My big mouth

Right, so remind me not to taunt fate about a sinus infection next time, OK?  Grrr.  Cough.  Sniff.

I'm not sick enough to need official meds, but just enough to be annoyed and unable to focus my echoing head--drawn most of all to the couch and a blanket.  And right in the middle of so much going on!

Enjoying the sunshine...and some yogurt

 Saturday was my first foray into the Adventures of the Traveling Chicken Lady--I packed up Ramona and Roxie (with the generous help of Jason and my visiting sis, Christiana) and headed to my favorite wild bird store, Backyard Birds to lead a workshop on starting up a backyard flock in the city.  I figured it would probably just be my own friends in attendance, to be honest, so I was amazed to find that over 20 others came to the talk, all ages and levels of prior knowledge.  Ramona spent most of her time being held or petted, while Roxanne was so well-adjusted that she stood on one foot and took a nap.  It was a great experience for me, and so much fun to talk to the smiling, interested group of people.   There were all kinds of good questions and I am looking forward to honing my talk a little for future workshops--hopefully one next month and then a little later in the summer.  If you would like to follow this on Facebook, there is a group:  City Chickens Indy.  You can search for and "like" it.

As soon as I get my hands on pictures from the workshop, I will post some--also, if you live in Indy, the Broad Ripple Gazette was there, so who knows....

I spent much of yesterday afternoon outside with the girls, soaking up sunshine, blowing my nose, and brainstorming what I want to do with the yard and garden this year.  I should have been redistributing the daffodil bulbs out by the mailbox--they barely flower because they are so crowded--but with my stuffed head, it didn't seem advisable to be head-first in a flower bed.  So, instead, I surveyed the southern quarter of our yard; the sunniest area where the garden and berry bushes are, trying to decide if I want to fence it off.  Also, I have a firm belief that we can (should?) cut our teeth on home-construction with a greenhouse made from salvaged windows, which I really really want to build off the back side of our garage.  However, I am simultaneously trying not to take on more than I can handle in the midst of finishing school, so I just keep sketching ideas for it and surreptitiously googling DIY greenhouse construction.  I would try to post my last sketch, but Fern walked across it with muddy feet.  (!) 

In the midst of garden planning, I remembered to snap some pictures of the garlic--it is UP!  Ha, winter.  So there. 

No other bulbs up yet, but the green guys in the cold frame have officially overwintered successfully--no growth, but everyone is still there and much more perky and green since the weather has had its mild moments lately. 

In other gardening news, I am so excited to be working on forming a school garden for a neighborhood preschool cooperative--one that will be using a plot of land in Rocky Ripple's community garden as their classroom!  I am hoping to work in some sessions on things like rain barrels, composting, saving seeds and other ways to live and garden more sustainably in the city.  I think this is going to be a fascinating process, and invaluable experience in getting a project like this off the ground.

Since I am feeling slightly better today, I now find myself very behind!  Library, bread baking, cleaning, laundry, and several paragraphs to write for the school garden proposal--not to mention that I need to revisit my notes on my school stuff prior to meeting with my program director to set my path for this spring.  No more time for the couch!

A Temporary Reprieve

Oh, February.  Forever dangling warm weather under my nose only to knock me over the head with an icy blow--and usually a cold or sinus infection for good measure.  I do try not be drawn in by the balmy 40/50/60 degree days, by the first time it is warm enough to smell the soggy dark earth and feel a little glow from the sun.  I try, and I fail--it is an irresistible call.

This week, a friend and I  had our first bike-ride of the year.  Jason dug my Schwinn out of the ranks of neglected bikes lining our garage, pumped up the tires, and brushed away a few layers of dust.  Last summer was so hot that I barely touched my bike; living as we did without air-conditioning at first and then with only a tiny window unit, neither Jason nor I could muster up much enthusiasm for self-propelled transportation--more perspiration was not what we were looking for.  I am determined to make some changes in this department, however, and last night was a great reminder of why.

Maybe it is just me, but whenever I jump on a bike and pedal off down the road, I am forcibly reminded of the freedom that a bike represented to me as a child, zipping off with my neighborhood gang in our summer-long war between "cops" and "robbers."  With my feet in the pedals I am off, perhaps to an adventure, and no one can wrangle me back inside.  I need nothing, no money, no gas, no seat belt, no silly glass between me and the world--and what a vivid world it is when you are out in it, traveling at a pace where sights and sounds have a chance to sink in.  The first year that we did a bunch of bike riding (as adults), I was amazed at the houses in our neighborhood that I'd never noticed during year after year of driving by, all of the human and nonhuman details that I'd missed.   

This is an intangible value that permeates the larger homesteading goals I am working on this year, this insistence in pursuing simplicity, slowing down, savoring the great gift of life right now--your one wild and precious life, as Mary Oliver would say.

(Unless the Buddhists win the world-religion Lotto, in which case I would like to come back as a pampered house cat with lots of sunny bay windows, please.)

PK notwithstanding, I've never found the idea of winning some laureled throne in a far-off heaven to have much appeal, particularly if it means viewing the world now as a trial and temptation standing between me and the afterlife.  We in the West have largely adopted this doesn't-matter-in-the-long-run mentality toward the planet whether we subscribe to the Christian underpinnings or not.  It strikes me as such a lousy and ungrateful attitude, but here we are.

Right.  Sorry to lecture.  As I approach the end of my master's program, I find myself occasionally preoccupied by trying to assess and pin down the morality and philosophy of sustainability, of my own work both here and in the larger context of community.  It is not enough to levy heavy rules and regulations, to make environmentalism a weary litany of self-sacrifice and a constant effort to toe the line--it is also necessary to inspire passion and sympathy, to evoke a sense of connection and the sacred within the normal confines of our days together in this world.  We work most tirelessly, after all, for that which we love.

And, if you believe my monologuing here, riding your bike around town can be part of that love story.  Wow.  If you can make that theoretical leap with me, then I suppose we're on our way....

Anyway, happy short-lived, carrot-versus-stick February warm spell.  Enjoy the heck out of it. 

Fairy eggs and pretty glass

Any snippet of green is welcome in February!  These two tiny cuttings are the very last living leaves of the rose geranium that has been limping along in one of my south-facing windows.  I don't know why I always kill scented geraniums when I try to over-winter them.  I mean:  light, water, good soil..."what do you want from me, blood?"  I suppose every gardener has their Waterloo, and without question, I meet mine in my windowsills along about February each year.

I digress.  The rooting vases were on super duper clearance at the Gardener's Supply Co, and we will see if I can salvage a new plant...hopefully we'll see some rootlets appearing soon. 

On a more whimsical note, Jason & I had a chuckle over the latest surprise in the chicken coop:  a teeny little gumball-sized egg, complete with a sprinkling of freckles.  These are known as fairy eggs or witch eggs, and they are too small to contain a yolk.  Nothing to worry about--just another kink in one of the girls' laying systems as they work through the first few months of reproductive life.  Although I had promised myself not to gush any more over anything chicken- or egg-related, I have to say that finding this miniature nestled in the straw was pretty darn cute. 


 As you can see from the picture, we are also still getting larger-than-usual eggs occasionally too.  I guess adolescence is a roller coaster for all of us!

I am also happy to report that we have officially switched to a local organic feed source for the girls:  Central Indiana Organics.  Until now, I've ordered from Pennsylvania because the girls were still developing and I couldn't find the right feed around here and still buy organic--such a relief to escape the ridiculous shipping costs!



And now, for your laugh of the day, allow me to issue a warning about homemade cosmetics and expiration dates.  If, in the year of our lord 2011, you are attempting to make your own baking soda shampoo, it will behoove you to discard anything with this on the bottom of the can:

 Yes, that says "SEP 2009."  I'm not sure how a can of baking soda actually lasted that long in my pantry, but apparently it did--and let me tell you, it matters!

I had been facing a haircare conundrum:  the homemade shampoo wasn't working and nothing that I tried seemed to help.  I supplemented with castile soap to no avail.  I used a trial bar of Greenridge Organic's Rosemary Rhassoul Shampoo Soap, which made a marginal improvement at first, but soon things deteriorated again, and I was beginning to wonder if I needed to concede defeat, buy a normal shampoo to deep clean my hair, and then start again from scratch.  Since everything I've read states that your hair and scalp need time to normalize and wean off of a detergent-based shampoo, I really didn't want to--but continuously wearing hats just isn't my thing.

...and then I ran out of my bathroom can of baking soda and used the kitchen box.  One--ONE--quick shampoo, after weeks of fruitless scrubbing and rinsing, and I'm back to the normal mop of brown curls, once again defiantly styling themselves and bouncing around outside of my control.  *sigh* 

Lesson learned:  baking soda expires.  Good grief.

Winter vacation to the Land of Knit

Well, let's see.  Is anyone else ready for spring?

Jason's company has been closed since Tuesday, thanks to several days of ice pelting from the heavens, and having stocked up at the grocery, we have been hibernating and celebrating our impromptu winter vacation with a sinful amount of snuggled-on-the-couch movie marathoning.  We've gone through every pajama-type article of clothing in the house.  The kitchen is piled high with dishes related to toasting homemade bagels and whipping up cheese omelets.

My friend Amy asked yesterday:  "How is it that being stuck at home for days means that my house is a complete mess?  You'd think, with all of this time to fill, it would be spotless--?"

Dear Seeds:  soon, I promise.  Really.

 I truly had more productive intentions for this week.  I started out to tackle the Great Seed Sort  and Garden Plan of 2011 during the ice storm and was promptly overwhelmed and exhausted by the vast sea of seed packets and plastic baggies, as ice relentlessly ticked and clicked at the windows.  So rather, than fighting it, I switched to dear, mindless knitting as a tiny, guilt-assuaging bit of productivity, and we've thoroughly enjoyed our mini vacation at home.  Barring some further session of Arctic fury, Jason will be back at work tomorrow, and I will be happy to shove the knitting in the cupboard and catch up in other areas--but it was really nice to simply spend these gray days together.  So, here is the sum of my industry for the week:

On the 42nd day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...a finished pair of socks.

And then, I just couldn't resist making something from this gorgeous merino blend for myself.  The yarn was a gift from a friend who has tried repeatedly to start knitting and gave up in exasperation, bestowing--in the process--this dreamy blue and green luxury upon my yarn stash.







 So, I decided to knit up a pair of fingerless gloves and a cowl, by way of my favorite glove pattern:  "Fetching" from www.knitty.com--a quick knit and with just enough flair to make them fun.

Apparently I'm still not sick of this pattern, because I am making another pair of the gloves for my long-neglected friend Amy, in a yarn that I picked out for this exact purpose many many moons ago.  I guess  this is another strategy to survive the winter doldrums--by gleefully soaking up such vibrant colors as though they were sunshine.









Despite the laziness of this week, I am relieved to say that my plans for school are really starting to sprout and flourish in the midst of apparent neglect--honestly, it seems that as soon as I deliberately refuse to stress and obsess the answers begin to pop up like flowers in my path. Once things are a little more certain I can't wait to share details, but for the moment, suffice it to say that chicken-raising seminars, school gardens, and urban homesteading manuals seem to loom in my future....