Marking another anniversary, eggs, gardens and a clean house...finally!

Here goes nothing! I've had "blog" on my to do wish list for a number of days but have been feeling rather discombobulated and unsure if I could pull off anything that was either articulate or a good reflection of our life of late or anything we'd want to read later or anyone else would want to read. And, in the process of downloading pictures from our camera for this post, I completely forgot I had started cheese on the front porch and boiled milk all over it. So the porch has had an unplanned wash and I'm back.

I'm also clearly losing track of the days. My work life and home life and family life and farm life and social life are all an odd mix that I haven't created new systems for helping me keep track of whatever new rhythms and routines may be emerging. This morning Jason and I went out early to weed the herb and spice garden in the cool of the day. When we came in for breakfast, I marveled that it was after 8 a.m. on a Monday morning and my inbox wasn't filling up. A little later, I settled in to catch up on some work things. It wasn't until I had been at it for quite some time that I sent a colleague an email and got an autoresponder noting that today is a holiday and she'll be back tomorrow. Oops! It's a paid holiday today and I had completely forgotten. So I wrapped up what I was doing and went out to mix up the next batch of fermented chicken feed (messing up the recipe) and putting leaves in several chicken coops for fresh bedding (which I managed not to botch).

So here's my best attempt to share some visual and word pictures of life for us at Tangly Woods of late. I ended the last post noting that I was off to make breakfast on Mother's Day. It was one of those breakfast that just begged to be photographed, so I did. It tasted as delicious as it looks! Sausage and eggs from our chickens, fresh spinach from the garden and barley grits also grown on our land with homemade butter on top. Barley grits are a new favorite breakfast porridge in this household (made from grinding our homegrown barley, sifting the flour out of the hulls and grits and then winnowing out the hulls, leaving the grits for soaking and eating). Yum!

We aren't the only ones eating good around here. The younger gals, especially Alida, have more or less trained the chickens to come running when humans are nearby. They expect treats - and often are rewarded with either stale bread or popcorn kernels. There is something incredibly entertaining and enjoyable about feeding animals things that they relish! We are once again in the season where weeding is not only fun because it creates such striking visible changes in the gardens but also because we get to cart the weeds to the pigs and see what they go for. The most surprising thing to watch in recent days is seeing Rosie go for thistles. She has to work at it, but she clearly seems to find it worth the effort! We are so happy to have her take thistles and turn them into piglets!

 

So there's a lot going on with eggs around here. On one of our recent jaunts on the trail behind our house, Jason burst out laughing as we neared home. He proclaimed that he had spotted it, and we all knew immediately that he must have found the only Easter egg we have not been able to find of the 100+ hid for the girls along that trail. Sure enough it was intact and had very stale snack mix inside. It probably was not in the original hiding spot as it was clear that some critter had attempted to get it open without success. 

We also seem to have a very high number of nesting birds all around our place. This robin made a nest in one of the piglets' paddocks. There are some in even closer proximity to where we travel to and fro regularly - there is a cardinal next in the blackberries right along the path of the side garden. There is something that feels affirming about having so many birds choosing to raise their young here at Tangly Woods; to know that they deemed it suitable and a place with enough nourishment to raise up baby birds. I hope that it doesn't disappoint and that snakes don't find too many of the nests. I am also trying to have feelings of graciousness for what the increase of birds means for our strawberry patch! We did resort to putting some bird netting over a portion of the patch to increase our chances of at least getting a share of the delicious fruits.

And then we have eggs hatching often - both in incubators and under broody hens in coops. LOTS of chicks! I am happy to report that we no longer have any live hatched birds residing in our home. At one point we had over 60 chicks and nearly 20 birds that were able to fly. That was a bit much on many fronts! The 60+ chicks have made their way to their new home and the larger birds now reside in the compost coop until the females from that group go to new homes. We continue to get regular requests for eggs and for chickens and are unable to meet the demand for either. Jason plans to set another incubator with eggs tonight in order to have more chicks available as folks contact us. 

We still love best to hatch eggs under broody hens. It's a fun experience for the kids (ok, adults too) to get to watch chicks hatch and the hold them. So I guess I'm still glad we do a mix of both. But you can't beat a mama hen for teaching chicks the lay of the land. I love watching a new mama show her chicks what food is. She picks up a piece, throws it down, makes a specific kind of clucking sound and repeats. The chicks always come running to see what is up. Jason has also seen a mama hen teach her chicks about something they should not eat. The mama with larger chicks outside is still hanging out with her brood, but she's likely to be very ready to be done with them in a month's time when they head to their new home at Allegheny Mountain Institute. It's exciting to see an increased interest in raising chickens in general and for some of Jason's breeds in particular. We'll see where it leads... For now, chores on the home front have gotten much longer and more complicated with coops and broody pens nearing capacity and more hatching on a regular basis.

Moving to the gardens, I've been in them a lot more lately! We had several very full days of gardening as a family and made tremendous progress on getting all the spring plantings done. It was really fun to work on it together. And most of the time I left the camera inside so there are not very many photos of our family work days. Here's some of the things that have filled our work times together. The first hay cutting (I did a little bit of scything!) was used to mulch the garlic after a thorough weeding. And as we walk to and fro doing our various tasks, we have to pause to take in the beauty of barley and crimson clover!

Here's a smattering of what we have planted recently: basil, slicing/sauce/drying/cherry tomatoes, sweet and hot peppers, okra, sweet potatoes, cucumbers, watermelon, cantaloupe, yellow pole wax beans, flowers, and trombone squash. Here in the inner garden, we are attempting to save some of the naked barley harvest (barley without hulls) for us and so are using bread bags to cover the seed heads until they mature as the birds were already into them. We are not attempting to grow baguettes!

When we are not seeding or planting transplants, we have been continuing the weeding and mulching rounds as we are able! Jason and I have enjoyed early morning weeding time while the girls sleep. We often have a 3 hour start on the day by the time they rouse. Now that I'm not confined to the indoors until they wake up, I'm enjoying the expansion of options for those early morning hours! There is no better time to be on your hands and knees weeding than the cool of the morning when the bugs also still seem to be resting!

We aren't into the thick of harvesting yet but we have put the first 2020 produce in the freezer. We were gobbling fresh spinach by the gallon bag so fast in early spring that I hadn't put any up for the winter. It seemed time to change that so we have frozen two pickings now - which might be the last of it! I love when I have a system for food processing that feels simple and efficient. That is the way it is now with spinach, such that I can process a large sink full and have it chopped and in the freezer in less than an hour. While there is not a lot of other food processing tasks happening in the kitchen yet, there has been a lot of creative concocting happening by my daughters. Kali made a delicious round of bread pudding recently and then yesterday Alida made a brownie pie using our cornmeal (it's the only flour-like substance we have at present) with two kinds of frosting. While we have moved on from watching the Great British Baking show (for now), the inspiration she received, continues to bear fruit (in the form of baking experiments and kitchen messes!).

As noted in the last blog, we had a night off cooking on our 21st anniversary when we enjoyed Gray Jay pizzas. We ordered enough that it fed us for 2-3 meals rather than just 1. And the second meal was breakfast where I was introduced to a favorite from Jason's youth: cold pepperoni pizza with coffee. I'll admit, I wasn't all that impressed. It was fun, though, to eat something that I knew took Jason back in years. I know there are things that take me on similar rides that do nothing for anyone else in the family. So, while fun, it's not something I need to experience more than once.

We were in such a groove eating outside there for awhile and then had a string of rainy days. So it's time to get back in the habit. A new feature to the concrete pad is the swimming pool is there now for kids (since it is no longer housing chickens in our home). Terah was very impressed with this turn of events and did not join us at the table at all for this picnic. As of this morning, I saw that Kali's ducks had not only found the swimming pool but one had gathered up enough courage to get in. It's fun, most of the time, seeing chickens and ducks making themselves at home here. We would prefer that the chickens lay their eggs in the nest boxes we provide for them rather than finding new and carefully hidden locations to hide them. And we'd be happy if they didn't feel a need to find any place we have recently disturbed soil to scratch in. But we can't have it all...

The animals are not the only ones out and about foraging for food and drink. It's so enjoyable to watch Terah especially munch her way around the place. She knows more wild edibles than I knew when I was 30! She was recently enjoying the nectar dripping from the bottoms of the red hot poker plant flowers. We have watched chickens jump up at them and the other morning a finch was sitting on the top and dipping down to get a drink of the sweet juice!

Now all the wonderful things in the outdoors kept us outside while the sun was shining and there were plants and seeds to get in the ground. All the while, the house got filthier. The chickens had moved out and we needed a rainy day to clean! I laughed the day I noticed that both Jason and I wore our indoor shoes outside for a picnic. We joked that maybe we were trying to track some of the dirt from the inside out! Yes, it was pretty bad!

Now I know that some may doubt me, assuming that dirty for me was really not that bad. I have no idea if one should consider it personal growth or not, but my tolerance for a dirty house has definitely increased over the years (sheer survival tactic possibly with a household of 5 unique individuals with varied levels of comfort with messiness). As is true for most folks, we haven't had others in our home for months so it really has been just up to us. And we reached our limit and dove in all together (ok, mostly me, Jason and Kali) to finding our floors and other surfaces again. Has cleaning ever been so satisfying?! The pile here was just part of what was swept up in the girls' bedroom alone. I will spare you more photos, but you get the idea!

With the house clean, Jason and I got our best anniversary treat. We left the girls downstairs and retreated to Mom and Dad's place for a few hours while they made us an anniversary meal. It was so luxurious to read and nap and talk and be called for dinner, following our noses downstairs to find happy daughters and a scrumptious meal awaiting us. Terah had wanted to do her own thing with food so she was in charge of the raisin pictures on our plates. There were name cards and a cranberry sauce made by Alida. That complimented the last of 2019's garden peas and Kali made a sausage sweet potato bake!

We definitely spread out our anniversary this year in that it was days later that Alida and I did a baking project together to add one more food memory to this year's celebration. When Jason and I got engaged and told my folks, we celebrated by cutting into a funny cake pie. So they have been part of many celebrations since. Alida and I did a funny cake pie with a twist - making it as bars with an oatmeal crumble crust and then making the cake with 100% barley flour grown and ground here at Tangly Woods. I don't think it will be the last time we do such a combo!

Well I can't get to the end of this post without sharing the biggest news from the last two weeks. This seems an appropriate picture to use to announce it! In the days leading up to my parents' return to Tangly Woods (for the first time since COVID-19), Terah was literally trembling with excitement at the thought of being able to hug Grandma and Grandpa. And she is ready to tell anyone who will listen that they are here and that she doesn't have to stay 6 ft away. Just this morning people she doesn't know at all swung by to get a phone number for our neighbor. They expressed just the slightest bit of interest in her and how her day was going and she gave them an earful - including that Grandma and Grandpa are here and she doesn't have to be 6 ft away. She is one happy girl! As I type, I hear laughter coming from upstairs.

So the girls are practically in heaven. "Can I go upstairs?" is the once again the most common question asked in our home. Terah has spent hours coloring in "the cave" since they arrived, and even went up to color the day they were gone (I guess to just absorb the essence of their presence)! My heart swells when I see how much they are soaking up being together again - they are not taking these days for granted (I think they have developed a whole new appreciation for the time together).

It was not a lightly made decision for them to return. We talked a lot, processed with others and then proceeded with what felt like a low risk and healthy step of being together again. That said, I'm probably not the only one second guessing our decision multiple times every day - especially any time I feel any sensation in my body that feels other than normal, or when one of the girls sneezes or when Terah sprouts a bumpy red rash on her belly. This season in life has been a hard one for my natural tendencies towards anxiety. It's definitely when the benefits of years of mindfulness training and meditation practice would come in handy (hmm, really need to work on those skills!).

So here we are finding our way, like everyone else around us! We are trying to pay attention to making good decisions in the day to day, and that sometimes feels like it takes about all the energy/processing time we have. We try to find ways to make the virtual connecting work as needed, but are also sprinkling in outdoor, in person, small get togethers with others - it's really hard to replicate Tangly Woods popcorn made over an open fire on Zoom!

At the same time, we want to challenge ourselves to not get bogged down entirely on the smaller picture of our lives and how to live them in these days. We also feel the need for and want to stay committed to paying attention to the long term issues and conversations that we need to also be having with each other! In that spirit, Jason and I are so glad to be taking part in an excellent course being offered by Movement Generation called "Course Correction: Just Transition in the Age of COVID-19." They are helping all of us think about and reframe the crisis, encouraging conversations around how we might address the structural inequities that got us into this mess and how we might act collectively to make shifts (ecological and economic) that have been needed for a very long time and are becoming more obvious to many of us in this time. It's not too late to sign up!

There's a lot of hard work ahead of us! Maybe only a tiny bit like the work of moving our very large 500+ lb pig to a new location last evening. What lessons were there to be learned for life in general and for living in what feels like unprecedented times? Well, here's a few for starters: 1) Don't do it alone; 2) It's much less heavy with many hands; 3) Thinking through solutions together fosters better solutions; 4) It's important to take breaks; 5) It's good to look up and get perspective on the bigger picture. There are likely many more, but I'm realizing that I need to get potatoes in the oven for dinner so I'll have to call this reflection session to a close!

If you made it to the end of this lengthy post, CONGRATULATIONS! Here's a four leaf clover, found by Kali, for ya!