Here we go again!

Well, we've got chickens again.  Chicks, to be precise.  We took a break from chickens last September.  We had to separate them into two groups, since our larger group was pecking and attacking the other two, and we could not get them to get along  It was a hassle keeping them in two different coops and runs.  Also, to be honest, I was sick of the flies and the rodents, and we were cutting down the back trees which meant we were going to have to take down the coops anyway.

So, off the chickens went to a life on a farm inland somewhere, and for awhile it was a big relief to me to have them gone.  It was one less thing to have to do, one less chore for the kids, and when the coops and runs were down we had so much extra space in our back yard! Fairly soon, though,  I began to miss them.  I missed their soft cluckings.  It lent such a homey, peaceful feel to our back garden.  I even missed their loud squackings as they proudly told the world that they had laid yet another egg!  But most of all I missed how they completed the loop in our little urban farm.  They, even more than our compost pile, were the consumers of our kitchen scraps, and they provided us with the richest, most delicious and healthy eggs, a well as with an abundant supply of nitrogen rich manure.  They also were my tractors, working over areas of my garden that were done for the season, clearing away debris and bugs, leaving more droppings, and getting it ready for new plantings.  More than anything, though, my children missed them!  Ever since last September not a week has gone by where my youngest son, Jack, an avid chicken-lover, has not begged for more chickens.  My five-year old, Lily, has asked when we can start collecting eggs again, and my 13-year old daughter, Madison, has studied chickens zealously, in the hopes of getting chickens soon.  Chicken care, chicken healthy, chicken behavior, chickens breeds, you name it, she knows it.   Only my 11-year old son, Cooper, who shouldered most of the chicken responsibility before, was happy to be sans chickens.

So, yesterday we took the plunge and drove to Wagon Train Feed and Tack to get our new chicks.  We decided to get a lot, a dozen, assuming that a couple either may not make it or may be roosters.  We eat a LOT of eggs and we would like them all to be home-laid, or at least most of our eggs anyway.  That's a lot of chickens for our suburban lot, but I think it was will work out!

Our kids are now in chick love and chick heaven.  Our puppy is an excited, nervous wreck, staking out his post by the garage door in hopes of sneaking in for a sight of those peeping, moving, succulent toys, and our kitty is licking his chops!  Welcome home chickens!

Damaged Goods

Change can occur and things can morph even when you think that thing (or person, or self) is broken and beyond repair and rejuvenation.  This was proven to me once again by my children, the best teachers in the world.  My little ones were playing in our backyard yesterday, which is mostly garden and chicken coop now, with little room to run around but plenty of space to explore!  They brought in a caterpillar.  Oddly enough it was stuck in a bandaid that was finger shaped/sized.  It must have fallen off in the backyard and the caterpillar had crawled inside.  Well, if it wasn't injured when it went inside the bandage (ha!) then I'm sure it was a little worse for the wear after my little ones had squeezed him out of his temporary medical facility!  They were so excited about this cute little green caterpillar hiding in the bandaid!  They promptly put him in a jar, and spent the next half hour deliriously holding him, plopping him in the jar, filling the jar overfull with food and water, emptying the jar so the caterpillar wouldn't drown, and holding him again.  When they finally settled him into the jar with spinach leaves scattered on the bottom, plastic wrap on the top, and holes vigorously poked in the plastic, I thought he was a goner for sure.  He had to be injured, damaged goods, after being manhandled  lovingly taken care of for so long.  I mean, he's only a tiny bug after all!  But as the little ones were so attached to him, we placed him on our science hearth and decided to watch our little "science experiment" for the next few days before releasing him to the wilds of our backyard.

We pulled down our nature guide on insects and Jack and I found many green caterpillars, before finally finding one that looked just like him:  same lime green, translucent skin, white dots lining the side of his body, and two tiny brown dots on his head.  It looked like he was a Polyphemus Moth.  This morning, two days after finding Mr. Caterpillar in the bandaid, my littlest guy was inspecting him in his jar and yells, "Mom!  There's white, cloudy stuff all around the caterpillar!  Come look!"  We all came to look, and sure enough that little, resilient guy was spinning a cocoon!  I have to say, I was amazed he was still alive, not to mention spinning a web.  It was our own little science project come to life, found in a discarded bandaid in our backyard.

I love so many things about this story.  I love that homeschooling just fits so seamlessly into life sometimes.  No oftentimes.  There are so many ways to learn, and we just have to live our lives and be open to that.  I've been moaning to my patient husband lately how life seems to be getting in the way of homeschooling. Whether it is sickness, haircuts, or family and friend emergencies, sometimes I feel like we can never get to the "school work" but instead are busy with the business of life.  This was a great opportunity for me to realize that learning is always going on, whether in the finding of a caterpillar in the midst of playtime in the backyard, or learning about how the heart works after their grandpa had a heart attack.  It is all part of one holistic, seamless life, and it is not compartmentalized into school  time and real life time.

The second part of this caterpillar story that I love is that this manhandled, bruised little bug, this piece of damaged goods, is in the process of transformation.  Not only did he not die, but God is transforming him from an earthbound creature into a soaring, floating, winged creation.  He survived the bruises and the bumps of his short life, and soon he will fly through the air, fluttering from flower to flower.  If God is able to do this for the caterpillar, then I trust completely that he can do that for me.  No matter how damaged I am God can transform me to.  I may not always feel like I am soaring, but I trust that I am in the process of transformation, always.  I that my Creator is continuing the process of creation in my daily, in spite of and usually with the help of, all my ugly bumps and bruises. 

Medicine Woman

I've become very interested lately in medicinal herbs.  I envision myself one day as a sort of medicine woman for my family and friends, meting out teas and tonics, and cooking up recipes full of tasty herbs to heal the body and keep it healthy.  I've read about them on the internet, and bought a fantastic book called Herbal Recipes  by Rosemary Gladstar.  Then I ordered my seeds from Horizon Herbs.

In the meantime we had also bought 2 rain barrels, which, although great for harvesting rainwater, were really ugly not the most attractive things to put at the edge of our patio.  So we came up with the great idea of building planters up against them to both hide them AND to house my medicinal herbs.  The only problem was, I wanted it done quickly ( I was really not liking those huge, brown plastic barrels) and we didn't want to spend any money.

My amazing, handy, woodworker of a husband came up with the idea of using the pallets, which we had been collecting for some artwork we were making, and using  that wood to make our planters.  Yes, pallets.  We had gone into the trash piles behind many a store and retrieved the wooden delivery pallets.  We searched for the ones that looked as if their wood was untreated.  Then we pulled some of them apart, which was a pretty backbreaking chore but my oldest son Cooper loved it!  There's not many things more fun for a 10 year old boy than whacking things with a hammer.  Some of the pallets we left intact to use as the backing.  Then Steven and Cooper ingeniously made the cutest planters, nailing the boxes onto the intact pallets.  And Viola, a vertical garden!  For free!  And really cool looking!  I've since planted them with all kinds of herbs, such as calendula, sage, lemon balm, valerian, motherwort, flax, nettle, and marshmallow.  Now I just have to figure out what to do with them start using them to make those teas, tonics, and healing recipes!

Woman Power

Every day that I can I sit in my garden to do my writing.  My chair is right next to this enormous lavender bush, that is a favorite of our local bees.  I don't have my own hive yet, although that is definitely one of my next goals for our urban farm.  But at least our lavender attracts bees, and they visit the lavender, and me, every day.  I love that these worker bees are all women.  They are industriously enjoying  the lavender, and then they create something yummy, sweet, sensual, and life giving from those beautiful purple flowers. (I just wish I could harvest some of that delicious honey!) If female bees can create abundance and sweetness  from nature and from beauty, can't we female humans do the same?  It is such a lovely thought!  I feel as if by gardening and cooking I do get to do that.  I create something beautiful, sensual, delicious and life giving from the abundance of nature and Creation.  I love the connectivity of that, the sense of wholeness or completion.

Soapmaking 101

Two weeks ago my oldest daughter, Madison, and I made our first of (hopefully) many batches of soap.  We  mixed lye with olive oil and coconut oil.  It was hysterical to see, as I had heard and read so much about the caustic nature of lye that we were dressed up like hazmat workers from the latest sci fi movie.  We had bright yellow dish gloves up to our elbows, long-sleeve shirts and long pants, and safety goggles on.  As I measured the lye on the scale it was as if those flakes were some deadly virus or germ.  I was that afraid to touch them!  But as we got further into the process we started to feel a bit more confident.  One thing I wasn't prepared for was how long it took.  When I added water to the lye it heated up right away - it was actually a great chemistry lesson for Madison and I to see the reaction.  But it took FOREVER for it to cool down.  I had heated up the oils to combine them, and I was supposed to start mixing the lye and oils together when they were both at a temperature of about 95 degrees.  The oil cooled down much more quickly, so I kept heating that up and we waited and waited for the lye to cool down!

When I finally got them both to within a few degrees of each other, and close to 95 degrees, I poured the oils into the glass bowl I had the lye mixture in and we began to stir.  And stir.  And stir.  We were waiting until the mixture began to trace:  that is until when we lifted the wooden spoon we were using and let some of the liquid drop down, it took few moments for it to settle.  Almost like a pudding looks as it starts to thicken, or so they said.  Well, this "tracing" seemed a bit obscure to me, not being a big pudding connoisseur , but I thought we could figure it out.

As we switched off stirring I read my instructions once more and saw that this process could take up to an hour before tracing!  What!  I am not knon for being the most patient person, so I decided that I would try the other technique advocated by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen (authors of The Urban Homestead.)  They make their soap in a blender.  What had sounded crazy and dangerous to me 40 minutes earlier now sounded genius!  I was hesitant to use my Vitamix, the only blender I have and extremely precious to me, but this called for desperate measures so we pulled it out and poured the liquid soap right in.  We blended, checking every 30 seconds or so, and it still took about another 10 minutes, but finally it thickened up and I thought I saw tracing.  The recipe had said to pour as soon as you noticed tracing because it hardens quickly, so I didn't want to miss my window!  We added our lemon balm essential oil, which smells fresh and heavenly, and poured our soap into lined muffin tins.  We had bought a new muffin pan because I wanted to be absolutely sure it wasn't aluminum, as apparently lye and aluminum reacts and can explode.  Then we covered it up and set it in a high place to cure.  We had to make sure it was out of reach of kids and pets for at least 3 days because the lye is still caustic until after the 3 day period and I didn't want my dog ingesting those sweet smelling soap muffins! 

After a week Madison and I checked the soap.  We were so excited, although we still needed to wait 3 more weeks to use it, as it needs to cure for at least a month.  It is pretty and smells delightful, but it is disappointingly mushy.  I think that in my anxiety about catching it before it hardened, I didn't quite get the "tracing" right.  But they are useable bars, it was great practice, and we feel so much more confident and ready to make another batch.

We have 18 small vials of essential oils:  lavender, tea tree oil, eucalyptus, peppermint, spearmint, orange, and a bunch of other scents.  And we are going to go to the thrift store to buy a blender specifically for soap making.  Then we'll give it another shot!

Wind Chimes

We've got wind chimes.  The neighbors left them when they moved and since the new neighbors don't want them, Madison brought them over here.  There were actually two sets.  The smaller set she hung on her rabbit's hutch, because of course bunnies need chimes too !  The second set we have hung on the edge of our patio cover.  They are  quite tacky  not the most beautiful things but the sound they make is lovely.  It is a soft, tinkling sound.  It is going to rain later today and the wind has just come up and is swirling around our backyard, and as I sit out here in my garden and listen, it is as if the wind has found its voice.  It is an interesting concept, to think that maybe we are all like the wind, constantly moving and speaking and singing from our hearts, but that we need to find our specific tool to find a way to outwardly express ourselves.  The wind is naturally silent, and it needs trees or water, or even a cheesy set of wind chimes. We too are naturally silent, living inside our own heads, and we need writing, painting, woodworking, ceramics, or cooking.  Whatever our particular tool or medium is, it allows us to sing and howl in a way that allows the world to hear us. 

Divine Nettles

Tonight we are feasting!  My parents are coming over for dinner tonight, and we are grilling some chicken, and having roasted cauliflower and sauteed greens.  It is the greens that I am so excited about!  For some reason we have had a super successful winter growing gorgeous rainbow Swiss chard, spinach, kale, and now that spring is here our nettles are growing.  Yes, I planted nettles on purpose and I saute them along with the other greens and it makes an incredible side dish.  Before we had this wonderful garden of greens it would never have occurred to me to buy Swiss chard, or to pick nettles and saute them for dinner.  But since they are growing in such profusion, and since we really want to be more self-sufficient, I want to use them, instead of making yet another trip to the grocery store.  So all winter I've been experimenting with ways to use all of these greens.  Our favorite is to saute them in olive oil with caramelized onions and garlic, and then sprinkled with some Parmesan cheese.  Sometimes we put it in pasta, and sometimes we just eat it as a side dish.  Either way it is divine!