The Tour de Coops

Before I swear not to talk chicken anymore (OK.  We all know that's a lie.  How about "not talk chicken for a few weeks?"), I have to say:

The TOUR de COOPS was an AMAZING event.  Thank you to all of the folks involved!  Believe it or not, over 500 people registered at Broad Ripple Park for this tour!  Jason & I can't wait to do this again next year.

I guess that I didn't have a firmly-fashioned vision of how the Tour would unfold, but I never dreamed we would be as busy as we were.  We didn't keep count, but my guess is that we saw a few hundred tourists that afternoon.  Especially since Rocky Ripple is a bit farther west than most of the other stops on the tour, I had no idea that we would have such a crowd.  In fact, since we were #9 on the suggested route everyone received upon registering, we figured that we would have to wait a while for our first tourists to show up.

Um, nope.  At precisely 2:01PM, while I was dashing to print signs to help direct the traffic flow in and out of the backyard, the first car pulled up.  I had thought that I would still change clothes/make sure my hair wasn't a completely crazed mess, etc., and at the very least I had intended to set up some water and cups for thirsty bikers.

Instead, I jumped right in to talking about all-things-chicken, while walking people around the backyard, the outdoor run, the coop inside the garage...and I didn't stop until 6PM.  I saw Jason out of the corner of my eye doing the same--he was almost hoarse by the end of the afternoon. It doesn't help, of course that both of us are talkers, yet honestly every time I finished and said goodbye to one person or group, I would turn and run directly into someone new.

I know that a few of the people who were hosting other stops along the way had to field all of the tourists on their own--in this I was extremely fortunate to have not only the Red Rooster himself--my darlin' Jason, but also my younger sister Christiana, her boyfriend Josh, and my older sisters Marti and Julie here as witnesses, tour guides, and general helpers. 

The best part of the whole day, though, were all of the great people that we met, most of whom had very thoughtful questions and were obviously having a fantastic afternoon.  We heard, several times, someone say something along the lines of, "This is great--we have so many good ideas now.  We can do this ourselves!"  And, really, isn't that the point of the whole thing?  We are so proud and happy to be a part of spreading the word:  backyard chickens are something that anyone can do!

Here are a few more of our favorite pictures:

Bikes. Birds. Baking soda.

For the past several days, I've been biking my errands.  This is a very good feeling, this no-gas-consumption feeling.  And with traffic being what it is, (and with the canal path and the Monon so handy) I typically get there faster than I would in a car.  Parking alone makes me deliciously smug, especially during the summer when the suburbs empty into Broad Ripple on the weekends and traffic reaches epically nasty proportions.   I don't usually find myself effervescing about Indianapolis or IN in general, but I do appreciate the trails to which we have managed to live in close proximity during our decade in the area--they go a long way to redeem a city with such poor mass transit.

My grocery-getter bike, the Trek with all its convenient racks & panniers, is still out of commission, a long story of ambitious tinkering friends and boyfriends who commenced upon a tune-up of said Trek and ended with the bike stuck in one gear, the machine victorious over the men and now enjoying a long vacation in the garage.  Someday, I will remember to throw it in the back of the truck and have it fixed professionally, but until then, I grab a backpack and take the more stripped-down Schwinn.

In any case, and no matter what sort of bike and related equipment you have, I would like to strongly recommend getting outside in your neighborhood, whether that means taking a walk or a bike ride or being pulled in a little red wagon.   This is the time of year to stop and chat at the end of the driveway, or admire some nearby gardens, or to barter some of your homegrown lettuce for fresh eggs from your lucky backyard chicken farmer next door....

In poultry news, the girls are all doing very well.  I thought we were going to lose Roxie on Jason's birthday, probably due to heat exhaustion (although she might have ingested some red paint that had dripped into the grass from a project I was working on).  In either case, it was a rough few days that started with a limp, almost unconscious bird in the bottom of the coop.  Yikes.  Why I have to have a hypochondriac, drama-queen chicken, I will never know.  She is back to her usual sassy self now, but has yet to lay me another egg, after going strong for so many weeks.  Apparently I am not meant to have all four chickens laying at the same time!

Fern and Betty accompanied me to another chicken workshop on Sat. 6/18; it was a nice event & Fern's first venture into being an educational chicken.  All new faces in the audience, which was fun, and we held it outside this time, under a tent.  The only glitch occurred when the second presenter began her discussion of first aid and how to raise & butcher a meat flock.  Fern seemed to take offense and proceeded to squawk, loudly, until you could barely hear the woman speaking.  After stuffing her with treats and apologizing repeatedly, I finally had to have Jason pack the girls up and take them home so that we could all hear the rest of the program.  Jeez.  And, as seems to be the custom with these workshops, she promptly plopped out an egg upon getting home and was calm and docile immediately thereafter. 

The flock seem quite well-adjusted and confident of their little backyard kingdom...they have created strategic dust-baths around the place, and know where to dive for cover when something sinister flies by.  My neighbor's mulberry tree is dropping buckets of ripe fruit over the fence in the mulch, and the girls are happy to snap many of them up--the downside to this, of course, is that they then continue on to make piles of shiny black, tar-like droppings as they strut their merry way around the yard.  Ugh.  While grateful for the free chicken food, I will be glad when mulberry season is past!

And speaking of chicken food, the girls are so busy nibbling on the plants and bugs in the yard, that I rarely have to fill their feeder, and their egg yolks are a brilliant orangey-yellow.  What a great time of year to be collecting eggs from your own gals!

Inside the house, I have made another homemade-cleaner discovery, and not surprisingly, it has to do with baking soda again. 

Since I've started making shampoo & conditioner and begun to favor locally- and naturally-made bar soaps over shower gels and hand soap pumps, I've noticed one particular problem:  a lot more soap scum left behind.  Which makes sense, of course, since we are using soaps rather than detergents, but who likes to scrub their shower all the time??  Ugh, not me, that's for sure.  So the soap scum tends to build up and then I really dread attacking it.

The last time I cleaned the tub, I decided to use baking soda on a damp scrubber, since it is known to be a great exfoliator and scrubbing agent.  --And it worked.  Not wonderfully, but it did the trick with some added elbow grease and lots of flakey baking soda flying everywhere.  Eh.  Not so fun.

Back to dreading the scum.  So, today, I decided to try a "soft scrub" recipe I've found in several different books:  baking soda, with just enough liquid castile soap to make a creamy paste similar to cake icing.  Since I happen to have a bottle of Dr Bronner's in the peppermint scent, I had the added bonus of a pleasant, minty concoction. 

I think it is the aromatherapy of using essential oils--because I didn't hate scrubbing the bathtub this time.  The soap kept the baking soda from being so flakey and seemed to clear the scummy stuff with greater ease; the whole thing smelled great and left the tub and walls shiny and clean.  I used a scrubber with the paste, and a more absorbent sponge and hot water to rinse; it was a simple, pleasant process. 

I am now prowling the house, looking for scrubbing jobs, since I have some leftover after finishing in the bathroom--who knows, maybe Jason will come home to find me on hands & knees, going head-to-head with the dingy kitchen linoleum....

Then again, probably not. 

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.