damp is worse for them than cold. Well, at least it is well-ventilated.
We managed to tear up the yard, front & back, last summer. Now we need to landscape and plant.
Figuratively cleaning house, now that's harder. I need to sort out some new directions for my work. I'm burned out on the kind of writing that has been my bread & butter for so long. Really, really burned out. It's a bit scary. So I'm looking at other ways to make a living. Faux finishing... I'm pretty good at it but this is not the economy to build a new business like that. (But, oooh, I do want to get into those traditional lime plasters. Beautiful stuff, natural materials, and it makes for a healthy indoor environment. That is what we will be wanting in our homes.) Writing is still my mainstay. I'm looking at ways to make money writing about things other than computers and software.
With the house clean and tidy, the animals properly housed, and work in front of me that doesn't constantly remind me of difficult times, I expect to have a lot more energy. Enough to get paying work done and still have the time and enegy to work in the garden and with the animals, doing the things that light me up.
I don't know how long your "must do" list is for this year. But I know we are all apprehensive about the economy, the ecosystem, etc. So let us raise our cups to the Year of Prompt Solutions.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Tea Sites
StumbleUpon just led me to a great site for tea lovers. Gong Fu Girl appears to be Seattle-based. She posts lots of thoughtful information about buying, brewing, and enjoying tea, including links to tea houses in the area. I've added her site to my "Links I Like" list.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Of the essence
In my last post, I listed some of the projects that we are working on. You might have gotten an idea of the outrageous level of mess and confusion I've been living with these last few months. For me the baseline for living is a clean and orderly environment in which to work, so the mess and confusion is a major issue. Added to that are worries about the economy (national and personal) and about the ecology. This is the kind of thing that spins me out and makes me completely dysfunctional.
And yet...
I am profoundly content. And I think it has to do with keeping the chickens and goats.
I wouldn't say that chickens and goats inevitably confer contentment. But for me, having critters in my life is literally essential: it resonates with the essence of who I am. Back when I was working with Curt Rosengren, the Passion Catalyst, he said to me, "You are all about Life." (I was having trouble coming to terms with the fact that the place I worked, which is not at all about Life, was a really bad fit for me.)
There is, apparently, some inborn farmer in me. It skipped a generation and I never got to spend much time with any of my grandparents, so who knew?
I just recently learned from my mother that both of my grandmothers loved to work outside. I knew that my father's mother worked in the fields a lot, but I had not known that it was her preference. Turns out she had a team of horses and hired out to neighbors as well as working her own acreage, back in the Depression when she was a single mom. I never even got to meet her; she died while my dad was still in high school. We would have had so much fun together.
My mother's father was good with animals, plants, and the land itself. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, before anyone was talking about contour farming, he used what he called "lay of the land." He pruned trees with a pocket knife, gently pruning the branches while they were still the tiniest of twigs. That takes getting to know each tree and shrub as an individual, and visiting it often. He could work with animals that no one else could get near. He had a series of farms that he bought when they were worthless and built up to be valuable, productive land. He died, a very old man, when I was five. I was with him perhaps a week in all of my life. But I find that I look at land and plants and animals the same way that he did. How did this gift come down to me? I think that my mother acquired his outlook on life, and it has informed everything she does all of these years. And that in turn was passed on to me. It's about respect and responsibility toward each living thing around you, and joy in sharing the world with all these kinds of life. It is about letting them be who and what they are -- reveling in who and what they are -- even when you must take complete control over their lives.
I am content because I have in my life what is essential to me. What is essential to you?
And yet...
I am profoundly content. And I think it has to do with keeping the chickens and goats.
I wouldn't say that chickens and goats inevitably confer contentment. But for me, having critters in my life is literally essential: it resonates with the essence of who I am. Back when I was working with Curt Rosengren, the Passion Catalyst, he said to me, "You are all about Life." (I was having trouble coming to terms with the fact that the place I worked, which is not at all about Life, was a really bad fit for me.)
There is, apparently, some inborn farmer in me. It skipped a generation and I never got to spend much time with any of my grandparents, so who knew?
I just recently learned from my mother that both of my grandmothers loved to work outside. I knew that my father's mother worked in the fields a lot, but I had not known that it was her preference. Turns out she had a team of horses and hired out to neighbors as well as working her own acreage, back in the Depression when she was a single mom. I never even got to meet her; she died while my dad was still in high school. We would have had so much fun together.
My mother's father was good with animals, plants, and the land itself. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, before anyone was talking about contour farming, he used what he called "lay of the land." He pruned trees with a pocket knife, gently pruning the branches while they were still the tiniest of twigs. That takes getting to know each tree and shrub as an individual, and visiting it often. He could work with animals that no one else could get near. He had a series of farms that he bought when they were worthless and built up to be valuable, productive land. He died, a very old man, when I was five. I was with him perhaps a week in all of my life. But I find that I look at land and plants and animals the same way that he did. How did this gift come down to me? I think that my mother acquired his outlook on life, and it has informed everything she does all of these years. And that in turn was passed on to me. It's about respect and responsibility toward each living thing around you, and joy in sharing the world with all these kinds of life. It is about letting them be who and what they are -- reveling in who and what they are -- even when you must take complete control over their lives.
I am content because I have in my life what is essential to me. What is essential to you?
Friday, October 31, 2008
What a hectic summer it has been!
The Mysterious Traveler pointed out that I've not been blogging. This led me to two startling realizations:
Remove sick trees
We knew we had a couple of sick trees. And I'd been talking with Josh (who we were renting goats from) about doing some landscaping. He does trees. So we had him look at the suspicious trees, and he pointed out some that we had not realized were a concern. I mean, he could walk up and stick his hand into a rotted trunk. So...
All told we took out 17 trees. At the base, they ranged in diameter from about 14 " to close to 5'. And in a lot of cases they were more rot than wood at the base. For example, the three maple trunks growing over our bedroom (actually over our bed) had a thin ring of wood around a massive hole in the center. I don't know how we got through winter storms the past few years without being crushed as we slept.
There is a lot of wood in 17 tall trees. Even after you discount the rotted parts. Really, really. A LOT of wood. We have
All this tree cutting suffered some delays. Not through any fault of Josh's, I hasten to add. Mostly problems getting the crane operator out to pluck up the trees closest to the house as they were cut, and lay them gently in place for the miller. The guy who finally showed up was a prima donna who laid out the wood in a haphazard pile. When we could get him off the phone long enough to work. It was September by the time we had the trees down, and then we had to rent a backhoe to rearrange them so the miller could access them.
Get my goat(s)
I mentioned in my last post, ever so long ago, that I was considering goats. I got goats, I love the goats, but it was a rough start. Of the three little goatlings that Josh brought out for me to choose from, one died within 48 hours, and another a couple of weeks later. Josh looked at everything I was doing, where I kept them, what food they had access to, and assured me I really was not doing anything wrong. We never did figure out what happened to the first casualty. Josh took Sadie home for a backyard autopsy. She had eaten a handful of dry ferns (why, with all the lush green available to her???) and that blocked her up and gave her a bit of bloat. Which she probably would have survived; we were treating it. But she had a wee bit of a cold. Which she probably would have gotten over quickly. But with the bloat, she was laying down. And laying down was the worst thing for her cold. It turned into pneumonia. From eating the dry stuff to death was maybe 18 hours.
Rosie, meanwhile, was robustly healthy. Eating her way through a forest of blackberries, sweet, smart, and energetic. She even dealt well with being an only goat for a few weeks. Now I have Rosie and Gigi. Rosie is the clear leader & the brains of the operation. Gigi lets Rosie pull things down where she can reach them -- or calls for me to do it. Gigi is purebred Nubian; Rosie is 3/4 Alpine and 1/4 Kiko (and that Kiko is probably the source of her smarts and vigor).
Together they've cleared the back yard. We can see the trunks of the trees along the road in the back yard. We moved into this house nine years ago, and we have never seen those trunks before. They were smothered in blackberries.
Butterfly lady has extended a standing invitation to the girls to dine on their blackberries, so Rosie and Gigi are busy extending the neighbors' meadow.
Clear the coop area
Early in the summer, we identified a good area for the chicken coop -- at the road end of the back drive. It had a scattering of brambles and scrub, and it was really uneven ground, and it had a pile of mixed brush on top of an old maple log blocking access.
We cleared it.
It filled up with trim from the big (BIG!) cedar that needed to come down.
Chipped the branches -- coop area was clear.
Then the crane operator filled it with trees.
Himself moved those to the far side of the driveway, and then filled the area with logs positioned to roll onto the portable mill.
The millers cut that, then started work on the logs in the front yard.
Himself staged the rest of the logs on the coop area. (Seventeen trees. A LOT of wood. Lordy, lordy!)
The millers cut all but the marginal stuff at the back of the stack.
Himself cut the marginal stuff into rounds, and Millionaires helped move that to the driveway (where it now forms an impenetrable wall) when they were out to help move the heaviest lumber.
Now the coop area is pretty much clear. The slabs from the outside of the logs are pushed to one side, in a pile about 12' long and 6' high and 5' deep. When we can get to the coop area (past the wall of rounds in the driveway), we can rake it smooth, shovel in some sawdust and maybe some gravel so we (never mind the coop) don't sink out of site in the muck, and start building. The girls can hardly wait. I mean, really. They need their coop!
Eat chicken
Did I mention that two of the chickens turned out to be roosters? Those roosters turned out to be vicious. Rhymes with delicious, which they were also. I was the only one who could go into the pen once those roosters matured, and I had to constantly watch my back. Collecting eggs should not be dangerous.
Really, I didn't know chicken could be so flavorful. The pullets get table scraps, and boy did they enjoy the rooster left-overs. Himself was convinced that they knew exactly who they were tearing into. (The roosters were a bit rough on their girls -- but not as bad as they were on us.)
Tidy up the back yard
I mentioned the goats. They do a great job eating leaves and small stems off the brambles. I spent a lot of happy hours with the goats, clipping out the bigger branches so they could keep moving through the yard. Among other things, they cleared access to one of the trees that needed to come down.
Having the backhoe let us do a few other things -- take out stumps both new and old in the back yard, etc. We've been burning half-rotted stumps & roots off and on since the burn season started (1 October). I've scattered clover seed on the exposed earth, and started separating out the stones.
Right now, though, the back yard looks pretty raw.
We've identified a fence line; we will need to build fences to keep the neighbor's dogs away from the livestock. That's another story.
Bury my father's ashes
When enough of the back yard was cleared, we were able to access the spot where I wanted to plant a willow and bury my father's ashes. We had a tiny ceremony on his birthday. It was harder than I expected, but gives an element of closure.
Get things organized indoors
Himself started with the lovely room over the garage, that had been wasted on storage while designated as my sewing room. We've been going through everything, making a conscious decision whether to keep each item. I need to list the things we have decided to sell; donations have been going out in batches. We are maybe halfway through this project and I can't remember the last time we didn't have boxes of stuff everywhere -- all through the house, and on both porches.
I even burned old financial records -- cancelled checks from the '70s and '80s and '90s. That was hard. It was like burning diaries. So much of my life is recorded only in those old records.
Paying work
I did a little faux finishing. More technical writing at this point. I do that part time, for one client. I work from home & set my own hours, and check the goats and chickens on breaks.
Beadwork
Learned netting and ndebele stitch, and used them in some necklaces that came out great. I will get pix and post them.
- It really HAS been a long time since I posted anything.
- Someone is actually reading what I post.
Remove sick trees
We knew we had a couple of sick trees. And I'd been talking with Josh (who we were renting goats from) about doing some landscaping. He does trees. So we had him look at the suspicious trees, and he pointed out some that we had not realized were a concern. I mean, he could walk up and stick his hand into a rotted trunk. So...
All told we took out 17 trees. At the base, they ranged in diameter from about 14 " to close to 5'. And in a lot of cases they were more rot than wood at the base. For example, the three maple trunks growing over our bedroom (actually over our bed) had a thin ring of wood around a massive hole in the center. I don't know how we got through winter storms the past few years without being crushed as we slept.
There is a lot of wood in 17 tall trees. Even after you discount the rotted parts. Really, really. A LOT of wood. We have
- Hillocks of chipped brush and ground stumps.
- A wall of massive rounds of firewood completely that blocks the back driveway.
- The woodshed is nearly full of split wood.
- There are towering heaps of split wood waiting to be stacked. Somewhere. (Note: Hydraulic log splitters are good things.)
- And we bought 2 Costco tents to shelter the sawn lumber.
All this tree cutting suffered some delays. Not through any fault of Josh's, I hasten to add. Mostly problems getting the crane operator out to pluck up the trees closest to the house as they were cut, and lay them gently in place for the miller. The guy who finally showed up was a prima donna who laid out the wood in a haphazard pile. When we could get him off the phone long enough to work. It was September by the time we had the trees down, and then we had to rent a backhoe to rearrange them so the miller could access them.
Get my goat(s)
I mentioned in my last post, ever so long ago, that I was considering goats. I got goats, I love the goats, but it was a rough start. Of the three little goatlings that Josh brought out for me to choose from, one died within 48 hours, and another a couple of weeks later. Josh looked at everything I was doing, where I kept them, what food they had access to, and assured me I really was not doing anything wrong. We never did figure out what happened to the first casualty. Josh took Sadie home for a backyard autopsy. She had eaten a handful of dry ferns (why, with all the lush green available to her???) and that blocked her up and gave her a bit of bloat. Which she probably would have survived; we were treating it. But she had a wee bit of a cold. Which she probably would have gotten over quickly. But with the bloat, she was laying down. And laying down was the worst thing for her cold. It turned into pneumonia. From eating the dry stuff to death was maybe 18 hours.
Rosie, meanwhile, was robustly healthy. Eating her way through a forest of blackberries, sweet, smart, and energetic. She even dealt well with being an only goat for a few weeks. Now I have Rosie and Gigi. Rosie is the clear leader & the brains of the operation. Gigi lets Rosie pull things down where she can reach them -- or calls for me to do it. Gigi is purebred Nubian; Rosie is 3/4 Alpine and 1/4 Kiko (and that Kiko is probably the source of her smarts and vigor).
Together they've cleared the back yard. We can see the trunks of the trees along the road in the back yard. We moved into this house nine years ago, and we have never seen those trunks before. They were smothered in blackberries.
Butterfly lady has extended a standing invitation to the girls to dine on their blackberries, so Rosie and Gigi are busy extending the neighbors' meadow.
Clear the coop area
Early in the summer, we identified a good area for the chicken coop -- at the road end of the back drive. It had a scattering of brambles and scrub, and it was really uneven ground, and it had a pile of mixed brush on top of an old maple log blocking access.
We cleared it.
It filled up with trim from the big (BIG!) cedar that needed to come down.
Chipped the branches -- coop area was clear.
Then the crane operator filled it with trees.
Himself moved those to the far side of the driveway, and then filled the area with logs positioned to roll onto the portable mill.
The millers cut that, then started work on the logs in the front yard.
Himself staged the rest of the logs on the coop area. (Seventeen trees. A LOT of wood. Lordy, lordy!)
The millers cut all but the marginal stuff at the back of the stack.
Himself cut the marginal stuff into rounds, and Millionaires helped move that to the driveway (where it now forms an impenetrable wall) when they were out to help move the heaviest lumber.
Now the coop area is pretty much clear. The slabs from the outside of the logs are pushed to one side, in a pile about 12' long and 6' high and 5' deep. When we can get to the coop area (past the wall of rounds in the driveway), we can rake it smooth, shovel in some sawdust and maybe some gravel so we (never mind the coop) don't sink out of site in the muck, and start building. The girls can hardly wait. I mean, really. They need their coop!
Eat chicken
Did I mention that two of the chickens turned out to be roosters? Those roosters turned out to be vicious. Rhymes with delicious, which they were also. I was the only one who could go into the pen once those roosters matured, and I had to constantly watch my back. Collecting eggs should not be dangerous.
Really, I didn't know chicken could be so flavorful. The pullets get table scraps, and boy did they enjoy the rooster left-overs. Himself was convinced that they knew exactly who they were tearing into. (The roosters were a bit rough on their girls -- but not as bad as they were on us.)
Tidy up the back yard
I mentioned the goats. They do a great job eating leaves and small stems off the brambles. I spent a lot of happy hours with the goats, clipping out the bigger branches so they could keep moving through the yard. Among other things, they cleared access to one of the trees that needed to come down.
Having the backhoe let us do a few other things -- take out stumps both new and old in the back yard, etc. We've been burning half-rotted stumps & roots off and on since the burn season started (1 October). I've scattered clover seed on the exposed earth, and started separating out the stones.
Right now, though, the back yard looks pretty raw.
We've identified a fence line; we will need to build fences to keep the neighbor's dogs away from the livestock. That's another story.
Bury my father's ashes
When enough of the back yard was cleared, we were able to access the spot where I wanted to plant a willow and bury my father's ashes. We had a tiny ceremony on his birthday. It was harder than I expected, but gives an element of closure.
Get things organized indoors
Himself started with the lovely room over the garage, that had been wasted on storage while designated as my sewing room. We've been going through everything, making a conscious decision whether to keep each item. I need to list the things we have decided to sell; donations have been going out in batches. We are maybe halfway through this project and I can't remember the last time we didn't have boxes of stuff everywhere -- all through the house, and on both porches.
I even burned old financial records -- cancelled checks from the '70s and '80s and '90s. That was hard. It was like burning diaries. So much of my life is recorded only in those old records.
Paying work
I did a little faux finishing. More technical writing at this point. I do that part time, for one client. I work from home & set my own hours, and check the goats and chickens on breaks.
Beadwork
Learned netting and ndebele stitch, and used them in some necklaces that came out great. I will get pix and post them.
Friday, June 6, 2008
Structural Materials from Cellulose?
My Google home page led me to this article: New 'super-paper' is stronger than cast iron.
I love this. A gentler processing method for extracting cellulose yields a strong, resilient material. We get structural strength from renewable resources. I look forward to seeing where this takes us.
I love this. A gentler processing method for extracting cellulose yields a strong, resilient material. We get structural strength from renewable resources. I look forward to seeing where this takes us.
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