Productivity!

Calendula flowers this fall from the herb garden

Irons are in the fire today, boy.  Amazing how having to drop everything for a paper seems to energize me only after the paper is turned in!  The house is tidied, the entire collection of our dishes and cookware has been washed and put away (after occupying most horizontal surfaces in the kitchen for the last five days--yuck), and I have bread cooling and dinner in the crockpot. Virtuous!  Honestly, my to-do list is a symphony of horizontal lines.  It's very satisfying.

Infusing calendula petals in the olive oil

I am happy to report that I tried a new lotion recipe today, and it worked really well for a change.  (SO much better than my last sad attempt, which kept separating back into water and oil.)  I infused olive oil with dried calendula petals--skin says:  thank you--and then added coconut oil and beeswax.  This I combined with aloe, glycerin, water, grapefruit seed extract, and essential oils by beating with a hand mixer until creamy.  The fragrance is faint and earthy--a mix of cedarwood, bergamot, and lavender--next time I will try using more, but it is nice as is.  It is thick at first, but my skin seemed to really soak it up; I am interested to see what Jason-of-the-temperamental-skin thinks after using it for a bit.

One for Jason, one to give away

Elsewhere around the ol' homestead...we have a full two dozen eggs right now in the fridge.  Ta da, girls!  I am getting three eggs most days, all brown and slightly different in shade and shape.  Roxie, the bluish-green egg-layer, has only laid a few here and there, but she is lively & happy and I am unconcerned--spring is coming, and I'm sure she will catch up as it gets into egg season.

In case you are wondering, there is usually a refrigerated shelf-life of around two months for eggs that you buy in the store; by the time that they reach you they are typically already a month old.  If you store your eggs in cartons and then a plastic bag over all, they will keep even longer. I anticipate giving carton calling-cards where ere we go this summer, but for now I am enjoying eggy things in the kitchen....  I made egg salad for the first time the other night (I know, I'm not sure either.  Has anyone else not made egg salad for 33 years?), and it was ridiculous.  As in, ridiculously good.  Not to mention that the little multi-colored hard boiled eggs were just plain cute. 

Sorry, needed better light to capture the color!

And, finally to catch up just a little on all of the knitted gorgeousness that happened re: Christmas....  I admit to having a crazy last week of striving mightily to finish everything on time, and one of the resultant casualties  in the "important blog-details" department was getting pictures of everything.  Sad, I know.  If you happen to be a recipient with a digital camera, send me a shot & I will post it, but in the meantime, poor long-suffering Jason opened up four packages of sock yarn, and I am now working on pair #1!!  Such a good gifter, I am! (Although it is worth thoughtfully weighing how much post-Christmas-yet-still-Christmas knitting one wants to enslave oneself to.  Just saying.  Jason may get the blue pair a tad bit closer to his birthday.  In June.  There are only so many socks that I am able to knit in a row!)   :) 

Over half way...over half way (I get tired of socks on #2)

Eggcetera

Very fun to be crossing things off lists these days!  While I haven't any New Year's resolutions, there is a certain sense of turning a page in January for me this year, turning toward the sun and a new day.   I've decided that the only way to get through winter is to be industrious and enjoy the instant gratification of a completed project.

So, the nest box is done. 

A quiet corner for eggs.

The cookbook shelf is also finished, with room to grow--so nice to have all of my books accessible and bracketed against suddenly tumbling off the end of a make-shift shelf.    My next big organizational task is to sort through my seeds--all kinds of lovely stuff there.  I get quite nerdy with graph paper & all when it comes to garden planning and seed starting, but it is the most fun to be poring over seed catalogs and daydreaming of verdant summer beds in the middle of a snowy mid-winter day.

Purchased eggs to the right....

We are well over our first dozen eggs from the girls, although they are all just a bit smaller than regular eggs at this point, as you can see in the picture.  I am waiting to see how quickly the girls take to the new nest box; up until now, they have made a sweet, round little depression in the bedding in the corner of their coop for a nest.  Yesterday, while I was working on the nest box, the chickens were out running around--exploring various interesting corners of the garage and out the door to the equally stirring side of the house, where a birdfeeder sheds its extra seed to the ground and there is a nice sunny patch of dirt for dust bathing.   Betty, the shy girl, who never wants to get too close, surprised me by coming in the garage, jumping up into the coop, and settling her round body in the nest.  Here I am, using a screeching table saw and a drill, and still she settled into her corner, occasionally plucking feathers from the surrounding bedding and tucking them underneath.  I know that she isn't comfortable around me, and I know that hens like to hide away when they lay--I just assumed that she was chilly and wanted to get off the cold concrete. 

But a few minutes later, she was up and out of the coop, and there was a light brown egg in the nest--when I picked it up, it was still warm.  Wow.  I was kind of awed.  You know from early childhood that a chicken lays an egg.  This is a very different way of understanding that reality, to pick up the warm little offering in your urban garage on a random Thursday in January.  How FUN.

Roxie has recovered after about 10 days of intermittent illness, and she finally laid an egg again yesterday, which makes us all feel better.  She is back to pushing her way up to the front for treats, and no longer spends her time hiding away on the roost in the corner.

In other bird news, we had the barred owl back in our front yard--in the same spot of the same tree as the last time, which was in February.  Apparently he likes overcast winter days in our hackberry.  My much-maligned camera, the snow that was falling, and the afternoon backlighting all conspired to create a lot of crappy pictures, no matter where I stood, or how close I came, and so I quickly gave up on capturing the moment and just savored it instead:  I love that he barely glanced my way, so utterly unconcerned with humanity and instead absorbed by the songbirds and sparrows flitting along the periphery and the small quiet rustle of a mouse in the ivy below.  I am grateful for the chance to watch him survey his world.  And even after we got distracted and went back to our day, he lingered in the tree all afternoon....

Books & Building

I was just pondering the two large stacks of library books that have become an evolving work of coffee table art in my living room over the last six months.  Skewed a bit heavily right now toward knitting, herbal potions, chickens, and cooking, I am reminded how lucky I am to be filling my mind and time with such homey pleasures.

The book mountain is about to expand.  As in, ahem, it may double.  I discovered a new subject search phrase--sustainable living, duh--in the library's catalog that opened up a bewildering amount of new riches to request.  So, of course, I went clicking merrily away and now have a ridiculous avalanche of books headed to my local branch.  I am a little scared that the library is going to cut me off eventually--I mean, how many books is really reasonable?  If we say 50 or less, then I have some breathing room....

I do have a new home for at least one of the towering stack:  Mom got me Alice Water's The Art of Simple Foods for Christmas, and over the weekend, Jason & I hung the laundry room shelves that I've been dreaming of--including the shelf for cookbooks.  Yaaaay!  They are nothing fancy, just unfinished wood and simple metal tracks and brackets--and I still need to finish bracing the ends of the cookbook shelf.  But they get everything off of the floor (finally), allow me more pantry space, and make the trapdoor to the crawlspace (and future root cellar) available.

...Not to mention that they make the room more interesting.  Have I mentioned that Jason & I are like children at times?  We keep meeting each other in that doorway, pausing to gaze for a moment at the blissfully organized wall art that we've made.  Other people, grown up people, have stressful, important lives; we stare like goons at shelves on walls, giddy at the last of the summer's butternut squash lined up in a row.

The Girls, age 5 months

OK.  A chicken post.  I can't help it.  Times, they are a changin'.  I officially have egg-producing adolescents now.  They are pretty girls....

Fern

Fern, the Partridge Plymouth Rock, has been very, very, loud lately, which is one sign that a young lady is getting ready to lay an egg.  My guess is that hers is the dark brown one above.  When I leave to go back to the house, especially, she indignantly stands at the side of the pen and bwawks with greater and greater volume as I get farther away, apparently cranky that the treat-distribution has come to an end.  It's a little embarrassing, in my quiet, snowy neighborhood.  But you have to love the fact that she has so much to say.



Roxie is a bit of a concern to me right now--she's not feeling too hot, and hasn't been for a while.  She, our usually sassy easter-egger, laid five eggs without a lot of rest between and then hasn't laid any all week.  (Unless she's hidden them somewhere, and believe me, I've checked.)  I am giving her some dairy to make sure that she's getting enough calcium (egg shells demand a lot,) while I wait for a supplement to come in. I'm also giving her a few droppers-full of echinacea infusion a couple of times a day, to boost her system.

Roxanne

She is up and down, sometimes frightening me by sitting up on her roost, face to the wall, puffed up, snoozing and obviously not feeling well.  Then the next time I check on her, she is up and eating, although not very competitive about getting to the kitchen scraps I bring, not very vocal (!), and strangely lethargic overall. I am keeping a close eye on my Foxy Rox at this point.

Ramona

Ramona, my Australorp, is a shameless beggar.  I don't mind, really, because she is also the easiest to handle and is entirely comfortable with me.  This is the one that hops on Jason's lap and gets a few pats before going on her way with the rest of the flock, remember.  She has us right where she wants us, and we all know it.  It is too bad that this picture doesn't show how iridescent her black feathers are--green and even purple in the sunlight.

Lined up for treats (spoiled chickens)

I know that these chickens are total pets, but I enjoy interacting with and learning another creature--one of a foreign temperament entirely from that of a dog or cat, hamster, iguana, snake or even parakeet.  Flock mentality is a fascinating world to live in, even vicariously from a lawn chair.  Can I tell you how much I appreciate the eggs that the girls are giving us?  How very fun it is to crack through the dense shell and plop a bright orange yolk--made from our back yard--into the skillet or mixing bowl?  I know that my enthusiasm is palpable.

Shy Betty

Lest I forget:  Betty is our shy girl.  She is also a runner, and I've spent way too many hours chasing her around the yard, particularly when she was smaller and we hadn't yet made a door in the side of the pen.  I am pretty sure that she is the layer of the light-brown eggs, although they could be Ramona's too.  She, who was fairly bold as a little chick, is possibly at the bottom of the pecking order, but no one seems to really get picked on in the coop so far--there is plenty of room (and scraps) for everyone.  As long as Roxie pulls through whatever illness or devastating life change it is that she is going through (I mean, five eggs laid, all stolen; nothing to show for it, etc.--who's to say?) then I think we are on our way to a happy little homestead here on Lester Street.  And just about every morning--an egg!

...And off we go!

Ahh.  The holidays are behind us.

Which is not to say that I don't love them.  I do.  All of the time with family, the gift-giving and joking, the meals and conversations around the table--this is a precious time when I can be a version of me that I don't get to be with anyone else. 

New Year's parties are the trend at our place lately, as new babies shuffle party-hosting around our circle of friends, and this year, we had incredibly warm weather and a fire in the backyard.  Much revelry, with the beautiful luxury of a New Year's Day spent in pajamas, eating fabulous party leftovers.  Gluttony.  Sloth.  This is how we roll as the new year dawns.

SO.  Christmas.  (Check.) 

New Year's.  (Check.)

Paper sadistically due 1/3/11.  (Check.)

Today, I can breathe a little.  Pay bills.  Wash dishes.  Catch up on long-neglected email.  Give the houseplants a shower.  Do laundry.  Attempt a chicken photo shoot and start scrounging the wood pile for nest box material.  Brrr.  Putter.  Brrr.  Start thinking ahead to cooking dinner with the post-holiday shrapnel left in my cupboards....

I am excited for the year to come.  It is still a venture into the unknown, but now I can start dreaming of spring.