Luxury of the Bubble

crab apple blossoms

As I was writing yesterday about the Cherry Blossom Pink Bubble, I kept thinking that I was so privileged to be be able to have a bubble at all. I live in a bucolic setting, far enough away from urban centers to shelter me from much of the violence in the world.  I had one reader privately comment on how we as a nation have a big bubble.  Sure, there are urban spots in this country that have higher body counts than some war zones, but those are by far the exception.  We live in a bubble, sheltered by our physical isolation from the rest of the world by two enormous oceans.  Most of the people who slip over our borders on the north and south are looking for a way to feed their families, not for a way to blow us up.

Crab apple

The people of Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Mali, and the Central African Republic do not have the luxury of a bubble. They face violence regularly, they face bombs and gunfire on their way to buy their groceries or worse, while sleeping.  I just have to keep my kid out of the woods during deer hunting season and face an occasional pan handler working the parking lot of the supermarket, a luxury.

Now it is time to stop peering out through the walls of my bubble and turn inward, the vegetable garden needs water, the seedlings need potting up, weeds need pulling, the mowers need gas and belts, the dishes need washing, the hole for the gooseberry (due within 24 hours) needs digging and the newly opened crab apple blossoms need admiring. 

The Cherry Blossom Pink Bubble

Spring has arrived in full here, the weeping cherry is in full bloom, the crab apple is just a few rays of sunshine off of blooming, the dogwood has and the quince, the early riser has peaked.  The seeds have germinated (except the cantaloupe and eggplant) and some seedlings have their second set of leaves.  The cold frame is full to protect them all on chilly nights, all is quiet and growing.

After yesterday's event in Boston, it makes me feel like I'm living in a bubble.  The closest thing to violence around here yesterday was when the cats decided that the dog had done something horribly wrong, just standing there in the kitchen, then on some cue they growled, hissed and chased her to the living room.  The only things that make the bubble tremble are the military aircraft from a nearby base that fly overhead from time to time and the groups of Harley's headed for the beach..

I've walked through Copley Square along Boylston Street, I've taken the T from Kenmore to Park, many times, it is a place with shiny buildings and Copley Plaza with goods so expensive that I was afraid to even look because I felt like I had "poor college student, raised in the woods, quite clueless" written on my forehead..  Those memories are many years ago (mostly the 80's), almost a different lifetime it seems.  I'm sure that many others would prefer to remember Boylston Street that way.

Far from Boston in my little bubble, we know that there is a man with a bad haircut in Korea posturing about nuclear war, we know that the son of a friend finished the marathon well before the blast and left, we know about all the earthquakes and crooked politicians, but we are in our bubble and we also know that the local feed supply store will be receiving a shipment of Buff Orpington chicks and maybe some Barred rocks on May 10th and we think that temporary quarters could be established for a few little pullet puff balls. We also know that a box with a gooseberry plant is due any day and that the apples and the rest of the blackberries should be here mid-next week.  There is much darkness in the world, but here in the bubble it is cherry blossom pink.

Shoveling the Manure and Other Social Dilemmas

I recently was confronted with a dilemma, I went to the local horse rescue to collect horse manure (completely decomposed, smelled like soil) in Rubbermaid tubs to put in the gardens and around all the new fruit trees and plants.   I looked like I had rolled in the pile not shoveled from it, I was doing my little fertility rite, I guess, for Easter Sunday.  I stopped my little, weighed down XB at a light, and hearing a friendly horn toot I looked into the car next to me, it was filled with the family of my daughter's friend, all coiffed and dressed up for Easter Mass. They waved.  I moved to wave back, but I froze half-way. I stared at the manure smeared hand in front of me.  I rolled down the window and wished them a happy Easter instead, laughing at myself.
 # 1 Who totes manure in a little box car? 
#2 How obsessed can I be with gardening to do this several times a week? 
#3 There I am in the small-town, upper-middle class burbs,  looking like I just rolled in poop. (We're the bitty'70's house in amongst the housing bubble McMansions.)

 I figure that if they know me, they understand, and if they don't, I provide some interesting stories, my service to the community.  I figure when the yard in producing all sorts of home grown fruits and veggies in a few years they might stop shaking their heads for a few minutes.

In the ground so far:
1 peach tree (came with the house-seriously diseased, but the Plant Doctor has put his studies to work, now we wait)
1 plum tree (also seriously diseased, may or may not make it, it is looking a bit better this spring)
1 apple tree, unknown variety with golden apples, came with the house, planted in the wrong spot too close   to the woods, produced 2 apples last year which we guess the deer ate.
1 crab apple serious fireblight issues, no fruit last year, but it is beautiful in bloom, which should happen  very soon.
Many, Many raspberry plants along the woods, very yummy and prolific
1 Lapins dwarf sweet cherry, planted right after we moved in last year
1 Stella sweet cherry planted about a week ago.
1 Montmorency pie cherry planted about three weeks ago
2 Nova Spy apples, planted about two weeks ago
2 Chicago figs planted in the fall, 1 still in a pot, negotiating with spouse as to its final location

Due any moment:
1 Hinomaki gooseberry
2 Apache blackberries (thornless)
3 Triple Crown blackberries (thornless)
1 Five in One apple tree
1 William's Pride apple
1 Enterprise apple
1 Liberty apple

We tried to focus on trees that would take the longest to mature first, but threw in a couple of things that will give us a little bit of instant gratification. As you can see, I have a few more holes to dig and more poop to spread.  In about three or four years, we should be buried in fruit from June to October.

Painting Over the Memory

I am painting the office/guest room, I couldn't take the flat white nasty primer/paint that the previous owner used.  Their kids had run their hands all along the walls and the dirt just wouldn't come out.  Monday, I just couldn't stand it any longer and began covering it up with a not quite turquoise blue, covering up the ugliness.  It gave an immediate lift to my spirits, each time I caught the blue out of the corner of my eye as I walked down the hallway.

My spirits had needed a bit of lifting.  Our little poultry flock died the previous Wednesday night, the heat lamp, that I had put in to protect them from the 17 degrees predicted, malfunctioned and set the coop on fire.  We only found out about it because our neighbor was walking his dogs and pounded on our door at 9:45 PM, to tell us in Kentuckian," Yer pin is on fahr.", he repeated it a couple of times and then added the word "animal" before "pin" and suddenly I understood him and bolted to the back of the house to see flames reaching three feet into the sky above the coop.  It was clear that it was too late for the flock, but we ran out in our bare feet and pajamas and attempted to save what we could of the coop and the run.  The faucet was frozen in the off position, so we scurried in and out of the house (75 feet away) with a dishpan and a bucket until the coop was a big pile of wet ashes.  The run can be saved, it lost only one board.

Most of the chickens and ducks were found to the front right of the coop, where the heaters were.  One was all by herself in the back.  I didn't cry as we pulled them out, but my husband did.  I was all business through the whole process he complained.

We both cried when we told our daughter that the flock was gone.  She said she wanted to see the coop, and we took her out with her feetie jammies jammed into her sneakers to see. She saw the tiniest bit of movement and pointed it out, but it was just a wisp of steam or smoke coming off the ruins.  She had held out a bit of hope that we had been wrong about all our chickies not making it.  She moaned that making the coop had been a lot of work, she had been with us for the majority of its construction and realized that it took the better part of five weekends to build, and time during the week as well.  It was possum and raccoon secure, we had put at least two different latches on each opening to keep the critters out and the chickens in, but it was their undoing--the fire started and they couldn't get out.  Although, anyone who has seen a sleeping chicken knows that they aren't likely to run anywhere--they don't just sleep, they enter unconsciousness.  Chickens that during the day won't let you near them will just sit when you pick them up asleep.  You can flip them upside-down and tickle their tummies and they do nothing.  I feel guilty, despite the knowledge that they wouldn't run out, the ducks might have, they are more alert at night.  We locked them in.  The poor things.

When we cleaned up a bit and headed to bed our daughter joined us in our bed for the first time in a few years.  Dad and daughter fell asleep quickly, but Mom, it was her turn to cry.  I didn't sleep at all that night, I stood at the kitchen widow looking out at where the coop had been and watched the snow fall and accumulate.  I kept seeing a flash of one of the ducks being passed to me out of the ashes from time to time.My daughter and I buried the flock the next morning, we placed a spruce bough from their favorite perching tree on top of their grave..

On Monday, finding myself alone and needing something big to keep me busy, I pulled out my trusty favorite paintbrush and slipped the roller cover on the handle and began to paint.  Cleaning up one mess that was bugging me, probably because I can't clean that duck out of my brain.

Black Vulture

We now have a flock of four pullets, a couple of ducks and a drake.  The boys are all gone.  Their going was not easy on any of us, and we agree that we will stick to girl chickens from now on.  Most of the boys were very tasty though...but I think if I crave really good chicken I'll find my way down to the farm a few miles from here to see what they have in the freezer.  I'll not go through the details but imagine not sleeping the night before because of dread, and being exhausted mid-stream, imagine looking up to see a black vulture sitting in the neighbor's tree watching, waiting.  It sat there until we were finished cleaning up and then flew away. 

What's that got to do with the Protestant Reformation?

Now for a bit of a change of pace.  I've been writing about my chickens and ducks lately and I really hadn't intended on it being a barnyard blog...so onto other things for this post at least.

I'm a couple of years behind the times in books, I just read Wolf Hall by Hillary Mantel, about Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell, which came out two years ago, which made it easier to get at the library.  Sure it's about the many wives and the court machinations, but it is also about the Protestant Reformation, not something that is usual dinner table talk.  Since it is generally not dinner table talk, most folks do not know that I have done a fair amount of reading about the Protestant Reformation previous to this and it has re-piqued my interest in it.  So, now you're probably thinking what does this person with too many critters care about the Protestant Reformation and why would I care??  Well, it all starts with family, doesn't it always?

I knew growing up that my Mom's side of the family, at least her father's side had been in America long before it was the U.S.  It seems the first of that line arrived on a little boat called the Mayflower, it was full of a bunch of folks who were seen as annoying religious fanatics in England and some fortune hunters.  Others soon followed in the Great Migration of the Puritans (Calvinists) to Massachusetts Bay Colony.  Little things in my early research piqued my interest, for instance one forebear, Samuel, arrived in Massachusetts and they would not take him because there was something wrong with his references, so they sent him on  to Plimoth (that's how they spelled it then) Colony.  My first response was, "huh?: He did not have the right references?  Here I am more than a decade after that first, "huh?" and many, many books and websites later and in the past three or four years I am finally getting it, but there are new, "huh's?"  I don't have the documentation on Samuel, but his son Zachariah I do, I found it a few months ago, they were Anabaptists, what we now call Baptists, what back then were also called heretics.  It seems that most of the family on that side were the various flavors of heretics of the day, no, I should say, all of them, at least the ones I can find so far.  Several members of the family followed Anne Hutchinson out of Massachusetts to Portsmouth, RI, and it appears that the Independent man himself, ol' Roger Williams is tucked into my genetic code somewhere.  Heretics all.  Baptists, Quakers, Free-thinkers, Searchers, all the folks the Puritans had a tendency to either kick out and pursue through the forest in the snow or to hang by the neck.  All these years I thought I had descended from the Puritans, I was wrong.  I am descended from people the Puritans, folks who moved several thousand miles to live in a sparsely populated, disconnected land, so that they could go to church without the Book of Common Prayer, thought that my folks were way off the deep end.

In the course of all of this research I have had to figure out Calvinist, Quaker and Baptist beliefs(the two latter believe in an inner light and a person's direct connection with their creator without the need of a minister or priest, which didn't sit well with the near theocratic MA Bay Colony), so I have read books on all of these, so that I could better understand why some groups moved place to place, why some groups stayed put, why they all thought the others deceived and what all this persecution was about.  There are many preachers in my line, what was so important to them that they gave up everything that they had to go out into the wilderness, repeatedly, over the centuries.

As I traced the family's branches I found strange jumps in the places where my great-grandfather's side lived, pockets outside the usual centers of settlement, from MA Bay Colony, Rhode Island and Portsmouth Colonies, New Amsterdam, VT, NY, IL MI...right up until around 1880.  These pockets were places of liberality or Quaker settlements, where the family could think  and behave as it wished.  Then the line moved back toward their starting point over 100 year later, southeastern MA and Rhode Island, suddenly.
I have no idea why.
Sometime between my great-great grandfather's time and my grandfather's time some sort of division happened in the family. My mother was told that the other folks in the area with the same last name were a different family, not related, but the birth, death and census records indicate that they are all related, pretty closely.  My clues are that one side appears to have stayed with the Society of Friends, producing a preacher, children with Penn as a middle name and gravestones labelled in Quaker fashion and the other side were members of the Congregationalist Church, but they didn't really attend much.

My great-grandmother's side (Baptists in the 1600's, later I'm unsure, there seems to be a Quaker here and there), stayed within 25 miles of where they had plunked themselves by 1640, from Portsmouth, RI to Freetown, MA.  The two sides joined up in 1900 at their wedding and produced a family that seems to have been secular, but still steeped in their Old Yankee sternness. 

This four hundred year odyssey of my family was spurred on by the Protestant Reformation and all of the groups that were spawned during that time and shortly thereafter, the religion seems to be the driving force to many of the changes and may be at the root of a family division in the late 1800's.More puzzles to figure out, more books to read.  I'm a descendant of the first very American evangelicals and  the evangelicals are still with us, stirring things up now and then, I'm hoping that maybe if I can understand my own family I may be able to understand some of what is going on in American today.

The coop door was left open the other evening, Sunny and one of the boys disappeared that night.  We are hoping that they eloped and are having a good time in Vegas, but we do have our doubts.  We spent a good chunk of the next day searching for them, but there wasn't a trace.

A week earlier we had e-mailed someone on Craigslist about a posting for Rhode Island Red chickens to replace the pullet who died on-route to our house, she finally responded the day Sunny and the boy disappeared.  Two days later (yesterday) I drove over to choose two pullets.  The sellers had their own mix of critters, at least three golden retrievers, one a puppy who walked between my feet tripping me as we headed to the coop.  Their cat was lazing in the sun and their horse hanging out in the small horse barn.  The coop was tucked under the wide barn overhang and didn't seem substantial enough for raccoon protection.    Inside were  fifteen pullets, one was already named by their seven year old daughter, so she was off limits, but I could have the pick of the rest.  Some were dark red and others more blond/buff.  I chose two chicks with dark feathers and mischievous looks in their eyes.  They both had clearly been well socialized by the children, they settled in my arms within a few seconds. They were officially named as they were chosen, the darker one is Scarlet, who despite her name seems calm and collected and the one that is slightly lighter is Phebe.

Scarlet

Phebe

They bore the ride home well and are now being hazed by the rest of the flock in our coop, luckily they are close in age and size, so they should integrate into the group in a few days.

Now it seems I need to review HTML, because the formatting for the blog is not working the way I want it to.  Please excuse the ill-arranged pictures, but here are portraits of the flock as they look today.  There are no cute fluffy chicks anymore, there are mini-chickens and gawky-ducks who are in large but not all feathered yet.

Lily and a boy

Olive

Amelia

Sebastian

Boy

Kiwi hiding in tall grass