Lawn Art

So, I owe a huge apology to the Husband.  I tried my hand at using a riding mower on Sunday.

I won't even post pictures, because they are too humiliating.  I mean, mowing a lawn is supposedly an unskilled labor, right?  I've been mowing for years, using a regular lawn mower.  It isn't rocket science, right?  Wrong.

Riding mowers are hard.  They don't turn on a dime.  They turn on a huge curve.  And the edges of that curve don't get mown.  So, you are left with a lawn that looks a lot like modern art.

Maybe that is what I am doing wrong.  I need to approach this as though I did it all on purpose.  

The overlapping paths are meant to symbolize the way our lives overlap in this world of billions of people.  The un-mown areas represent the paths we never took, a la Robert Frost.  The straight lines are few, because we as humans seldom keep a steady course--we are influenced and nudged slightly by even a few bumps in road.  The odd single blade that continued to keep upright even after three passes demonstrates those goals that we never achieve, and inspire us to tackle other goals before making another attempt, but ultimately teaches us that some goals are ultimately out of reach.  The graceful, curving lines of grass that remain un-mowed remind us that, just as we cannot truly appreciate a door without the door frame, neither can we appreciate a freshly mown lawn unless we remember what it was before.

Other artists work in clay, in oils or watercolor, photography and fiber.

Not me.  My medium is grass.

Children of the Corn

Summer is here.  Yeah, I know.  Not technically... but it is here.  The AC is on, my skin is baking by 9AM when I am outside, the dog is giving birth to little gray dust bunnies as she hurriedly sheds the last of her winter coat.

The garden is amazing.  I am a little uneasy about how everything I planted has been growing at unnatural rates.  Maybe all the chicken sacrifices are pleasing to the Garden God, who apparently manifests as a big fox with a toothy grin, and who was hanging around the chicken coop yesterday.  I hope the Garden God forgives me for my response, when I ran outside screaming, "**** you!!  I will kill you, *************!!"  At the top of my lungs.  And my voice carries.  I mean really carries.  Oops.

I am doing weed control in the gardens for now.  Clearing paths and laying down weedblocker before covering them with straw or glass clippings.  I hate spending more time weeding than tending to my plants, but if I do it now, I won't have to do it later.  Never mind that all the seeds which should have been thinned...haven't. There is this weekend, I guess.

I cleared a bunch of space around the chicken coop, and have planted some posts.  The regular fox visits and the discovery that we have a hawk nest on the west side of the house finally convinced me that I have to have a dedicated yard for them.  I cannot leave them in the coop all day long when I'm not personally be out there to scream obscenities at the fox.  And besides, more space will be required for the extra chickens I need to acquire.  The rooster is gonna need a decent harem pretty soon, methinks.

I have become a Lawn Mower Widow most Sundays.  The Husband has to spend hours on the tractor.  If we can get away with it, he occasionally skips the lawn so that all he has to attend to is the paths, but that is still quite a big job.  A big, boring job that involves s-l-o-w-l-y following the paths a few times, all the way around the perimeter of the property.

We read recently that the monarch butterfly is in desperate need of dedicated

milkweed

 habitats with milkweed.  The Boy loves monarchs, especially since he got to raise some from the cocoon stage.  (He loved visiting the butterfly garden at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.)  This summer, he is planting pretty flowers so the butterflies will have something to eat, he says.  But, when we discovered that the two pastures have great pockets of milkweed, we sprang into action.

Or rather, the Husband began to take great pains to avoid the milkweed.  But, since he still wants to clear the pastures, he wound up cutting some interesting paths through the property.

Which path to take?

It used to be that the walking paths were pretty much following a fence line.  The property is shaped kind of like an L, but still.  Boring.  If you wanted to chase a madly giggling Boy, once you were on a path, you had no choice but to finish the path (which sucked when the bottom of the lower field had the swamp).  Now, there are short cuts, and paths that split, cute little curves and even bits of field left untouched in the middle of a mown area.  And yeah, they are filled with milkweed, but it means that we have a new game to play.

Children of the Corn.

For those of you who scorn all things Stephen King, this is a short story from the book Night Shift, that spawned a several films.  The plot, long and short, is a bunch of kids decided their parents (and indeed, all adults) were too corrupt and not following religion well enough, so they killed everyone over eighteen, and turned God into a vengeful Corn God (He Who Walks Behind The Rows).  And the Shirley Jackson-esque twist is that the kids have to walk into the corn (i.e. sacrifice themselves to the Corn God) upon their nineteenth birthday.

Man, I love Stephen King.

Anyway, our game.  We are not growing corn, obviously.  We are growing healthy weeds and tall grass...but now there are new, winding paths, and you don't know when you will come upon one, or where any of them go, since they are not mown in a straight line in order to avoid the milkweed.

Maybe a zombie theme would have been better, but it is something to go down a path, and be able to suddenly crouch down and be hidden from ANYONE in the field.  When Amy goes tearing down the path (for no good reason other than it is there), I cannot see her at all.  The Boy has only to duck his head a little and he is hidden.

I see some epic battles ahead.  Water guns might be awesome, too, since summer has arrived with a vengeance.

New and Improved

I'll lay off the depressing stuff for awhile.  No one wants to hear about all the dead stuff anymore.  Nope.

You all want to hear about the three cute little chicks that are currently living in a corner of the chicken coop.  Adorable!  And one is a baby rooster.  Cannon fodder!  (Oops, no more dead stuff...)

We've had sun and lots of rain.  My seeds are going crazy.  We've been eating fresh lettuce, and I am having to thin stuff out.  Beet greens... yum!  Never mind that those are beets that will never grow into real beets.  (Oops, no more dead stuff...)

Of course, the grass is growing like weeds.  Well, there are a lot of weeds.  Everywhere.  But last week, I got tired of waiting for the ground to dry enough so that the riding mowers wouldn't leave tracks, that I got out the small mower and personally mowed up and down the driveway, trimming the grass away from Jungle zone to Lawn zone.  Funny how I have to see a pretty lawn when I drive down the driveway and run over a young opossum. (Oops, no more dead stuff...)

I spent quite a lot of time clearing out the lovely garden outside the morning room.  Peonies and roses and irises and rhododendrons, even the chives!  There are poppies... dear lord, there cannot be a more beautiful flower in the world than a blooming red poppy.  The time was well worth it, even if I had to drag two full baskets of weeds to the compost heap.  (Oops, no more dead stuff...)

Yeah, I am making a joke out of it.  Life and death.  Right now I feel like a teenager, obsessed with mortality and such.  All I need is vampires in the mix... although I did see a bat the other night.

Katt is gone, and I am functioning like a semi-normal person again.  I am better, and getting wiser, I guess.

I even had a party this weekend.  It was tiny compared to the other one.  The Husband smoked a brisket (drool city!) and I prepared way too many vegetables.  Next weekend, my baby brother will come visiting with his family, and we'll have another small party.

The good thing about having company is that it forces me to clean up the house.

A friend recently told me that he admired how I've thrown myself into this country life.  I thanked him, but then I had to admit... I wonder if I throw myself into it more because I have the accountability of reporting my adventures here.

Like, my favorite game right now is flicking stink bugs across the room to hit the wall.  I love it when I manage to hit them hard enough that they don't recover from the impact.

I get off the farm enough, I guess.  But, I have learned to adapt.  Is it a true adaptation, or one for the public?

Does it matter?  Not really, I'd say.  Actions have consequences.  The end result is the same--I came upon a snake skin and picked it up: if I try to come up with a clever story around it for the blog, or simply pick it up to show the Boy, the fact is, I picked up a snake skin.

Now, to slaughter more lettuce...

Digging Holes

Digging holes is hard work.

I've spent the last two weeks working in the garden.  I dug out the compost heap to add to the soil.  The chickens love that hole:  they've decided that every time they catch sight of me with a shovel, they ought to come see what I'm up to.  

Anyhow, I got the beds slowly planted, and for the first time that I can remember, I got everything in before anything died.  Eleven tomatoes, thirteen peppers, marigolds, zucchini, cukes, cantaloupe, and then all the seeds: sweet corn, butternut squash, spaghetti squash, more cukes...

Digging the holes in my garden beds wasn't too bad.  Several tomatoes were a little bigger than I liked them, but I just clipped the lower stems and sank the plants in some pretty deep holes.  The other plants?  Not so deep. 

The marigolds...I actually had about 60 little plants to begin my border (I'll add seeds later).  For them, I used my tulip planter to dig about 60 little holes and that was that.  

So, Sunday, I thought I would lay down the straw for weed/erosion control, and also do the spring cleaning in the chicken coop to prepare for the chicks arriving this week.  I thought I was done digging for the weekend.

But, there was a really important hole that I still had to dig.

Sunday afternoon, Katt finally lost control of her bowels and bladder.  She staggered, and could hardly move.  I called the emergency vet and got an appointment.  There were a flurry of emails and texts...and one useless attempt at an international call.

 We had an hour with her at home, the three of us.  We still hoped somehow for good news, but we all said goodbye before I took her to her appointment.

Have you ever been in a bereavement room at a vet's office?  This one was nice and big.  Couch, comfy chairs, a pretty carpet.  Katt began her stalking immediately.  We waited for the vet.  Katt got herself stuck behind the couch, and I grumbled about how silly she was for not just turning around, even though I was pretty sure she couldn't do it.  I moved the whole couch for her.  She slowly made her way over for some petting and scratching, but she wouldn't settle.  I was sitting on the floor with her when the vet came.

The vet asked lots of questions, consulted Katt's chart, and examined her.  The list of issues was long:  severe lower back pain, neurological issues, a sizable heart murmur, high blood pressure, loss of sight... the list got too long.  I stopped listening when she said that the treatments for any one of those things could be too hard on her heart.

It was time.

I kept it together.  It needed to be about Katt.  I'd have time later.  The vet explained that Katt would get a big sedative, and her pain would stop.  After that had taken effect, the last medication.

I sat there on the floor with Katt as they gave her the sedative.  She growled and got fussy, and I was so glad to see that fleeting spark of personality.  They left, and I kept petting her and she kept hitting me with her irritated tail.

I knew the moment the sedative started to work.  The tail stopped, and the purring began.  And for the first time in months, I saw a relaxed Katt.  A Katt that wasn't twisted with stiffness and pain.  A Katt that could just lay there, purring to have me at her side as I talked to her, thanking her for being part of our family, giving her a last goodbye from Country Kitty, and apologizing for not understanding just how bad it had gotten for her.

And then the purring faded away, and she was just breathing, utterly relaxed.  The vet came back to check, and I asked for five more minutes.  I continued petting Katt for a bit, and then I sat back, just watching her.  And then I climbed up to sit on the couch, and kept it together.  And I watched her until they came and took Katt away.

Later, they brought her back in a white cardboard "coffin", sealed with packing tape.  The attendant asked if I needed help, since there was no way I could carry both the cat carrier and the coffin. She asked which I wanted her to carry.  I kept it together, and I asked her to get the coffin.

I drove home.  I changed clothes, got my boots and gloves, and found the shovel.  I was going to bury Katt in the woodland garden, near the previous cat's grave.  The vet had warned me to bury her deep.  I wandered around, searching and finally finding the perfect spot.

I dug.  I dug the deepest hole I've ever dug.  I moved soil and roots and rocks and more rocks.  The Boy came out and kept me company for awhile.  He asked me if he could help, and I asked him to find a nice big stone for Katt, and to bring me the potted lily I'd been wondering where to plant.

I dug until I didn't think it was possible to dig anymore.  I opened the box, and saw Katt laying there, still wrapped in the blue towel I'd brought to the vet.  I kept it together as I lifted her out and placed her into a paper bag, which seemed like a more environmentally sound idea than the cardboard box wrapped in tape.  The Husband placed her at the bottom of the hole.  I kept it together.

The Boy wanted to shovel some of the earth back.  He and his father wound up filling the grave together.  I went back to the big garden and filled two big planters with the rocks I'd collected the last few weeks.

We covered her grave with lots of pretty rocks.  I planted the tulips at the edge of her grave.  They had already peaked, so I went and cut some pretty blooming flowers.  It only seemed fitting, and I kept it together.

I've been keeping it together.  Maybe only just, but I've done it.  Never mind that cleaning her food dish was a physical pain in my chest.  Never mind that her not greeting me when I got downstairs this morning left a ghostly wake that has followed me all day long, as I walked the farm, worked in the chicken coop, and struggled to keep focused.

There is a hole inside me right now.  But nothing is getting in right now because I'm keeping it together.

A few years back, Country Kitty's parents died, and we had offered to get her a white lilac in memory.  Well, for a variety of reasons, it took a long time to track one down, but we finally did, and it arrived last week.

So, today, I dug one last hole.  I planted that white lilac in the front yard.  I feel like I may never dig another hole without thinking about her.  But I'm keeping it together.

  

The Circle of Life

Spring is supposed to be a time of rebirth, of life, of green and happy freaking maypoles, right?  We enjoy each new iris pushing out of the ground, savor each new bud on the dogwoods, thrill each time we discover a new bird nest.  Heck, we spent one bedtime laughing at the sound of a couple of foxes going at it on Tuesday night...as in fox love.

Life.  Yeah.  But you cannot have life without the inevitable ending.

Last week, I learned to hate foxes.  Never mind that every time it got quiet that evening, every time I began digging into my book again, they'd start giggling like a bunch of hyenas and start it over again.  (I mean, really?  Just finish already!)  And never mind that I giggled too.

No, I learned to hate them the next day.  A day which shall be called Bloody Wednesday.  A day I lost not one, not two, not three, but FOUR chickens.  We lost Acid, Mocha, Ginger, and poor Pickles.

Princess Leia and Peaches-n-Cream are all that remain.  I've let them out twice since; and both times, they were heavily supervised.  As in, locked in the big garden with me as I continued preparing the beds for planting.

There is a fierce debate going...

Sensible:  You need to get more chickens.

Dramatic: Why, so they can just feed the foxes? 

Sensible:  You have this huge coop with more room than many chickens ever see.

Dramatic:  But they don't need to be locked up all the time!  They'll be miserable.

Sensible:  Then put up a fence, so they have a yard that will protect them from the foxes and hawks.

Dramatic:  But then they are not free range.  One of the reasons I wanted free range was because they keep the bug populations down!

Sensible:  Then you have to accept that the foxes will eat some.  Get lots more chickens.  Maybe a rooster.

Dramatic:  I cannot take any more death!  How do farmers do this?

Sensible:  They have more chickens than you do, and they don't name them.

Dramatic:  Well, how will I tell them apart?

Sensible:  Don't.  Don't tell them apart, and just enjoy your eggs.

And so on.  I am trapped by the debate, and so have done nothing.  Leia and Peaches spend their day in their huge, rambling, empty chicken coop, eating and scratching and laying, and I get two eggs a day.

We had to buy our first eggs in months this weekend.

But this wasn't all.  No, there is more.  I could hardly bear it.

On Saturday, the Husband was coming out at 11:30 on the dot to help me get the chickens back in the coop.  The girls enjoyed the foray into my garden, eating grubs and seeds...and the earthworms.  But, I needed help getting them in.  The Husband's alarm sounded, and he came out.  Amy had spent all morning with me, so she didn't bother, but Katt wandered out after him.  We got the girls in, I dumped another load of weeds down a groundhog hole, and then we ate lunch and went to our afternoon event.

On our way home that evening, we realized that Katt had not come in, and that, in fact, we hadn't even seen her when we came back from the garden.  And she usually never stays out of sight of her humans, or at least the dog.

We got home, and Katt was not waiting.  In fact, there was no evidence of her.  Anywhere.  We all spent the next few hours until sundown, wandering the fields, calling her name.  She didn't appear.

If the fox had appeared at that moment, I would have beaten it to a bloody pulp with a stick.

Katt didn't show before we went upstairs.  And she wasn't waiting for us in the morning.  And she never showed up at all, and I had to write a painful email to Country Kitty, letting her know that Katt was gone.

In my heart, I was already grieving her.  I couldn't stand looking into the sunroom, because that is her room.  The Boy was disconsolate, and I had trouble even smiling.  Even Amy seemed unhappy.  The Husband slept poorly last night, and I had to hold back tears as I cooked the Boy's breakfast:  there was no annoying Katt underfoot.  And things were pretty subdued.

And here is where the entry was supposed to end.

But, after I had let Amy out and the Boy was halfway though his eggs, there suddenly came the shout:  "Mommy!  I see Katt!"

I see Katt.  What did that mean?  I put down the pitcher of water and went to the door, terrified of what I would see.

Katt came mincing in, her tail up, her gait stronger than I had seen in months.  She meowed, and our tears began.  She was back, and she was strong, and she DEMANDED her breakfast.  The Boy and I crowded around her, unable to credit this strong and happy kitty, and even Amy joined us, sniffing madly.

That dumb Katt.  

I still hate the fox.

How Do I Pick?

I've had a lawn before.  And I had a 20x20 garden plot for a few years.  I know about outdoor work, and what needs to be done.

That is the case here on the farm.  I know about outdoor work, and I know what needs to be done.  The issue before me is, how do I prioritize the tasks?  If I mow the garden paths in the big garden...then I don't have time to spend prepping the beds.  If I haul more wood to the burn pile, we could get another evening burn in before the burn ban...but that is time I could spend weeding the flower garden.  I could dig dandelions all day...but I would hardly make a dent, so I have to set an timer to make me stop.  And I don't even have to worry about mowing the fields, because the Husband does that.

Something I tell my acting students is, "If everything is important, then nothing is important."  And I am trying to think in that way here.  If I try to do everything, then nothing will get done... including showering, meals, my writing, and looking through all the lovely pictures I've taken of spring on the farm and still haven't shared.

So, my choice today is to quickly summarize the amazing share-worthy stories and pick some awesome photos.


Top Ten Stories
1. We've had two bonfires in two weeks.  I'm getting good at building the proper structure.

2. We lost Vader to a fox three days after Elastigirl, but gained a lovely girl named Pickles.  She's an escape artist, so she will be uniquely suited to a free-range environment.

3. The kitchen garden is doing beautifully!  Lettuce, kale, beets, peas, and Swiss chard are doing well, and I don't know what the onions and carrots are doing.

4. Turtlezilla has been sighted.  A lovely duck and her mate lost all the eggs she was guarding on the raft.  Sad.
5. While the Husband and I were hauling wood for the last pile, a frog suddenly appeared on his glasses...and just sat there.

6. The entire path around the farm got mowed, because the swamp finally dried out enough to the take the tractor down there.  Now we have 4 inches of rain expected this week.  Boo!

7. We dug out the fire pit...which had been looking more like a fire mound, and hauled all the muddy-ash mixture down Clarence's holes.  Take that, groundhogs!  I also dumped all the weeds I pulled while prepping a bed in the big garden down another of his holes...  Probably just a snack for him, but it felt good doing it.

8. Katt had another decline.  I took her to the vet, and apparently our dear kitty has a pretty bad heart murmur AND high blood pressure.  I have my freaking cat on aspirin, and blood pressure medication.

9. Amy has gained about six pounds since her last vet visit.  She's more active, she cannot get to Katt's food anymore... so she is now banned from the mudroom at all times so we can prevent her from eating cat poo.  The vet said that is pretty high fat content.  I think it is pretty gross.


10. I finally had a big party here.  It was fun, and I have learned that I must never walk around with a wine glass again.  Somehow, it kept filling itself... But, to have so many wonderful friends, both new and old, made for a wonderful evening.

And that is all the news.  Now... to run off and weed before the rain starts.

A Tribute to Elastigirl

[Today we have a guest writer, known to you all simply as The Boy.  He told the story, all I did was type.  We have GOT to stop naming our chickens.]

Elastigirl died on Friday.  A fox or an eagle or hawk got her.  All that remained were her feathers.  When we were driving in the car on our driveway, we saw a whole bunch of white feathers.  My mom saw them first.  She opened the door and got out of the car and quickly walked to the feathers.  I said, “I hope Elastigirl didn’t die.”  Daddy drove the car to the chicken coop.  We saw six chickens under the bushes.  Mommy ran up and I asked if Elastigirl died.  Mom checked the chickens and said, “Elastigirl died.”

I started crying really hard.  Mommy hugged me, and then Daddy and I sat on a stump while I cried.  He said that he was sorry that Elastigirl died.  We put the chickens in the chicken coop and then went inside.  And then I asked Mommy to gather ElastiGirl’s feathers.

I was sad.  Because ElastiGirl was sweet and loveable.  I could pick her up and even if you weren’t wanting to pick her up, she would just squat down because she was used to people.

She had brown and white feathers, and she had down.  She was young, but we thought she was the leader.

I am mad at the hawk, and I wish I had been there to scare the hawk away.