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.

gnome home

I made this Gnome Home mushroom puzzle and little gnomey recently. I used a couple of pieces of scrap wood that Aaron had laying around the wood shop. Poplar and mahogany. It turned out pretty good but the door piece got away from me and the base is like half an inch thick. Oh well, it still looks great! I am not sure if it's better to start cutting something like this from the smallest to the largest or the other way around. I think I did this one largest to smallest, which might have been a mistake. I'll just have to make another and try it the opposite way to see what works.

We are off on a wild road trip to Cabela's tomorrow for farm gear, but not before a stop at the farmers market and Southern States for the week's veg. Going to Cabela's seems to be a oft-taken pilgrimage around here. People get excited and plan a whole weekend around it. I must admit, I am a little giddy about it, myself. Who knows what kind of treasures we'll find!

Farm Crate

Aaron and I finished my bicycle crate this week! We took turns burning the farm logo into the wood. He used some kind of pine that was impossible to burn, so it took forever and we decided against the shading we had originally planned. Anyway, it turned out so awesome. And it's a perfect Matilda-sized box.


Someday, right? Dream it up and then make it happen.

We practiced on scrap wood several times before burning the actual box. Too bad our practice wood was different than the box wood, because the practice was a breeze. More pics to come once it's mounted on the bike.

Today

Today, I am...

...Cleaning the house
...Reading Possession
...Watching Songcatcher
...Eating homemade food cooked for (not by) me
...Saying goodbye to my MIL who has been here since Thursday
...Thinking about Farm School
...Loving my little bald kitty
...Folding laundry
...Packaging the mint I dried for winter teas
...Knitting Christmas presents
...Basking in the fact that my semester is over

Chicken Trouble - a note about hybrid breeds

We recently got a hard blow: Henny Penny is dying. We suspected she wasn't laying eggs for a little while -- though not that long, because I would see her in the nestbox each day and just assumed the eggs were hers. She started getting heavy around her middle and became disinterested in anything other than the store-bought feed we give her. No kitchen scraps, no vegetation, no bugs. This is not the bug-eating Henny Penny we know and love! We started keeping a little bit of an eye on her, the noticed that she was laying down a lot. One day she started closing her eyes = not good in the chicken world. We started doing research. It turns out that after two years of age this breed (Red Stars) are particularly susceptible to something called "internal laying." Simply put, the egg remains in the chicken and fluid builds up (hence the heaviness) until they die. There is no cure. It is common among all hybrid breeds and hatchery-born chicks, which is a very serious reason to find a heritage breed from a local source.
We went to the feed store and got some medicine that helped her get a little more comfortable. We had to give her injections for 4 days. (Aaron said he couldn't give her a shot so I had to every time!) She is now walking and eating and trying to lay eggs, but it won't last. She will eventually end up back where she was and then she will die.
I am preparing myself for the fact that, come autumn, I will have to kill a chicken. I think about it for a little while every day so that, when the time comes, I will have thought out every angle and I will be able to find the peace within to come to terms with the task at hand. But I can't kill her. She doesn't deserve to live on in pain, but I can't do it. We've been trying to find a vet that will put her down for us, but we haven't had any luck so far.
My dear, sweet HP. She is just the nicest little chicken there ever was.

On the needles, on the nightstand: gnomes and goblins

I made this little gnome with some scrap cotton yarn and stuffed him with wool roving that I bought at a local farm. Here is the pattern. He was my first little knitted toy, really, and so much easier than I thought it would be. I will be making many more of these with all of my little scraps. I really want to knit one up in a pretty silvery colored wool to make a Gandalf the Grey.

Early in the morning
When the first cock crowed his warning,
Neat like bees, as sweet and busy,
Laura rose with Lizzie:
Fetched in honey, milked the cows,
Aired and set to rights the house,
Kneaded cakes of whitest wheat,
Cakes for dainty mouths to eat,
Next churned butter, whipped up cream,
Fed their poultry, sat and sewed;
Talked as modest maidens should
Lizzie with an open heart,
Laura in an absent dream,
One content, one sick in part;
One warbling for the mere bright day's delight,
One longing for the night.

-Christina Rossetti

I recently read Rossetti's "Goblin Market," a long poem published in the 1860s. It's about two sisters who live a perfectly simple life until goblins attempt to sell them tempting fruit. It's one of those pieces that I somehow missed reading in college and always meant to pick up. It has been cropping up a lot in my research for the gingerbread paper, so I thought now might be a good time to take a look. Boy, is it good. I know that most say it is about feminism, but as I was reading it I couldn't help think about our current food situation in the U.S. (big shocker, huh? I'm always thinking about it). The sisters lead an idyllic life until the merchants tempt them with abundance and exoticism, altering the sisters forever. I think that parallels can be drawn between this and crop subsidies, GMO seeds, federal regulation, certain seed/poison producers, and what has become of the American diet. I always think of Poptarts. They are so cheap to buy and so easy to get...but what do they provide for you, really? Why can't fresh foods be as accessible and affordable as Poptarts?

I was really struck by some similarities between our current food problems and Rossetti's poem.

Their fruits like honey to the throat,
But poison in the blood