Catching up.

Can we go sit out under the pergola with some coffee and catch up for a few hours?  We can bring leftover spaghetti as a treat for the girls, and I can babble on at you about all of the crazy (good) developments in my life over the past few weeks.  (If I can get all of the thoughts whirling around inside my head into some sort of coherent order, that is.)

Well, let's stick with the proper priorities:  first, Roxie.  Thankfully, she's given up on hatching babies for the time being.  What, you may ask, cured her from her stubborn broodiness?


After multiple days of removing her from her nest several times throughout the day--with no success--I decided to try a different strategy:  make the nest too uncomfortable to occupy!  This broken coin-sorter just happened to be sitting on the workbench in the garage next to their coop.  Hmmm, I thought, those look like uncomfortably sharp edges....

So, I tucked it, pointy side up, in her nest and went on with my day.  The other girls, who hadn't lost their minds in mommy-mania, could still use other nesting spots, and my hope was that Roxie would be her stubborn self and refuse to switch nests.  Which is exactly what happened.  Pathetic that I'm keeping track, I know, but the score is Maggie =1, Roxie =0 in the Broody Wars.

Even better, after about two weeks of sulking and shedding a few feathers (I would guess a hormonal thing--although I feared she might be heading into another molt, just for spite,) she is back to laying her pretty blue eggs and dishing out sass to any human that crosses her path.  Ah, normalcy. 

In other chicken news, the Tour de Coops is coming soon and gathering lots of steam!  At last count, there were over 100 people planning to attend this bike-tour of chicken coops in Rocky Ripple and neighboring areas.  I've been scheming on how to spruce up both the indoor coop in the garage (and the dusty mess that IS the garage) and the ladies' outdoor run in the yard.  Right now we are more of a lesson in how-to-house-chickens-on-the-cheap rather than here's-my-posh-chicken-digs-a-la-Martha-Stewart.  Oh dear.  In any case, don't you just love the Tour's poster?  Pure awesomeness.  Kudos to Andrew Brake for coming up with this fun event--bike-riding, fun neighborhoods, and chickens!  Woo hoo!

OK.  So, chickens...check.  Now, on to:  my new JOB.

Yes, folks, after a year of unemployed student-dom, I have a boss.  Are you ready for the almost-scary-synchronicity?  Well, I am now working with a fellow Rocky Ripple citizen who also happens to be an earlier graduate of my masters at St. Mary-of-the-Woods.  Her name is Angela, and she focused on community gardens for her project.  A few years later, and she is now heading Fall Creek Gardens:  Urban Growers Resource Center...and I am officially an employee!  FCG is both a community garden for the Mapleton-Fall Creek neighborhood, and also a resource center for anyone involved with urban gardening or agriculture in central Indiana.  I am very excited to be joining this organization in its early stages--so many dreams, plans, and goals to pursue.  For a great summation of some of our ideas check out this post on the website www.fallcreekgardens.org.

Since I tend toward cliches, here is one for you:  it never rains, but it pours!  You may remember from last fall that I was very excited about an event in another part of town called the Irvington SkillShare--a wonderful day of different folks demonstrating various ways to live a less consumptive, more creative urban life.  Well, last weekend was the second annual SkillShare, and around halfway through the week, I was notified that the bread-baker had to cancel at the last minute--could I do it?  Did I know someone else who might want to?

Well.  You know how I feel about baking bread.  I had some possible scheduling conflicts, however, so I mentioned this need to my baking buddy Amy and our mutual friend Chris, who bakes all the bread his family of seven needs each week.  We got together to plan.  Ideas started bubbling up everywhere...like (dare I say it?) a big bowl of yeast.  The next thing you know, we've come up with a name for this trifecta of bakers:  the breadgeeks.  Then someone thinks to check and see if we can get a gmail account with this name in case visitors to the SkillShare want to contact us after the fact with questions.  --and yep! that email is available.

Hmmm.

What the hell, we say, and check to see if the domain name is available...and yes it is.  Wow!  As a ".com" too, which never happens anymore.  OK--we checked Facebook--no other breadgeeks there either!  Ack!  More crazy synchronicity!

One wild hour later, we had the bare bones of a plan:  we are the breadgeeks.  We believe that everyone is capable of baking cheap, yummy, healthy bread for their families.  No fancy equipment necessary, or gourmet flours (although we do splurge sometimes)--no need to buy another loaf, bagel, cracker, or tortilla!  No need to fear the yeast!  The next thing you know, we had Tshirts:

Our purpose, we decided, was to take the baking to the people...whether by workshops, demonstrations, or best of all, in-home baking parties!  Want to learn how to make a loaf of artisan bread, some delicious sandwich wraps, and a bag of graham crackers?  Well, then call your friends--and the breadgeeks.  We'll come over, pop a bottle of wine, and teach you everything you need to know.

The SkillShare was wonderful.  We enjoyed ourselves immensely.  It is always fantastic to chat with people who care about the same things that you care about, and it is even better if you can feed them something yummy at the same time.  Chris held court in the kitchen, demonstrating his version of no-knead artisan breads, while Amy & I fried up some corn tortillas on an electric griddle at our display table.  We offered bagels I'd made the night before for sampling, the bread from Chris, the tortillas--and then for the crowning touch, Amy rolled out and baked her graham cracker dough.  Heaven.

SO.  I think that brings us largely up-to-date.  We are working on a website (www.breadgeeks.com) and blog (www.breadgeeks.wordpress.com) and to solidify our ideas about classes and workshops.  We are also composing our "breadgeeks manifesto" which we promise to make a fun read.  If you are a Facebook-er, please visit the breadgeeks page there and "like" us to help spread the baking fun!

Jason and I also made time to visit the State Fair somewhere in the middle of all this, and I think I embarrassed Jason by talking (aloud) to all of the chickens and roosters on display.  Nothing terribly surprising.  Several of them talked back.  :)  I am gearing up to make a batch of blender soap in the near future, so stay tuned for that adventure!  I will also be reporting back about the success of an herbal bug spray that is finally ready to be strained and bottled.  Lots of fun stuff going on around here! 

Oh, dang--almost forgot to mention:  the Indianapolis Star sent a reporter and photographer to interview me about keeping chickens last week as well!  The story should be published in September, prior to the Tour de Coops, so stay tuned!  That was a few days-worth of panicked housecleaning and coop-tidying, let me tell you!  Whew....  How's your August going?

A Year with the Girls

We've hit a few milestones around here in the last few days.  

I missed the anniversary of my first-ever blog post; that was back in July somewhere while I was feverishly thesis-writing.  But nevertheless, faithful readers, you've been following the life-n-times of the Rocky Ripple homestead for a year now.

...Which also means that I have been unemployed for a year as well.  The last time I could say that was over half my lifetime ago when I had never actually been employed.  Wow....


But the main thing, the big event, the special guests, the reason for the season (if you will) is:

The girls are one year old!  Big biddies. The four chickens of the apocalypse.  (However you like to refer to them.)

A year ago, I was waiting on pins and needles for the postman to call...they hatched on August 2nd, and they arrived in the wee sma's on the 4th.  I've been looking back at the pictures we took in those first few weeks--I spent my first week of unemployment in a 95 degree room, sweating, and hanging over the edge of their brooder in delight.


Of course, the girls (with--as usual--one exception) are not phased by this at all.  What is a year of life, Ramona asks, when it looks like you might have a treat in your pocket?

One of the ladies, however, seems to be taking her advanced age to heart.  Yes, of course I am talking about Roxie the Drama Queen.  Who else gives me continual trouble??  Roxie, it turns out, is an educational chicken.  As in, the chicken destined to give me real-life experience from every last damn chapter of my "how to raise chickens" books.  Just when I get rather comfortable in my role as Top Chicken, Roxie dreams up another fowl crisis. (snicker.)

Today's drama:  she wants to be a mother.  I have a broody chicken on my hands.

Ramifications for the humans in her world:  no more eggs from Roxie until she gets it through her head that sitting on imaginary eggs is futile.

Now, I am the first to admit that I probably need to get a grip and not take this personally.  In fact, when I stop being annoyed by my problem chicken and the loss of her pretty blue eggs, her behavior is rather poignant.

She sits, in the sweltering heat of the coop, for most of the day, a selfless and dedicated Madonna of the Straw.  She has been plucking soft downy feathers from her chest and tummy to make a more luxurious nest.  Vocal as always, she talks now in entirely new tones, soft chirps or swift, staccato sentences warning you away from the important duties she is trying to perform.  And when you approach her on the nest, she puffs up majestically, her tail feathers splayed like a turkey--a ferocious Mama Rox who will defend her eggs against all challengers.

Of course, there are no eggs.  As a rule, I whisk them away as soon as I see them, and once her broody hormones kicked in, she stopped laying anyway and has been hogging that nest ever since so that no one else dares to plop one down.

We talk about this, Roxie and I.  I've been removing her from her post several times a day since this broody behavior started, encouraging her to snap out of it and go back to her normal swinging-single self.  As much as she puffs up, as much as she complains, she has never pecked at me.  Her friendly temperament is still there, underneath all of the mama-hormones.  So I stroke down those enormously puffed feathers and coo to her that she is a good girl.  I pick her up as she grumbles under her breath, and as I walk her outside I continue to soothe and stroke her.  Roxie, darlin, I say, honey, you can't get babies without roosters, sweetheart, and we don't want one of those around the place. 

She is NOT convinced.

And, being Roxie, she tells me all about it in these new weird chirps.  There is no mistaking the emotion behind these noises.  She is bitching at me--there is no other word for it.  I am messing things up; I don't listen.  She is trying to hatch some precious BABIES here, and everyone keeps foiling her plans.

Roxie, sister, look--here are all your girls, wondering what is wrong with you.  There is your food, your water, a nice shady dust bath--and a BREEZE.  Why don't I put you down to hang out here for a while and give the nest a rest.
 
I put her down.  She walks away, still puffed up, with a disgruntled air.  She noses around with the other girls for a bit. Within ten minutes, she has disappeared back into the coop.

Fine.  Have your imaginary pregnancy in that oven of a garage.

Later, I am out hanging laundry on the line, near the pophole in the side of the garage where the girls climb the ladder to enter and exit the coop.  I walk over to hang some pillowcases close to the pophole.  Unseen, Roxie starts her warning chirps at me.  I lean over to snap right back at her through the pophole:  listen, you silly chicken!

I stop.  I am getting into a fight with a chicken.  I think I need to get a job or some outside interests or something.  Jeez. I walk away and ignore the ominous grumbling from the coop while I finish the laundry.

************

So.  The rest of the girls are doing well--fat, happy ladies reveling in the freedom of their backyard kingdom (queendom?) and the treats from the kitchen.  Betty is probably the best gal all-around, my beautiful Silver-Laced Wyandotte.  She is a neat, small, precise little package of a chicken, with no incessant squawking or otherwise questionable behavior.  She seems very self-possessed.  She is also a reliable layer, with her pretty, round light-brown eggs coming every day or every other day.  While she doesn't particularly like to be held, once I have her securely in my arm, she relaxes and responds to my pats and sweet-nothings with a little low-pitched coo now and then. Here she is now:

and just for fun, here is baby Betty a year ago, a little dollop of black and silver fuzz :

And then there is Fern, the Partridge Plymouth Rock.  She is a force to be reckoned with.  Not to be insensitive, but when she comes charging across the yard at you (certain that you are bringing something to eat that she must get to first), you expect the earth to tremble with each thundering stride:  BOOM-BA-BA, BOOM-BA-BA BOOM, BOOM, BOOM!  It is even worse now that it is hot, because she lifts her shoulders up and out a little at the sides for better ventilation and looks for all the world as though she has on football pads.  All this from the teeniest chick of the lot, the one that I worried wouldn't make it for the first few days.  Funny, how these things turn out.

Fern is a good girl.  She lays big round pinkish-brown eggs, and she has the funniest little running commentary that sounds like a squeaky box-springs:  er-Er, er-ER, er-Er, er-ER.  She has no sense of self-preservation when there is food involved--I have actually punted her a few feet on accident because she is so intent on getting to the treat that I am taking to the compost heap that she runs in and out between my legs.  Here she is today:

And here she is on Day 1, having fallen asleep on her feet:

Oh, Fern.  Lil punkin.

And then there is Ramona, the Australorp.  If you know me, you know that I lost my heart to Ramona a long time ago, conniving little wench that she is.  Even after I figured out that all of her sweetness was geared toward getting the best of the treats out of me, it was too late.  She already had me wrapped around her soft downy feathers.

This is a chicken who converses with you.  She will let anyone hold her, and when I do, and talk to her, she never fails to talk back in the sweetest baby-chickie sounds imaginable.  Weaving her spell, no doubt, but endearing nonetheless.  She will stop by to visit and sit on Jason's knee for a few minutes.  Her eggs are a darker brown, occasionally freckled and a bit pointed on one end. 

She and Fern are in constant competition to see who can get there faster when someone comes from the kitchen with food.  When she runs, she holds her head upright--she looks like a bell swinging back and forth.  The girl has hips.  (Fern, on the other hand, lowers her head and charges.)  It is quite hilarious--not long ago Ramona actually had to backpedal to avoid crashing right into Jason as he came around a corner one way, and she came barreling up in pursuit of Fern from the other direction.  He said she looked like a cartoon character digging in her heels to come to a screeching halt.

Anyway, here is my pretty lady now:

And here's the little puddin, snuggling with Roxie.  The yellow tip of her beak is her egg tooth. 

Which leaves me with the soap opera star, Roxanne.  She has the pretty cheek feathers, elongated body and blue eggs of her breed, but she is not a pure-bred Araucana.  That's OK.  We love our overly-dramatic Easter Egger.

And, back when she had the eyeliner and less angst:

SO, there you are.  We have made it through a year of chicken tending.  The girls are healthy and happy and free to fully explore their little chicken destinies.  While they are certainly not the most intelligent or graceful creatures, they have a charm that goes far beyond the beauty of their soft shiny feathers and their daily offerings of rich fresh eggs.  Having an opportunity like this to watch a chicken be a chicken makes it all the harder to imagine the short, brutal lives of the wretches at Tyson or Perdue--what an arrogant crime to take a life and make it nothing more than a commodity, stripped of health and dignity, even the occasional breath of fresh air or wriggling worm. 

Well, anyway.  When you can, buy your chicken and eggs from somewhere that lets chickens be chickens, will you?  The girls would appreciate it.  :)