Just Another Month on the Farm

I am sorry for being gone for so long.  I was working on a show...and there was so much to do with that: the summer camps, the meals, the karate, the storms, the weeding, the volunteer duties, the chickens, the extra kitty.... 

I was too busy being the City Kitty in the Country that I had no time to write about my adventures on the farm.

The month in review:

1.  We got another four chicks:  two beautiful gold twins, a dark chocolate

one, and a pretty reddish one.  I don't know their breeds:  just chickens.  To be honest, I am not one-hundred percent certain they are all females.  But  our rooster now is part of a flock of ten birds.  And I am still getting only two eggs a day.  But, they are now eating almost every bit of kitchen scrap we produce, and still going through the food.  Thank goodness my schedule is such that I am going to be able to let them go back to free-ranging on a carefully monitored basis.

2.  I once treated any berries that entered my kitchen as rare and treasured fruits.  Now I am swimming in them.  I actually traded a pound of black raspberries for a dozen eggs from Chicken Friend.  (And just so you know,

around here, a pint of black raspberries is going for $4.50.)  We've been feeding what goes bad to the chickens, because we can hardly keep up.  Additionally, we have peaches, Manchu cherries, wine berries, and blackberries beginning to show.  There are peaches and I am swimming in fruit and thinking:  sheesh!  I ought to make some kind of fruit dessert thingy...

3.  I need to find a Lawnmower's Anonymous group and start while I can, and drag The Husband along.  We each mowed for four hours yesterday...and we could have kept going.  Embarrassing!

4.  I ate the first three beets from my garden!  They were each about the size of the first knuckle on my thumb.  I loved them.  I want to dig up more.  I need to wait for them to get bigger.  But they are sooo good.

5.  My first Roma will be picked tomorrow, I think.  My life is about to get cloudy with a chance of tomatoes, I think.  I better double check that I have enough lids for canning!  We just opened my LAST jar of last summers' arrabiata sauce last night for pizza...

6.  The flowers just keep coming.  Country Kitty, my hat is off to you!  There is never a moment without new flowers emerging and making me ooo and ah.  The lilies are killing me, they are so beautiful.

7.  I am supposed to have my new car any day now.  Just like I was supposed to at Mother's Day.  I am a pain in the @ss apparently, because I actually want what I want.  See, if I would just settle for an automatic, we could already be driving my new car, and in red!

8.  We've been hosting Wine Friend's kitty again.  After a few rough days, she settled into the routine. But the Boy cried a little the first night she arrived--he missed Katt.  We went and visited her yesterday.  Her grave carries a certain solemnity, a gravity that made it impossible to speak in a normal tone of voice.  Even the path, untraveled by us for over three weeks, was still there, lonely and yet inviting.  Mue gave her own tribute by using Katt's box, which we still hadn't put away.  Nice.

9.  I contracted a wicked case of poison ivy, no doubt while changing the chicken yard configuration.  As is not uncommon for me, my body went into hyperdrive, and I wound up having to take steroids to get it under control.  It wasn't fun slathering my arm with hydro-cortisone and wrapping it loosely in gauze just to be able to sleep the night through.  But, it is much better, thank you.  Amazing just how many things I used in the name of temporary relief, but my favorite was the Itchy Stick.

There you are.  The highlights of the last month.

But, there is a bit more.  You see, we know our time here on the farm is gradually coming to an end.  Mid-fall, and we'll be gone.  We are spending quite a bit of time as a family reviewing this life we've been living.  It is a delicate subject, to be honest.  We all love certain parts of country living.  We all have things we don't like.  But none of us has the exact same likes and dislikes. 

The decision of what to do looms on the horizon.  What do we do?  Where should we go?  What is important to us as a family?  What is important to each of us?  As we are swept away in the every day living on a farm, we are also having to carefully tread water until we can find a safe place for us all.

The next few months will be interesting indeed.