magpie

Beware: very pic-heavy post to follow. Please ensure adequate bandwidth. :-)

My dear friend C recently had some professional pictures done of her little family of three (just before they were to become four), that were amazing. I loved every single one, so much in fact, that I took my Magpie out a few hours later to do a little photo shoot of my own. It's been a long time since I've tried to take pictures like these, but I'm liking the results and wanted to share.

(p.s. I didn't leave Sassy out on purpose; she just wasn't home at the time!)

goodbye mr. macho

We had our second chicken casualty this week. We had acquired Mr. Macho, as we called him, from my midwife about 2 weeks ago. We were enjoying his call each morning. As I told Jeff, living in the country isn't complete until you have a rooster calling to you each morning. I miss his call already!

Before we could even snap a picture of our gorgeous guy, our dogs got to him and left him not dead, but half-dead yesterday morning. Please keep these details from my midwife if you know her and talk to her regularly, because I know they would make her very sad, but that's how it happened. Our dogs are not exactly chicken killers; instead, they think chickens are toys they can play with and pluck feathers from. So poor Mr. Macho was left lying naked and bare on a chilly, windy morning with a half-torn wing. Yes, it's sad, and very depressing, and what happened next was the worst part.

I had to put him out of his misery.

This is the first time I have ever, ever killed a living animal on purpose and it was something I hope I don't have to do again. It is not something I want to get used to, or to develop a tolerance to. I firmly believe that if we all (read: if I) had to kill our own meat, most of us (I, anyway) would be a vegetarian.

My dear friend Karen was able to console me through the freaking out part, talk me through the actual deed, and make me laugh about it afterward. That is a great friend indeed and I won't soon forget how kind she was to me yesterday. She continues to make me laugh with her rendition of the story, so if you know her, you must ask her about it. She has a flair for comedy that is hers alone, a little subtle dance she does of pushing the boundaries of appropriateness so you can find the humor in a no-good, rotten, very bad day, while holding back just enough that your heart doesn't break. For this gift, I am thankful.

On a brighter note, we had a wonderful pre-Labor day party with our friends and a nice Labor-day party with our family. Everyone admired Jeff's outbuildings and fence, and we even used his larger lean-to as a rain shelter for Sunday's lunch.

Jeff was given papers this week letting him know that he is being laid off and his last day will be November 4th. So we're trying to prepare as best we can for that. We are selling his old car to buy a tractor and pay off our credit card. Then we're giving the credit card to one of my friends to hang onto in case we need to rent a car. This way we won't be able to charge anything all willy-nilly.

Jeff will be spending his time trying to build us a pole barn between our property and our neighbor's property. He's excited to expand on his skills. We'll be doing a totally handmade Christmas this year, and I'm quite excited about that. We're trying to prepare for a Jersey cow as well, as the majority of our food bill seems to be spent on dairy products. And, Jeff is going to try to hunt us a deer. I hope that he does better with the killing than I did yesterday because I hated it. And mine was mercy killing. His could be much worse on him.

I started an attachment parenting Yahoo! group out my way, so if you know of anyone in my area, I'd love it if you'd pass along the address.

Also, if you don't subscribe to my other blog, I wanted to mention that the coupon books that are distributed at Whole Foods, Mambo Sprouts are now available to be mailed directly to your house for free. Saves me a trip to Whole Foods since I don't like to go there anyway, but do enjoy many of the Mambo Sprouts coupons.

And finally, my scratch-food blog, Supper In Seconds has a whole new look and is about to get an email subscribe button. With luck, it will be there before this message reaches your inbox, if you're subscribed here.

My scratch cooking skills have grown by leaps and bounds since I've been out here since running by the store at the drop of a hat is no longer a viable option. I've become rather impassioned of late with sharing some of my recipes and shortcuts since it's my firm belief that for most folks, scratch cooking has to be quick or it won't be a daily option.

Most of my pics this time are from our most recent park day back home. I'm really appreciative of the community of mamas we had back home and have been quite missing the easy companionship that comes from years of knowing each other's stuff. We're pretty excited to get back in the regular Friday swing next week.

Much love to everyone during these beautiful Fall-ish days!

landing the land

Since we’ve moved out here, I’ve had several friends, acquaintances & family members express interest in buying their own piece of property. I highly recommend it, for countless reasons. The number one reason is the fact that I so often feel like I’m on a permanent vacation the pace is so much slower here. Once Jeff is able to quit his city job, he can also enjoy this perma-holiday feeling. For now, he vacillates between learning how to slow down on the weekends and feeling the usual city/suburban rush during the week.

Then there’s also the potential for supplying a lot of your own organic food, keeping animals for food or pleasure, having your kids grow up without the heebie-jeebies over every single bug that flies next to them, crawls over their bed or even lands on their plate! Opportunities for exercise are abundant, as are opportunities to shop locally, learn all the different regional birds, collect wildflowers and wild edibles, track different mammals, or just sit and have sun tea on the back porch.

It can be a lot of work, and it’s certainly not always idyllic, but the benefits far outweigh the irritation. I suppose those of you who are interested in moving out to more land already suspect this.

So, I must urge you to do it now.

Recently I had the opportunity to research our state’s Multiple Listing Service to see what land prices were like in our area and I was floored to discover that the value of our lot had increased to nearly double its value since we bought it. The reason we moved “this far out” (as my family members like to say) was plain and simple: land prices. We couldn’t get the land we wanted at the price we wanted to pay unless we were willing to drive for it. And when we moved here, our land was considerably cheaper per acre than land in the other two states that make up our tri-state area.

Now, though, they say the Amish are moving in and driving up land prices. I don’t know. All I know is that when we purchased ours, we paid $3300 an acre, give or take. It’s now going for $5000 to $10,000 an acre. Back nearer to my hometown, the more rural outskirts were already at $10,000 an acre when we bought this lot. They’ve now moved closer to $15,000 or even $20,000. Farther north, I’ve not priced simply because that state has some fairly bureaucratic homeschooling laws I never wanted to mess with.

I think it’s amazing that you can still buy farmland so cheaply in this country. Obviously we still have more land than our population needs. If we were in, say, England or Ireland or France or Greece, would the farmland be this cheap? Could we have ever afforded an abundance of fertile land as a one-income family whose sole provider was a blue-collar hourly worker? I have no idea, honestly. But I don’t think it will last like this here forever. If it’s already doubled in 3 years, then act! Act now! Act as soon as you have money! I won’t mention it again, over and over. I won’t be a broken record on this -- promise! -- but you’ve been advised and urged.

Now, what have we been up to? The garden is still coming in, and we’re still waiting on tomatoes to ripen. I canned pickle relish today. I want to can hot pepper relish tomorrow. We are searching for an old hard-sided wrecked, gutted, moldy and/or rodent-infested camper that we can turn into a mobile chicken coop for the ladies for the winter. If you have any connections, please let us know!

Jeff built the dogs a pen and finished his fence, finally. He’s glad to have that project off his plate. We’re gearing up for school to start soon.

My magpie is sitting up fully without support now and she has two bottom teeth. My Sassy must have given her hers, since she has two missing.

I collected grapevines this week to make a wreath and was so pleased at how it turned out! While allowing myself to practice flowing, I finally gave into the urge to start decorating instead of putting it off to be “a winter project.” The deck looks especially lovely.

I planted fall vegetables in the raised bed in front and two herb gardens, one for cooking and one for tea. Sassy has been into herbal tea lately, so we wanted to start a tea garden.

And that about wraps up the homestead as of late. I’ve had little alone time to write lately, but Jeff starts first shift again next week, so a change in routine might allow for more me-time again soon. Enjoy the pics!

the new dog run



chubba-wubba magpie



what to do with yellow squash idea #54, fill with herbed ricotta cheese and pinenuts...bake



what to do with lots of eggs idea #37, mini sweet custards!



now for some oldies...

mom and toddling sassy on vacation at cade's cove, tennessee



mom and toddling sassy having lunch in the van on that same vacation. (oh how we miss that van!)



sassy and best friend jude at sassy's 5th birthday party

flow

We recently had a couple who lives nearby over for breakfast. Considering the fact that they are organic food activists sharing chemical farming country with us, they live amazingly nearby – 2 miles to be exact. When we met, they were scheduled to come on a Monday night, but as is our routine, we were outside most of the day Monday and didn’t receive their phone call. By the time we did get in touch, she had gone swimming and preferred to push our get together to Tuesday morning.

“She went up to the park and got in the swimming pool,” our new friend said, “and now she’s kind of flowing with that and would rather wait until tomorrow.”

Two other times, he had mentioned this flowing into this or that. I smiled. They are true hippies, I thought. But they’re also passionate about organic foods and food activism. It will be fine.

But then over the week, I sat on this concept of flowing in the back of my mind where funny ideas take shape into real, concrete realizations and learning. I realized that I am breathing again out here, really breathing. The drowning, choking, suffocating that had become synonymous with life itself in the city…it’s gone. Deep breathing is the norm now.

And I saw clearly how the people around me who still farm or in any way live off their land truly are on “country time.” It’s not a myth. There are commitments to be made, and time schedules to be kept, here and there. But most of the time people are home, there is no time schedule besides the weather-dictated one, and late, early, and on-time blur into a big window of time allowance. I am by nature well suited to that kind of schedule.

So this week I’ve been practicing allowing myself to flow based on my mood, my interests, and the needs of our family. Mama’s been happy. So have the kids.

Sassy and I are planning to take classes to join the Catholic Church this fall. She attended Vacation Bible School at the Baptist Church down the road this week. She had a wonderful time! It was so fun to watch her come home each night excited about what she had learned. I’m determined to be sure she has regular activities like this throughout the school year as well.

I went down to watch the end-of-VBS performance and slide show with the other parents last night. It was funny. It brought back so many of my own VBS memories, most happy, some stomach-churning, though I couldn’t place my finger on why. Maybe stage fright? But it also cemented my decision to pursue the conversion to Catholicism and take the RCIA (Rites of Christian Initiation for Adults) classes. The fact is, I feel closer to God and more on-track with my spiritual learning inside the traditions, rites & yes even rules of the Catholic Church than I do in the Protestant Churches. I can’t explain it better than that, and I certainly don’t mean it to disparage my Protestant upbringing and the many Protestant ministers that have meant a lot to my spiritual growth.

Sometimes, however, answers and feelings and directions are so clear, you can’t deny them, no matter how far they are outside your little comfortable box. To me, it’s always been the same God, same Bible, what’s the big deal about differences? I’m beginning to understand how different the practice of worship can be, even when it is directed at the same God. And the craziest part is that the one I grew up with isn’t the one that keeps me focused.

So we’ve been watching these little Catholic videos for kids about different saints as part of Sassy’s “Little Flower Girls” club. We’ve watched one about St. Therese and one about St. Catherine. One of the two saints told her parents that she wasn’t going to eat much of her food anymore so she could give it to the poor. Later, she went on to become a nun and dedicate her life to God, but one of her first acts of sacrifice had been to give up part of her food each day.

Well, I made roasted vegetables on Wednesday night. I cut up potatoes, onions, yellow squash, sweet banana peppers and garlic cloves, drizzled them with olive oil, and roasted them in the oven. Sassy turned up her nose when they came out and decided she only wanted the potatoes. I told her she could not pick through the serving plate for just the potatoes, leaving all the rest. But I’d be happy to give her a bowl of her own and she could eat them however she wished.

About 20 minutes later, I asked her if she was finished with her roasted vegetables. “No,” she said, “I want to be like St. Catherine, Mommy. I want to give my food to the poor.” I smiled, amused, and told her that was fine, to get ready for bed.

I went to the table to put her food away and saw that she had eaten all the potatoes out and left just her squash and onions and peppers for “the poor.”

“Hey!” I said, “All the poor get are your squash and onions? If you want to give all your food to the poor, let’s give them the suckers and Tootsie Rolls that grandpa keeps buying for you, hmmm???”

To my challenge, she replied, “Well, then the poor wouldn’t be very healthy, Mommy.”

I can’t laugh when she says this stuff because it makes her mad, but I couldn’t stop giggling on the inside. I guess she’s been listening all along. Say what you will about squash and onions, but they are healthier than suckers and Tootsie Rolls.

And our pictures for the day...

We set up our guest house to be sure all was in order:



This lovely critter was attacking my tomatoes. She's a hornworm and she had quite a vicious looking horn atop her head, well...for a bug. She's carrying her eggs on her back.



Our kindest of the new chickens, Lemon, the light-brown Buff Orpington, was the winner of the hornworm snatching contest.



More Sky Masiela

cool rainy days of july

Ha ha! I never thought I'd say that in the same sentence in our area!

It's true - we've had a wet and cool July thus far. Even our fireworks party on the 4th was a complete wash-out. We have some very (very) dear friends who braved the torrent to hang out with us anyway, making it not nearly as disappointing as it could have been.

The past week, I've had 3 big projects on high priority. Our new DECK was the biggest, but we got it mostly completed by last weekend. It is wonderful and makes all the difference in the world out here. I remember my good friend Lara asking me not too long ago if I had even one place in the whole house where I could go and enjoy myself rather that seeing more to-do's for my endless lists. I honestly had to answer, "No." Well, the deck is it. I can gaze out at all we have accomplished rather than what still needs to be done. The deck is the one spot I find very manageable to keep clean. Plus, the outside air does the soul good. Simple as that.

I've also been focused on tending the garden. We're starting to be able to harvest, which is great. It also adds some more work to the game. :-) We have some yellow squash, some peppers and some cukes already hitting the table. We also have many unripe veggies fruiting, like tomatoes, watermelons, and beans. We have some VERY hot jalapenos already drowning us, so if you like hot hot hot peppers, please let me know!

Then there's this raised flower bed I've been working on for what feels like forever that still needs attention. I keep getting to it a little at a time. I was able to finally plant the flowers last night. This was so exciting for me since I could mark it off that mental to-do list already! It still has some filling in to do, but at least my poor poor flowers that have been sitting nearly root-bound in their pots for 3 weeks now are able to stretch and breathe in the damp fresh soil. "Ahhh...." you could almost hear them sigh. (Not really, but I sure did.)

And then there's Sassy. We're settling down, me and Sassy. I'm realizing that she's still a little bitty in so many ways and she still needs more of me than I've been giving her. And my little Magpie is growing up way too fast! She's 6 months today. Today! ---Zoom--- went those six months, right out the window amidst mountains of to-do lists that seem to reproduce while I'm sleeping.

A needy Sassy and a big baby made me stop. Finally. And take a break. Finally. I've limited myself to one hour-ish long project per day on my lists. After that, I can do more if I want to, or I can sit back on my new deck and simply enjoy my life and my children. I'm running about 50/50 right now on whether I choose to tackle something else beyond that one big project. Again, I have Lara to thank for this one. I called her complaining that I'd gotten nearly nothing done on my list of 15 items.

"I've been up for 5 hours and I've only crossed off 4 items," I cried.

"Did you feed the kids?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Laundry?"

"Yes."

"Dishes?"

"Yes."

"You've accomplished more than you think. Your list is just too long!" she told me.

Smart lady, that Lara is.

Jeff and I broke down and bought Blackberry handhelds so that we could have a little internet at home. A LITTLE, as in just enough to keep in touch but not enough to tempt us into spending all day avoiding work and cruising craigslist or mothering.com instead. I have many pictures on my Blackberry that I'd love to add to this entry, but I don't know how! I will try to figure it out today, I promise, so I can put some visuals with the words. Though I might try to write well and respect the value of writing, nothing can compare to a chubby little cheeky baby on her 6-month birthday.

I love you all and I'm sorry if I've been a little busy this week to do my usual facebook and email responses. I've been focused on this deck and probably will be next week too. But I think of you all often and can't wait to see you in person. For my group friends, that will be this Friday. Much love!

At Kathryn's House:



Second dental cleaning ever (afterward, she said, "That was actually kind of fun.):



Our rainy Fourth of July party:



Happy Half-Birthday Magpie!

the idyllic farm life

Or, maybe not. Lest you have too idyllic a vision in your head about farm life, I thought I’d give you a small dose of our reality. Wipe out all those Thomas Kinkade pictures from your head, all those red gambrel-roofed barns with black and white spotted cows gently grazing on fresh green grass, with the farmer and his wife on the front porch in matching Cracker Barrel rocking chairs.

Insert instead our last couple of days.

It started Monday morning when I noticed we had a sick chicken. I sequestered her into her own cage so she would hopefully not infect the rest of the flock. I fretted over her all day, researched, tried to feed her, and generally wondered what I’d done wrong. I realized by the afternoon, I was going to have to make some changes to the coop and bleach the heck out of it.

Monday afternoon, I took apart some old lumber to make a raised flower bed in the front because our dogs would never stay out of a level bed. I flung huge beads of sweat all over our front lawn as I worked. The sun beat down since we have no shade to speak of, and it was a beautiful, clear, 95 degree day with around 50% humidity. I grabbed the weed-eater to begin preparing the ground, but couldn’t get it started for anything.

So I then headed out to the garden to put compost around each of our baby vegetable plants. Our land was farmed conventionally just 7 short years ago and our soil has a lot of recuperating to do. Our garden was stagnating, so I put compost around half of our plants before I ran out. Well, that half nearly doubled in size in just a week’s time, while the other half still sat there piddling along.

Monday night, Sassy woke with a start, very upset. Turns out, she had pinworms, suggested by intense nighttime itching of her bottomly region, evidenced by a quick flashlight in the dark. I sat up until 2:00 a.m. doing online research on pinworms to see if I’d have to drive her to the doctor (an hour one way).

Tuesday morning, I woke to a dead chicken. Jeff burned it in our fire barrel. I resisted the urge to crack a joke each time I went outside: “Hey, why does it smell like KFC out here?” (It did, too.)

Apparently, Jeff found the potential joke as unsavory as I did, since he’s usually good for stupid jokes, even if they’re a little off-color. I guess we can only go so far.

After we burned the chicken and I spent an hour cleaning their coop, the pinworms sent me on an impromptu trek to purchase pinworm medication 30 minutes away, in our truck with nearly 20 loads of tainted laundry packed in the back. I stopped at the Pharmacy, then headed over to the Laundromat. Of course, I lugged both children with me throughout the tasks. While the laundry was tumbling, we went over to Big Lots since we’d lost Magpie’s pacifier somewhere between the truck and the truck. Your guess is as good as mine. It was present when we ventured into the pharmacy; gone when we ventured out. Big Lots had nothing to speak of in the pacifier department, so we bought a few snacks and headed back to load our wet laundry into the truck.

This long, long trip landed us back home at 7:00 p.m. I hung as much laundry as I could fit on the lines outside, then weeded some of the garden before it got dark. When we came in, we had no bedclothes to speak of – they were all on the line -- so we drug out blankets and laid them on our beds with uncovered pillows. I still had not found time to bleach the bathrooms and this bothered me. I also hadn’t eaten dinner, so we made grilled swiss on salty rye, put in the movie Elf, and I fell asleep at 11:00 nursing my Magpie.

Wednesday morning (today), I knew I HAD to bleach out the chicken coop, but in my research I’d come across an idea to make a droppings pit for the chickens. I loved the idea, and could see how it would help me keep the coop cleaner. So, first thing this morning, I went out and dug a pit under their roosts. Then, I drug all of their stuff out of the run. Their nesting boxes, their roosts, their water container, their ladder. I dumped them all out, then bleached them all out. I loaded all the soil I dug up from under their roost into a wheelbarrow to use for my raised flower garden. Sadly, the torn apart lumber is still sitting outside my front door, warping in the sun.

Jeff had to leave for work the minute I finished this task, so I didn’t get a chance to hang more of the wet laundry. I put Magpie on my back in a backpack carrier and started hanging laundry. The sun was just all full of itself again today, practically bursting like a barrel-chested fitness freak, and I knew poor Maggie was getting too much sun, even with her hat. I brought her in to see her arms starting to redden, so I had to let the rest of the laundry wait. I put a load into the dryer since that was the best I could do.

I nursed her down for a nap, started a batch of kefir, and ate a very late lunch. I bleached down the master bathroom, nursed her again, cursed myself for losing her pacifier, worked on the bathroom more, nursed, cursed, bleached. She wouldn’t sleep. She is officially a paci addict.

My dad came around 3:00 p.m. and took Sassy to buy a new bike she’s had her eye on at Tractor Supply. When he returned, he sat with my Magpie while I took down and folded dry laundry, hung all the wet laundry I could fit, lugged in all the dry laundry, fed the dogs, and put the chicken coop back together. At 9:00 p.m. we all went out for a nice treat of ice cold water. Because we’re living with only a dorm fridge and a chest freezer and we have no ice.

And we have clean water that is rather annoying to reach. I have a nice expensive filter that dad bought me for Christmas, but I had to put it in before I had a chance to put in a spout – our water normally tastes gross so I was in a big hurry – and without a spout, you have to get in under the sink, hold your glass (or pitcher) next to the water filter ready for the spurting water that will follow, and literally turn the cold water valve that runs to the filter to “on.” You wait until your container fills, then turn the valve off.

My deer-shy dad drove, if you want to call it that, to get our H2O treat. I believe it was probably more like “cruised,” or maybe “inched.” We returned home at 11:20. Yes, that’s right. 11:20. We went 15 miles away.

I loaded the dryer, put Maggie down to sleep. Dad had bought her a new paci so she finally got her fix and dropped out. I had a snack of potato chips, followed by Macadamia Nuts and a Dove chocolate bar, then finally decided I’d take the Pin-X medicine myself. I hadn’t been able to decide since I’m still nursing exclusively.

At midnight, my dad had to leave and Sassy was ready for bed. This was an unusually late night for her. But I still had to dress the bed with new bedclothes. I didn’t want to sleep on its nakedness another night!

I forced my poor tired child to wait while I returned her mattress to its proper condition, then finally let her lie down. She was asleep after one “hand-hug.” I dreamt of Thomas Kinkade farms and how I need to get me one of those.

Personally, I think famers are far too busy to sit on their porches at all. That’s why those Cracker Barrel rockers stay so pretty and nice. Nobody gets to use them!!!

Now, for a couple addendums.

First, Jeff and I have been talking about big plans again. We’ve decided we don’t want a mortgage at all, so if and when we build, it will have to be mortgage-free.

Instead, we want to travel more and have this nice wiggle room in our budget that had become so unfamiliar. Next year, we are thinking of taking one of those all-inclusive vacations to Costa Rica since Maggie will fly free all next year.

And finally, I’ll conclude with the Top 5 Reasons to Get Pinworms in the Family

#5: It’s a good way to quickly figure out what your priorities are when everything else gets crossed off your agenda.

#4: Recent research shows that having pinworms at an early age can reduce your risk of colon cancer. (really, true fact)

#3: Your bathrooms are clean and sparkly from copious amounts of bleach.

#2: Nothing teaches humility like having to announce to your group of friends that your child might have infected their children with itchy butt worms.

#1: The laundry is finally, finally all caught up!

hey ladies

The ladies (as Jeff calls them) are here! My dear husband spent about 20 hours working on their pen, nesting boxes & roosts this weekend and the results were great.



Of course, who are we to decide? The hens themselves will decide if their quarters are adequate, and when they decide they are pleased, then the eggs will come. So we’ve been waiting, watching, searching & ta-da! Our first egg. This is Jeff’s finest compliment.





Sassy is now begging to go search for eggs a couple times a day. I can usually get her to couple it with feeding the chickens or watering them or feeding the dogs or watering them, so I’m liking this daily-plus egg hunt. It’s a lot of fun, looking for eggs. It takes me back to childhood Easter Egg Hunts. I think I’d forgotten how much fun they were.

Sassy and Jeff are busy naming our ladies. So far, we have Bella, Sarah & Sweet Pea. The brown ones are friendlier than the white ones, but they all lay brown eggs.



My poor Magpie has been sick the past couple days. Her coos have turned to little groans & she wants to be with me so much I think she would climb back in if I’d let her. I’m so glad I can be with her at home when she feels this way. I can’t imagine having to go to work or school and leave her with a day-care provider – not even my own husband. She’s very clear that she wants to nurse & be held by Mommy & that’s about it. I’ve given up all expectations of getting things done & nurse & rock her as she wishes. I think the best antidote to her illness is going to be a stress-free healing time where she doesn’t have to cry for Mama at all.



Whoever thinks babies can’t communicate is obviously crazy. She communicates more clearly & honestly than most adults I’ve met.

We watched Marley and Me three times this weekend. It was so much better than I expected based on the previews. I can’t recommend it enough. I was told it “had a sad ending.” Don’t let that dissuade you. It’s not stick-with-you-sad. More heart-warming sad, if that makes sense. And it’s not slapstick humor, despite the dumb commercials.

Hope to see you all soon. Please consider coming to our “farm-warming party” on Saturday, June 13, or anytime the week before. Well, or any time in the month of June for that matter.