Love Summer, Dread Summer

Summer is coming.  I'm looking forward to it and I'm somewhat dreading it.

The pluses:

My alarm won't go off every morning to make sure that all household members (furry, feathered, and otherwise) have breakfast and are properly equipped for the day and that certain members of the household are out the door on time. Mornings have a slower pace, nice, because I've never been much of a morning person.

Organized activities are minimal, no soccer or basketball practice messing up dinner or chopping every Saturday and  Sunday neatly in half, so that we get nothing done.

I am able to spend more time with my daughter, who is good company.

The farmer's market is open, and it is warm enough to enjoy it.

My garden is in full swing, collards, kale, scallions, cilantro and strawberries are ready now with other cool things to come.

Camping, got to have at least one venture to primitive living and escape the house. When I'm away from home I don't think about the trim painting that needs to happen, or have to look at the nasty white floor in the kitchen that looks like it needs to be washed despite the fact it was just washed. (Personal rant: Who are the sick people who install white floors in homes??? We garden, some of us ride horses and we have a large dog, the floor is never clean for more than fifteen minutes.)  Cooking with wood for a week is fun and it sure makes me appreciate the microwave and the oven when I return.

The dreads:

The cats become my alarm, usually they come and sit either on my pillow, so that I breathe fur while they yowl at me or the sit on my chest and rub their noses and whiskers across my face.  They know I don't "do" cats in my face.

Organized activities are minimal, so every day my daughter tries to see what she can come up with to entertain herself, usually involving friends who live several miles away or activities that are expensive and a minimum of a half hour's drive away.  She isn't old enough to drive, so I become "chauffeur extraordinaire."  and "the mom who says, "No!."" (sometimes I get the urge to say "nee." but she wouldn't get it--she is finally of the age when she can be introduced to Monty Python, she'll get it).

Though my daughter is good company, sometimes I just want to talk to adults or just plain old don't want to talk.  That introvert thing gets in the way of parenting, that's why I have only one.

Camping, I hate the packing.  Last year, I forgot the dog food (I remembered everything else!),  but she didn't mind eating leftovers.

Sweat.  Living in humid-land, life is hot and moist and a bit smelly.

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Chick update:  The girls are doing well, they are more active now and have little feathers growing in on the tips of their wings.  Since it has been hot, they have been able to go outside briefly (they are supposed to be kept between 85-90 degrees at this point), they seem to enjoy it.  They are perching on my daughter's hands, much to her delight.

New Peeps

I have been missing having chickens.  I miss their crazy antics, the silly way they walk, their ninja kicks at each other over the grubs I toss from the garden and just looking up from yard work to find a tilted head with curious eyes pondering my every move.  I also miss the eggs, though Fluffy and Zebra our long-time companions gave the bittiest eggs, they were by far the tastiest I've ever had.

With a bit of trepidation, I jump back into the poultry raising pool.  I quickly became attached to the last crew only to have all of them gone in a moment, but that is life, isn't it? Changes in a moment never to be the same again.  I still feel a bit of guilt over the last bunch, but it is time to move on and try again.

So, meet the new peeps with names chosen by my bibliophile daughter:

Athena, (Buff Orpington) the goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, law and justice, just warfare, mathematics, strength, strategy, the arts, crafts, and skill. Thus far, I can tell she naps well.

Athena

Lucy (Buff Orpington)  named after the youngest child in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis.

Lucy

Ursula, (Australorp), not sure where she came up with this one, I don't think it was The Little Mermaid and she hadn't remembered that it is her Nonna's middle name.

Ursula

and Paisley, I named a piggy bank (only because she said it required a name) that my daughter gave me as a gift, Paisley, because of the pattern on its back. I seem to remember a character in a movie somewhere with that name.  Anyway, she seems to like the name and has bestowed it on a bitty barred rock chick.

Paisleu

The yellow chicks seem to already understand how to pose, I just plopped them down, they looked cute and I snapped the pictures.  The black ones turned their backs and had to be re-oriented repeatedly to get a sort-of-okay shot.

These girls already have the beginnings of pin feathers on the tips of their wings, their cute as a button fluffy look won't be around next week.

Gardening Breather

Japanese Maple

It is dumping rain outside, so I have put aside my efforts to get my garden in for the day.  I've made so many trips to the horse farm that I have lost count.  The slippery clay soil in my back garden has taken on a darker, more organic hue.  I am incorporating 8 inches of manure into the top 8 inches of soil and then the following year I am top dressing with even more manure, I started this process on a small part of the garden last year, but I didn't have a good source of manure.  The garden beds end up being raised. The paths are mulched with straw and as soon as the soil heats up a bit more (it has been a cool spring) the beds will be also.

Back garden, Egyptian onions, Kale, Collards, Cabbage, Strawberries and Potatoes.

First Strawberry of the season.

Last year, I mulched the paths and never quite got around to doing the beds, I was a bit distracted with other projects that came up with the new house, like painting most of the interior, including the forty year old kitchen cabinets.  When I emerged from my projects to get back to the garden, the weeds had won.  At that point, I would go out to weed for and hour or so and there would be a small cleared area in the jungle, by July 4th I had pretty much given up and was a bit embarrassed when the BBQ guests asked to see my vegetable garden.  Food production was very low.(photos taken this morning between downpours)

This year, I have been making an effort to spend an hour, if not two on the gardens each morning, some of that time is spent hauling manure and some of that is spend picking out those weeds while they are still tiny.  For the new front garden, I am using the lasagna method, laying layers of cardboard for  weed suppression and layers of organic matter on top.  I planted it with squash and cucumbers and within 24 hours the squirrels had unplanted it.  I replanted the plants and most of them survived, but I lost a few Armenian cucumbers.  I am currently extending it bit by bit, so that I can plant pumpkins and watermelons.  I still need to build a trellis for the cukes and small pie pumpkins...

The fig's first leaves!

On the chicken front, I called the feed store to confirm that the Buff Orpington chicks would be in on Friday and the gentleman told me that in  a couple of weeks four different breeds were due in and he had no knowledge of Buff Orpingtons, even though he was the same person who told me about them in the first place.  The store manager called me back, right as I was typing this line, the Buffs and Barred Rocks will be in late next week and we may be able to score an Australorp in June, if not we'll get another Barred Rock.

Flower bed in front with plants imported from MA last year.

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.