Winding Down

Over the last month, I have learned that uncertainty kills creativity.  How does one celebrate the glorious cross-fade of summer into autumn when one is poring over MLS listings, debating the merits of a familiar school zone versus the cost per square foot, and whether a garage is really important or not?

The simple answer is, I take the moments for the moments they are, and accept that those moments are not going to be shared.  Oh, I've been taking photos like crazy, marveling over the abundant fruit of the Russian olives and the wild grape.  I watch the chickens wander around the property devouring grasshoppers and flies and fighting over the flower beds I have finished weeding.

Life continues, even when I am not recording it.  School started.  The roosters scared off a flock of wild turkeys.  The car had so much dirt from the roads caked in the wheel wells that it threw the tires out of alignment.  We've built another burn pile, and are eagerly looking forward to that first fire of the season.  Birthdays came and went.  Leaves are falling already, and I am harvesting the last of my vegetables, although I am considering leaving in the carrots for the County Kitty.

What this all means is that this blog is winding down.  Country Kitty will be home in a month and a half, and I will be moving back into town.  We moved on a lovely home.  We walked in with our realtor, and we knew within three minutes that it was the one.

Inner reflection has begun.  I have changed.  The other night, I was watching a film, and I felt something on my arm.  I looked, and a teensy little spider was crawling there.  All I did was pinch it off and wipe my fingers on a tissue.  No shriek, followed by laughter.  No grimace.  No...nothing.  Look, pinch, kill, wipe, and back to Pride and Prejudice.  I didn't even pause it.

Who is this, and what did she do with City Kitty?

 

Cheers and Tears

The week began with tears.  

Last Monday, we had to sit down with the Boy and really drive it home for him that we are going to be moving.  He doesn't want to leave:  he's going to miss the farm, the fields, his school, but mostly the chickens.  I assured him that Country Kitty agreed to keep the chickens, and I was certain we would be able to come out and see them.

His tears hurt both our hearts a little.  All three of us have grown accustomed to the farm, and all of us will miss it in some way.  The Husband will miss it more than I will, since this is his dream.  However, the farm has grown on me.  I'll admit there are things I've come to like about living in the country.  But, we have to find a place to live until the right opportunity presents itself.  So, we are looking at places both in town and in the country, if the commute for the Husband won't be any worse.

In the meantime, we are all determined to enjoy life here to the fullest.  The Boy and the Husband cleared out the upper field on Saturday.  The Boy has been spending even more time outside, playing frisbee and unfortunately chasing the chickens:  he loves the sounds they make.  I've just suggested to him that maybe he ought to record them, so he'll have the sound forever.  Big smiles.

white peaches

The peaches in the barnyard have come in finally.  White peaches, sweet as can be.  I don't know if I am going to have enough to attempt canning any.  Sad, that.  But the pears are also coming in, and we all shared a beautiful but tiny apple.

fixing a broken handle

Early last week, the chicken waterer appeared to have been knocked down.  Alas, the red carrying handle had broken somehow.  I found a suitable object to set the waterer down on, but wasn't relishing having to buy a new waterer.  I grumbled about it for a few days, and was working up to a new one, when it occurred to me that I could fix it!  I found some heavy wire, a few plastic corks from wine bottles, and went to work.  It is really cool, and way more comfortable to carry than the other had been.  I haven't rehung it, however, as I am not certain if the wire will keep its shape if it is holding 5 gallons of water underneath.

Sheila, the Eastern black swallowtail

We are not only raising chickens here on the farm.  All our work to preserve some butterfly habitats paid off!  The boys discovered tons of caterpillars in the fields this weekend.  We captured one (now called Sheila) and put in the Boy's Butterfly Habitat.  Sheila didn't do anything much on Sunday, but this morning, I found a cocoon!  Very exciting...

rat snake skeleton

The boys also uncovered the remains of the snake we killed:  nothing left but bones.  

The bones make me think about what we leave behind, how we affect the world and lives around us.  We've been here a year now, and I can see signs of our presence here:  the reconstructed chicken coop with its big pen, the white laurel, the new path through the woods, Katt's grave, all those funny trails in the lower field, the trees we've trimmed from the paths, the new lawn near the sunroom.  

But, the farm is also leaving its own trace on us.  The Boy identifies plants and bushes, where once he asked if everything was poison ivy.  He has no fear of wild animals now, and indeed recognizes that the cute fluffy bunnies are evil beasts from Troll Planet X, and that the majestic eagles we've glimpsed are a danger to our chickens.

I've learned how to use a riding mower, and how to dodge potholes.  I automatically climb into my muckers when I leave the house to chase down the dog or check on the chickens.  I rarely leave the house without my phone, so I can snap pictures of cool spiders or weird scat or an unusual footprint.  Heck, when I walk into a spider web, I don't even shriek anymore.  

Well, not as much, anyway.

The trees are beginning to turn, and leaves are falling already.  My garden is past its prime, and I've been considering planting a fall crop of greens and maybe broccoli.  At every task or observation, I now remember fondly how I handled it last year.

Memories fade.  But I did two amazing things last year, and will benefit for the rest of my life from them.  First, I agreed to try this whole living-in-the-country thing.  Second, I decided to create a blog so Country Kitty could see what we were experiencing.  I've recorded many of the big experiences, and more importantly, lots of little ones.  I'll have this forever.

But, in the meantime, I have two more months to live here.

And I will be living it.

Through the Eyes of a Child

I had a very productive weekend!  We ate lots of fresh produce, I weeded and worked in the gardens, and I even re-wound the hose at the outdoor well pump!  Go me!  I am practically brimming with my sense of accomplishment.

And speaking of a sense of accomplishment... our rooster has, ahem, begun to crow about his accomplishments.  The Boy and I stopped to watch the chickens one morning as we began our morning walk .  And he didn't understand why the rooster climbed on top of one of the hens and pecked at her neck.  I was completely unprepared and I panicked, mumbling something about him wanting to give her a baby.  Now the Boy is excited about more baby chicks.

In other bad parenting news, I had the Boy picking berries from the bushes next to the kitchen garden, where I desperately needed to weed.  After an hour, he wanted a break, so I sent him to get water for us.  He came back with...the cocktail shaker, filled with water.  Speechless, I watched him carefully take off the lid, strain water into the lid, and toss back his shot of water.  He said he couldn't find any clean water bottles. 

I let him go back inside as I began harvesting.  In the past, I'd let a few days go by and then panic as I tried to keep on top of the eighteen thousand cucumbers, knowing that the Boy can only eat one a day.  Or, overwhelmed with tomatoes, I would go super lazy and just cook it all for dinner.  (Yeah, I went through thirty roma tomatoes one dinner last summer.)  And I'd still feel virtuous knowing that I was feeding my Boy what I grew.  But I feel compelled to approach the produce differently this summer.  There are no excuses.  I'm not moving in July or August.  I'm done teaching for the summer (probably), and the Boy is in camps for several weeks, learning engineering and computer programming and all sorts of things that I tune out.  I should be canning a few times a week. I should be able to put away several quarts of my amazing marinara sauce, whole tomatoes, salsa, peppers and relish without any problem.  I even have the perfect kitchen for accomplishing it all!  I even want to try doing sun-dried tomatoes.  I need to just do it.

But here's the rub:  life interferes.  Like last week.

The Boy's camp for this past week got cancelled... but I didn't read my email and so I didn't know until the day before.  Oops.  I had doctor and work appointments, and some writing deadlines to meet.  I had to scramble to find something.  Since he was only doing half days, he and I sat down and worked out our schedule for the non-camp days, because I tell you, not much grates on my nerves faster than hearing him, twenty minutes into play time, say, "Mommy, I'm bored.  What can I do?"  He won't like my new suggestion: to go pick berries or tomatoes or cucumbers.

The Boy is finally digging karate again, but last Tuesday, while he was in class, I got word that power was out back home.  We finally got to try out the generator.  The power was out for about eight hours, and of course the temps were bloody hot and humid.  At least it was at night, so the sun wasn't making it worse.  I was hot, but when I went to check on the Boy, he was wrapped up in his sheet, his angelic face relaxed and cool to the touch.  He thought it had been an excellent adventure.

He's a good kid.  We FINALLY picked up my new car this weekend.  He was so well behaved at the dealership, as we did all the paperwork and I got a lesson on how to hook up my phone to the car.  He figured out how to adjust his headrest, and explored all the places a cup could be held.  He loved hearing that this was going to be his first car.  He listened attentively as I explained the merits of driving stick versus automatic, and he is delighted with the rear-view and side cameras.  But, by the time we got home (having stopped for a very late lunch), he'd had enough of the new car, and was quite ready to play Minecraft with Daddy.  So, while they dodged zombies and Endermen (I have no effing clue)  I spent two hours in the car with the manuals.  I admit, I sat there with the windows down, the sunroof open, a nicely chilled beverage, and enjoyed the silence.

There was another storm last night.  The wind and lightning and thunder... wow.  We didn't lose power, but we did have branches down come morning... including the HUGE length of poison ivy that fell right over the entrance to the driveway.  It was close to two inches in diameter, and bushy as any other fallen tree limb, probably ten to fifteen feet in length.  The Boy and I just looked at the branch after I braked, and then he warned in an awed tone, "That's poison ivy."

Thank god for that kid--I'd been about to grab it and drag it off to the side.  I parked, walked back to the house to get boots, gloves, and my gardening shirt*.  I gingerly grabbed the woody part and moved it.  There is still a big broken section clinging to the tree, but at least we could drive through on the way to his invention camp.  He promised to invent a machine that would drag poison ivy away without having to use gloves.  My little hero.

*When you have poison ivy, and you wear a special sun-blocking, anti-bug gardening shirt, the poison ivy can get on the inside of the shirt.  And yeah, they say the specially-treated material will only last 50 washings or so.  BUT WASH IT WHEN YOU REALIZE YOU LEFT TRACES OF POISON IVY ON THE INSIDE OF THE ARM, BECAUSE YOU CAN RE-INFECT THE SAME AREA THAT ONLY JUST NOW HEALED FROM POISON IVY THROUGH THE USE OF PRESCRIPTION MEDICATIONS.  Not that I learned this from personal experience or anything.

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.

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.

Gardening With Help

Flowers are blooming, and the kitchen garden has been planted. Mostly. I mean, the main beds have been planted. And two side beds have been weeded. I still need to do the cold frame beds, which are currently protecting a glorious tangle of weeds.

But the point is, I have seeds planted and hopefully beginning to do their thing.  A lettuce mix, kale, Swiss chard, sweet pea, onion, carrot and beet.  I am getting hungry already.

I had a lot of help, truth be told.  Gardening really becomes a group project on a farm, I am discovering.  So, thanks are in order.

First, I am thankful the Husband helped clear the side beds of a strange weed that has roots that are thick and orange like carrots...but are not carrots. But Country Kitty's rose is able to breathe again, as are the lilies or irises or whatever else is planted in the bed alongside.  Also, the beds are ready for me to plant something there.  Not sure what, but I am thinking marigolds.  Lots and lots of marigolds.

Next, Amy also helped...sorta.  She kept me company, and showed me where every smell was in the enclosed garden by rolling in it.  Dogs are so freaking nasty sometimes.  I wound up banning her from the garden enclosure after she walked across a freshly prepared bed--she weighs 70 lbs, and I don't need my soil compacted, ya know?  So, she diligently patrolled the area to make sure that no evil squirrels could sneak up and kill me.  I feel safer knowing she's there to chase off those naughty wee beasties.

The most unexpected help came from the chickens.  They were mighty interested when I was preparing the beds, turning over soil with lots of bugs and interesting plants.  But they got serious in their interest when I began harvesting the composted soil.   

So much supervision!  After I added it to the beds and began preparing to plant the seeds, they were all micromanaging the choices.  And when I accidentally spilled the lettuce seed, two girls were immediately fighting over the spoils.  I admit to having a stern discussion with Ginger and ElastaGirl about whether or not this was a good choice...before I chased them out of the garden.

On Saturday, I planted the second phase of seeds, which were to be in the

second bed.  I had hardly opened the gate and brought in my tools and seeds before I had ALL SEVEN GIRLS in there, busily scratching and finding tasty things to eat.  Ever try to chase a chicken when you are trying avoid stepping across a garden bed?  I swear I could hear them cackling at me.

Which led to the best help that I got the entire time.  The Husband very sweetly came into the garden and helped me catch each chicken so I could toss them over the fence.  

And he didn't even laugh at me.  Much.

In other news, guess who's back?

...to be continued.

Mud

I could bore you to tears with how bad my allergies got last week, how I contemplated on whether or not I might be turning into a zombie, and how that turned into a discussion about whether I might be more interested (as a zombie) in wine or just the sommelier.

No, I won't tell you about the combination of medications I've been taking, or the fact that I lost two days pretending to be a slug.  Or, how I got to attend a birthday party wearing a mask over my nose and mouth.

No, I will direct this entry to what is foremost on my mind.  Mud.  Because, April showers bring May flowers.

I feel virtuous.  I spent an hour today clearing two garden beds for seeds.  I'll be planting beets and carrots and lettuce and kale, swiss chard and onions and peas.  Tomorrow, I'll add a barrow of lovely compost to mix it all up, and then press seeds into the soil in a semi-organized fashion.  But today, I cleared the beds of all remaining vegetation, I turned all the soil thoroughly, and I picked out the usual spring harvest of rocks.  Amy wandered around, keeping me company.  Even Elasta-girl came by, scratching where I cleared.  I hope she found lots of naughty bugs to eat.  

But, I did all this in the rain.  And it was raining most of the night.  Two words:  fashion nightmare.  From my head to the soles of my boots.

I wore my pretty red raincoat with a ball cap to keep the rain from my eyes.  There is mud all over the hood, and a bit on the brim of the cap.

My raincoat itself looks as though I lay down and wallowed in the mud.  I am not certain how that happened, since I was always on two feet.  But there is mud on the shoulders, up and down the arms, all along the sides, and smears all over the front.  The bum is still red.

My pants, of which only the knee to mid thigh were exposed, had mud on the knees, behind the knees, and a smear about where the coat ended.

The muckers... Well, they are no longer a nice dark chocolate.  They now look like lumpy milk chocolate.

And the lined leather gloves have fat fingers now.  Fat with encrusted mud.

What's that you say?  Pics or it didn't happen?

It happened.  But there will be no pics.  I wouldn't want word to get out about how bad my hair looked.

Goldfish, Peonies, and Tadpoles

I am gonna pretend that Sunday was just a blip.  Spring is here, and fighting off Winter with all Her might.  She might be a little muddy now, Her dress might be torn, Her shoes, totally ruined.  But She did a smack down on Winter; because I spent this afternoon, and Friday afternoon without a coat, outside, watching Her shake out Her hair and wonder where Her hat is.

Okay, that was muddled, and there is a reason for that.  We are in the season for mud.  I am so glad I had all autumn and winter to come to embrace my muckers.  I wear them everywhere.  I keep a pair of "city" shoes in the car.

Anyway.  Oh, to be outside, in the sun!  What a joy!  The Boy and I took advantage of the dead and still-wintered weeds and vines surrounding the pond and followed the usually inaccessible deer paths... and it was worth it.  We saw the pond from the other side.  It was a fantastic view!

We observed no fewer than four schools of goldfish in the pond.  We came upon some really odd scat (that has defied my Internet skills to identify), and several animal holes along the deer paths.  We also took souvenirs:  I gathered several wild-blackberry thorns, and the Boy got his first tick of the season.

But it was worth it.  Observing the duck and his mate.  Figuring out that the goldfish were busily devouring floating eggs on the surface.  Coming across the slightly worse-for-wear snowdrops, and the fledgling crocuses.  And only last week, I took a moonlit stroll through the field and disturbed several splashy swimming things at the pond.  I couldn't see them, but I suspect that it might be otters!  There is no scientific basis whatsoever other than a whim.

Today (because I am ignoring Sunday, which was Winter's dying gasp), it was a school holiday, so the Boy and I spent the afternoon outside.  I did some long overdue clearing of the garden, and also used the net to clear out the pond...

You catch tadpoles that way.  Lots and lots of tadpoles.  I picked them up with my bare hand and dropped them back in the pond.

Did you read that?

I PICKED THEM UP WITH MY BARE HAND AND DROPPED THEM BACK IN THE POND!

After I did that the first time, I wondered who the hell I was today!  City Kitty doesn't go outside to pick up a fallen branch without gloves on.

Hydrangea buds; Dead heads

And yet, I continued gardening without gloves.  I clipped the hydrangea heads from last year, carefully clipping ABOVE all the buds coming out already.  There were even leaves.  I am ashamed.  And then I used a small rake to clear out the leaf piles...and found that the peonies are unfurling their stems already.

New and old peonies

I LOVE PEONIES!!

And while I was doing all this, the Boy decided that he was tired of waiting on me to do the research on raising tadpoles.  He found a small tub, added water from the pond, placed a few rocks, and caught his tadpole.

I finally did the research.  We'll be raising a tadpole starting on Wednesday, I think.  First I have to boil lettuce.  It's a thing they like.  Apparently.

Can you tell that I needed a little bit of Spring?  I feel like I am buzzing on Spring.  I see green covering the lawns and, where there is NOT a mud wallow, pretty green spikes of bulbs pushing out of the soil.  

I feel like one of those bulbs, finally warming up, reaching for the sun, about to bloom...  Yep.  I am high on sun, the best drug of all.

Spring is Coming!

Yeah, I know we're getting hit with another 10 inches today (depending on which forecast you choose the believe).  So what?  Another day, another snow.  I saw the snowdrops in bloom this weekend, and that is way more interesting than actual snowflakes!

Instead of moaning about the drifts of snow which will cover the drifts of snow from last week, I will describe all the drifts of seed catalogs, and the plans for our garden.  Because we will be preparing the gardens and starting seedlings this month.

In truth, the catalogs have been coming since November.  I recycled dozens in the afternoons before the Husband ever walked in the door to ask, "What's in the mail?"  All so I could say, "Nothing", since the mail had long since been sorted into piles for Country Kitty and family, recycling, keep, and shred, thus sparing me thinking about planting a garden four months away or more.

But, in December, he caught me.  So, the seed catalogs began going into a "save" pile.  I'd let the pile get to six inches before I'd sort the duplicates and recycle them.  (I like recycling!).  On through January...and into February.

Now there is a pile, and when March looms, you know April is close behind, and that is when you plant!  So, last week, the Husband and I found ourselves leaning over the kitchen bar, making non-committal noises as we flipped through various catalogs:  The Cooks Garden, Burpee, Kitchen Garden Seeds, etc. 

ME:  So, what are we planting this year?

HIM:  Well, you posted that corn, bean, squash companion photo online, and it's here in this book. (holds up "Roots, Shoots, Buckets and Boots")

ME:  (flipping through the "hot" peppers in one catalog) These peppers are lame.

HIM:  (handing me the Territorial Seed Company catalog) Well, look at this catalog.

ME:  Oooooo.  So, what are we planting this year?

HIM:  Well, what do you want to plant?

ME:  Six jalapeno plants was not enough.  I need more.

HIM:  I thought you said those weren't spicy.

ME:  They weren't.  I want to at least double it, but with serranos!

HIM:  Twelve?

ME:  Yeah, I am going through a pint of canned jalepenos in 10 days!  I need at least...maybe 20.  Yeah, 20 hot pepper plants.  That way I can do salsa too.

HIM:  Can we do some mild ones?

ME:  No, those are useless...

HIM:  (pointed look)

ME:  Unless you and the Boy might want to eat them.  Yes!  Let me start a list!

So, we started a list.
YE OLDE OFFICIAL GARDENING LIST:

• 15-20 hot peppers (Serranos and a few banana)
• 8+ Romas... or any good sauce tomato
• 1 Grape tomato... even though I don't keep up with them
• 1 Early Girl, just because.

ME:  Okay, what else?

HIM:  The corn thing?

ME:  (scribbling down corn, pole beans, squash)  Oh yeah, I totally need to plant butternut squash again.  And double what we did last year!  Oh, and spaghetti squash!

HIM:  Cukes--

ME:  And zukes!  Oh, and peas.  And I want lettuce.  Maybe a salad mix, with kale and beets.  Carrots!  We could try onions again, why not?  Wanna do cabbage?

HIM:  Sure, but---

ME:  Oh, and we have to do the melons again!  Do the Alvaro melon, and canary.  Hmm, what about watermelon?

HIM:  Maybe, do you think---

ME:  The Boy will totally want strawberries.

HIM:  Did you want to buy all these as plants?

ME:  Noooooo!  We have to start these all from seeds!  Well, maybe not the tomatoes.  No, I can do it!  Although, I'm really lazy, and I don't know how many plants we need to start like that.  Hmm, I know Country Kitty left her seedling starters here  somewhere?  Sheesh, but I hate having so many seedlings that I don't use.  Oh, maybe, I could just start the melons directly in the compost heap.  Ha ha, just kidding.  Oh gosh, do you think the Boy will want to do pumpkins again?  Hmmm, is this list too long?  Well, we do have both garden plots this year.  I don't know, what do you think?

By this point, the Husband had wandered off, because his presence was apparently no longer required, as I'd already taken all the catalogs, the pad and the pencil.  Plus, I was doing all the talking.

So, the planning is going beautifully, and wow, we started before March!  We're ahead of the game!  Woohoo!!  Cuz, Spring is coming!