New Blog

I started a new blog for Farm School! Take a peek. http://aafarm.wordpress.com/

I am...

Feeling - So. Damn. Excited. to be moving! 6 days!

Writing - thank yous for many gorgeous and thoughtful "goodbye" gifts from friends.

Thinking - about the year to come and what it holds.

Knowing - that this time next week I will be wondering which box holds that very specific and immediately needed item I can't seem to find.

Listening - to bird song and crickets outside my windows.

Drinking - a not-small clutch of bottles that we simply can't take with us. End-of-summer Pimm's Cups seem very appropriate.

Savoring - the start of blanket weather.

Watching - enough Mad Men that I should be concerned about second-hand smoke. And those Pimm's Cups? They go perfectly with a Mad Men marathon.

Eating - the freezer's odds and ends. Homemade blintzes? Yes, please! Lamb chops lovingly raised by a local farmer? Oh my! The last of the blueberries? I like them still frozen, plain, and eaten with a spoon.

Hiding - my last, desperate purchases from my beloved Gabe's.

Resisting - the urge to let myself get too overwhelmed with my "to do" list.

Anticipating - seeing old friends, meeting new ones, missing the ones I have here.


*This post is inspired by SouleMama.

Empty. And full.

The countdown begins: Just 14 days until we say "Goodbye, West Virginia. Hello, Rhode Island." We are (still) packing. I have to confess that I have been packing for over a year now. I started packing books last summer between semesters because I was terrified that our eventual move would be sudden and I would be trying to manage a job, school, moving, selling the house, and packing all within a month or less. Well, our move has been anything but sudden. This spring and summer were an excruciating test in patience and understanding, slathered with fear and unknowing. There was a time (not that many weeks ago!) when we sat down and worked out the (very serious) possibility of the fact that I might have to move to New England alone while Aaron stayed here. I am so glad that doesn't have to happen. I can't even express how afraid I was of that happening.

So, we watched our plans to move slip from January, to April, to June, to now. Our house isn't sold and there is still fear, but at least we are finally moving forward. Sigh. It's happening. Our cupboards are emptying, the more necessary things are getting packed away, and we are so full of excitement for this new adventure.

Glow Worm

I found this little caterpillar (well, not so little, he was about the size of my index finger) crawling across our patio floor. Safe travels, my friend.

Bookends and Nightstand

Aaron and I spent a few afternoons together working on these bookends. I cut out the shapes, and did some sanding. He gave advice, put them together, and finished them. They are just lovely.


The toadstool was a copy of a toy I had made some time ago. The shape just seemed to work, so I used it again.

We went back and forth about what to put on the other side and finally settled on a hedgehog. I think he turned out swell. The spikes were a bit hard to saw, but he came together very quickly.

This was the last project to come out of the wood shop. Aaron is down there right now packing things, marking tools to sell, and cleaning up the sawdust. I loved that wood shop.



I should also mention that Aaron made this beautiful nightstand some time ago. What a treasure. (Both the nightstand and the guy. I am one lucky lass!)

dying clothes

I had all of these white shirts that I was going to toss before moving. They were all grimy, stained, and pretty much unwearable. How long do whites stay pristine? I am not a Bleach Queen (really bad for the enviro), so my whites tend to fade pretty fast and end up looking totally shabby. I didn't even really think these were fit to go to Goodwill because they were pretty unsightly. Note to self: no more balsamic dressing or hot cocoa while wearing white. Anyway, I felt pretty bad about it because none of these shirts had holes in them and they were all from pretty expensive stores. Not to mention that I really liked them all. So I decided to try dying them a different color so that I could keep them. I figured it was my way of saving some dough and reusing something that I already had.

I imagined saving up all of my beet water or dying them with yellow turmeric or something natural. But then I remembered that scene from Dodie Smith's I Capture The Castle where the family dyes all of their clothes green and ends up with a whole emerald-colored wardrobe, so I decided that buying black Rit dye might be more versatile and probably a little less obvious.

It totally worked and the shirts all have this beautiful, mottled, soft grey color (which is what I was hoping for).

It worked so well that I decided to take a set of sheets that we received as a wedding gift (so they aren't even that old!) that has slowly and mysteriously turned from light blue to white and dark brown in places -- totally gross -- and bleach them white (yeah, I know...once a year while saving something from the landfill is okay, I guess) and then dye them purple. Breathing new life into old things feels even better than buying something new!

eggs

Brown = Redstar (sexlink)

White = Brown Leghorn

Today, I am...

...feeling the first whisper of fall.

...dying dingy whites to give them new life.


...bleaching faded sheets.

...taking down New Chicken's pen (for good!).

...marveling at the first egg laid by New Chicken!

(yes, that is a golf ball in the background. We had read that it's one way to get a chicken to stop eating eggs, which the new girl did the first time Sally laid with her around. So far, it has worked!)

...finishing up last year's homemade hard cider.

...making homemade bug spray.


...reading this year's farm school student bios.

...blocking knitting projects.


...enjoying kitty enjoying shoebox.


....hoping for some good news.

Farm Field Day

We went to the university's Organic Farm Field Day this year. It was awesome. So many good workshops, tours, and tons of information. Plus, they served us an amazing dinner.

Free Bird

So we saw an ad on Craigslist the same day Henny Penny died.

Free chicken to a good home.

We asked if it was a hen and then went on our way. Not knowing my way around all chicken breeds, I was struck by the chicken's huge tail feathers. "Are you sure this isn't a rooster?" I whispered to Aaron as he and I tried to catch it in the dark coop.

"He said it was a hen."

"I think it's a rooster."

We brought it home anyway, posted the below picture to a chicken keeping forum and quickly found out that it's a Brown Leghorn and indeed a hen. It is a flighty little beast. It has gotten out twice already and catching that thing is nearly impossible (we keep thinking that this quality might make it a good free-range bird). So far we have had to keep it in a pen next to the coop. After a few days of that, we did try gradually introducing them, but Sally seems a bit confrontational. And not your normal setting the pecking order stuff. This poor bird spent two days upstairs in the coop because Sally wouldn't let her downstairs at all (even when Sally herself was upstairs in the nest box). Oh boy.

I think we should get rid of the chickens sooner rather than later. However, we thought Sally needed a mate for the time being. Maybe not?

New Hen

Henny Penny

Henny Penny had been laying internally for some time. At first, we weren't sure what to do so we took the suggestion of a fellow chicken-raiser and gave her meds. This brought the swelling down and her spirits up. However, I think that it may have been a mistake in the long run because after a few short weeks of seeming happy she reverted right back to suffering. On Saturday we decided to put her down. It was really sad, but for the best. I have to say that I haven't really thought much of the other chicken, Sally, until that day. However, that morning she stayed with Henny Penny, laid down when Henny Penny laid down, and closed her eyes when Henny Penny closed her own. I don't know if she thought it was sleepy time or if she was being empathetic, but as Aaron and I sat and watched, it was nice that we could all be quiet for a little while together.

Henny Penny was a sweet, docile chicken that didn't mind being picked up, loved you for the treats you brought, was completely silent (a great quality for a city-chicken), and had a sense of humor that rivaled Matilda's. She showed bravery and strength through an attack on the coop and managed to survive and continue to lay eggs even though she sustained injuries. She enjoyed strolls around the yard, being sung to, and over-ripe blueberries. She was named not for the neurotic, apocalypse-obsessed chicken that thought the sky was falling, but after a character written by my own soul-sister, Beatrix Potter.

We buried her under the snowball bush in the backyard. She will be missed.