Tea time chatter

New blog, new address

2010-11-20T15:13:00.000-08:00

Tea Time Chatter is going into retirement, to be replaced with a new blog:
Good Life Writer (http://goodlifewriter.wordpress.com/). Update your links to keep up with my exploration of this good life.

I'll also be exploring the rapidly changing world of writing for a living, which you may find instructive or amusing depending on your point of view.

Ironing

2010-08-21T12:27:00.000-07:00

The laundress, sweating in a cloud of steam as she irons mounds of (men's) shirts, is pretty much the poster child of the feminist movement. My life -- at least my professional life -- is pretty much the other poster child: degree in Engineering, with emphasis on Chemical Engineering. Technical writing career in the high tech industry, when high tech was the very coolest place to be. Etc etc. Fact is, though, I like to do ironing. I especially like to iron my guy's shirts. The sisterhood would be aghast. What's the deal here?

I find fabric both sensual and rich in history. I like the feel of it under my fingers. I like the way the cotton goes from wrinkled to crisp as I stroke it with the iron. I like the routine of ironing a shirt: collar, left cuff, sleeve back, sleeve front, right cuff, sleeve back, sleeve front, right shoulder, yoke, left shoulder, left front, back, right front, done. I smooth the tight cotton with my hand, then with steam, then with the iron. Lift and pull, taking the shirt though its stations on the board.

Fabric is amazing stuff. Thread is amazing stuff. As I work I feel connected to a thousand generations, mostly women, who took bits of fluff, cotton or wool, and transformed into thread, then fabric, then garments. I've spun on a drop spindle, and I know the magic of feeling strong, useful yarn come into being as it passes through my hands.

I follow a woven stripe with the point of the iron, assured I am working with the grain. I whisk the finished shirt off the board, crisp, slightly damp, too malleable still to hang in the closet. I arrange it gently on the hanger, hang it in the door frame, and carefully fasten two buttons. It pleases me, hanging there, perfect, the work of my hands.

Music for a philosophy of life

2010-01-15T18:47:00.000-08:00

I'll be taking Mastery I early in February. The registration materials include this item:

In preparation for Mastery I, please choose a piece of music to bring on a CD to the program that summarizes your philosophy of life. This piece of music is to be clearly labeled with your name, the song title and the track number.

I have been agonizing over this for more than a week now. I'm realizing that I don't much listen to music with lyrics (I like to listen to music while I'm writing, and lyrics are a distraction). When I do listen to music with lyrics, it's usually something rollicking, like "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown." Fun stuff, but about as far as you can get from my philosophy of life.

A couple of years ago Seattle's Civic Light Opera put on Annie Get Your Gun. The actress who played Annie sang a rendition of Sun in the Morning that is a strong contender. Sweet as a sigh, heartfelt as a prayer. It resonates with me. But does it nail my philosophy of life?

I considered finding a piece of music without lyrics. Grieg's Morning Mood, say. I've loved that one since I was a kid. But the whole point is for the music to articulate my philosophy. If I have to write a speech to go with it, it kind of misses the point.

So... here's my philosophy of life, close as I know. Let me know if any piece of music that you know springs to mind.

I feel that the connections between living things are the truest reality, and that this world is a laboratory or classroom for learning the importance of those connections, and how to make and sustain them. We have bodies that need food, so that we can break bread together. We have beauty around us, so that we can share it and retell it. In this life, we learn to give and accept things we need, things that may sometimes be scarce. We sample fear and trust and betrayal and loyalty and anger and remorse. We learn love.

In a nutshell, we are here to pet the cat. And the cat is here to be a warm bundle in our arms, and soothe our hearts with purring. The rest is props and shop dressing.

An overdue update

2010-01-13T15:03:00.000-08:00

Wow, it has been a long time since I posted. So much has happened around here. In brief:

We processed SOME of the wood that we took down in the summer of 07. We filled the woodshed completely, and have been enjoying dry firewood this winter. This is especially important since we don't have a furnace currently. More on that later.
I have been taking a series of experiential classes through Context International: Pursuit of Excellence, The Wall, Advancement of Excellence, and Inside Passage. I'll be taking Mastery I in a few weeks. These courses have really helped me turn a lot of corners in my life. The last traces of burnout seem to have been swept away. I'm ready and eager to get back into the workplace. My relationship with Jim is stronger and happier. And...
I have started work on a piece of fiction. I'm thinking of a series of short stories that together can become a book. The setting is Baghdad around 785 to 800 AD -- during the Abbasid caliphate. (The idea has been rattling around in my head for decades, long before Baghdad became a staple of the evening news.) I've been doing research on the period. I've been writing back stories for the characters. Those back stories are a great tool -- when I put the character in a scene, the nuances of what he does and what he notices and how he speaks all fall into place. Exhausting, exhilarating work.
We ripped out the kitchen cabinets. We'd seen a wee bit of mold and were deeply concerned that there was a lot more hidden behind the cabinets. There was not (whew!). However...
We discovered that mice had been chewing the wiring. Mostly old damage, apparently from before we moved in. But exposed wires are dangerous no matter how long they have been there. There were scorch marks around some of them. So...
Most of the circuits in the house have been shut off. We are rewiring the entire house in conduit -- it's called a "commercial tube job" and it's a monstrous piece of work. There might be a couple of walls we don't have to rip open, but essentially the house will be a shambles for months.
We trust the circuits Jim put in conduit out to the garage, and we are running heavy duty extension cords from them to various parts of the house. And he ran a fresh wire to the water heater early on. But the furnace is not hooked up. Nor is the drier, although the washer is.

The electrical issue has thrown a wrench in the kitchen remodel plans. We had set up a very nice camp kitchen on the back porch, in September. (This had the happy side effect of necessitating an enclosure for the goats OFF the back porch.) That became less useful when we had that little bout of freezing weather. We had to disconnect the hose from the utility sink we had set up. We had to keep popping back into the house to warm up.

And the toaster seemed not to work. Turns out that ambient temperature has an effect there -- those little elements were giving it their all, but the cold pouring into the bread slots defeated them. Indoors, we get toast.

So now we are well on the way to at indoor camp kitchen -- something we can live with until we redo the wiring, move the electrical panel (that was part of the original remodel plan), and have the inspector out. After the inspection, we can put drywall up, install cabinets. Until then, we will have cheap counters & plastic rolling drawer units. We'll tack down a scrap of vinyl flooring to protect the exposed subfloor. The dishwasher is hooked up and usable (provided we aren't running the space heater in the living room at the same time). The kitchen sink will go in RSN. We will get to test-drive and fine-tune the layout of the new kitchen. We've already been doing a lot of that -- it is increasingly obvious that we will not be buying off-the-shelf cabinets. Jim will be building cabinets that tuck into wall spaces, especially where we have thickened walls. He has a nice stockpile of high-end hinges and drawer slides, and that will deal with a lot of the expense.

Since we have expanded the kitchen, taking over the old laundry room, we'll have about 40% more counter space, somewhat more cupboard space, and a much, much better traffic flow. We will have our caffeine corner -- coffee & tea equipment isolated in one corner of the kitchen, with its own tiny bar sink. The stove will be propane, and we will be installing the tankless gas water heater we've had in the box since before we moved here. Hot water during power outages! Woo-hoo!

And, let's see, what else has been going on? Jim's been taking classes at Bellevue College, formalizing his on-the-job business training and filling in a few gaps. He is taking a break from that now, to focus more on the house projects. (Projects. Did I mention the upstairs bath? It ended up needing a remodel as part of the kitchen remodel. It's stripped out, expanded, and has a generous shower stall framed in.)

Jim is now looking into becoming a real estate agent. I think he'd be good at it. This is a scary market to start in, but it's a scary market for doing much of anything. I'm looking for work as a writer. I'm hanging back on the faux finishing until the economy picks up, but I'll be doing all the walls in the house. That will be fun, and I'll have some cool stuff for my finishing portfolio.

Rosie, one smart goat

2009-05-24T10:45:00.000-07:00

The goats are penned in an enclosed back porch, which has glass doors leading to the living room & dining room. They are currently sharing it with many, many chickens who arrived in early March. The goats are tethered to one section of the porch.

Rose has figured out how to loosen her collar enough to slip out of it. This morning Jim discovered that she had:

Slipped out of her collar
Eaten all the chicken feed (she'll need to eat a lot of roughage today to avoid a catastrophic tummy ache)
Started to work on the door handle to get into the house. They are lever type handles; she's quite capable of figuring them out.

I have this image of waking up to a goat climbing into bed with me. Dearie, dearie me.

The Mysterious Traveler has a nice post on the goats, including a view from my living room. Rose is the one in the pink collar.

A new tea house

2009-02-17T13:44:00.000-08:00

It is important to me to have a place to go and relax over a cup of really good tea. My all-time favorite was Tiger Mt. Tea in Gilman Village, but they are now web-only. Yesterday on my way home from visiting Julia I ended up at Crossroads Mall in Bellevue, and stopped in at Xiu Xian Tea. It was lovely.

First let me tell you that their web site only hints at the varieties of tea they carry. One long wall is lined with big jars of tea, behind a counter. And in front of that counter are small jars of the same teas. You can open the small jars, sniff them, look at them -- without disturbing the tea that's for sale.

The staff was very helpful in suggesting teas to sample. Yes, sample. This is where it gets luxurious. I was guided to one of two large gong fu tea tables near the front of the store. These tables are works of art, carved from huge burls, waterproofed, and fitted with a drain. The one I was at had several levels, a carved bridge, and two dragon heads -- all designed so that water poured anywhere on the table flows to the drain. Electric water kettles are nearby, and there are a number of gaiwans for brewing the tea samples. The chairs are also carved from burls, and are really comfortable.

Your hostess puts a sample of a tea you have chosen in a gaiwan, rinses it with water from the kettle, and pours out the rinse water. New water goes into gaiwan, the brewed tea is poured into a serving pitcher and then...

At the moment it is served in a paper cup. The kitchen has just been set up, and the dishwasher isn't installed yet. My recommendation: Bring a tasting cup, or buy a $1 tasting cup at the store. Paper adds an odd taste to these delicate teas.

I tasted several teas, three that I'd sniffed out and some that were already sitting in the gaiwans on the table. I bought three:

Sweet Jade, that has an incredible vanilla overtone although it is just tea, no added flavoring
Iron God (rich) a savory and complex oolong with a silky finish
An organic Pu Erh (Palace - Rich) with a gorgeous red color and good earthy flavor

I'm looking forward to going back there. While this is primarily a place to buy tea, they do have small tables at the back of the shop with gong fu tea trays where you can linger over a pot of tea, brewing and re-brewing to enjoy all the flavors the tea has to offer. If you are in the area and want a peaceful place to unwind, I recommend it. Maybe I'll see you there.

Twitter

2009-02-14T10:54:00.000-08:00

Karen, bless her, has turned me on to Twitter. I've mailed the URL for her post What's Twitter, and why I love it to a few people, and now I'm sharing that URL with you here. If you've heard of Twitter and your reaction was along the lines of ??What?, Why?, or "That's just silly," check out Karen's post. And let me know when you sign up for Twitter.

New chicks on order

2009-02-12T16:00:00.000-08:00

I got an email yesterday from Ideal Poultry. My name came up on the waiting list for Barnevelders! Barnevelders are one of the breeds of chickens that lay dark, dark brown eggs. They're pretty rare, hence the waiting list.

I called Ideal today and placed my entire chick order with them:

15 Barnevelders
6 Easter Eggers (EEs)
15 Australorps (Aussies)
6 Silver-laced Wyandottes
6 Gold-laced Wyandottes
8 Red sex-link
5 Gold sex-link

They are scheduled to ship 5 March, so I'm hoping for an EARLY call from the post office on the morning of the 6th.

Himself plans to be building the chicken coop starting 20 March, when his classes let out. He assures me the work will go fast once it starts. He's going to scale it for 100 chickens, with two runs. That way everyone will still have space to stretch her wings and do all those other important chicken activities. And I'll be able to keep the new chicks separate from the adults.

Short term, we'll have the brooder cage on the back porch, which is still enclosed as a goat stall.

Laid off, sorta

2009-02-09T00:23:00.000-08:00

For the past couple of years I've had a dream gig, writing technical documentation part-time, from home, for a group of really nice people with a well thought out product. About a week and a half ago, in the middle of a mail thread on what they'd like me to work on next, I got the following message: "I was just talking to _____ to see what the high priorities are for the next few months and we feel we are in a great position (much thanks to you). For now we are going to hold off any new updates to the manuals and see where that takes us. We will definitely keep you informed if our needs change."

The suddenness of the shift threw me off for a day or two, but frankly I'm more excited about what might be next than I am concerned about what just went away. The world is changing (again), and in change there is always opportunity. I'm good with words, I'm good with critters, and I believe that there is the opportunity for depth and richness in everything we do. Surely I can combine all of that to make a life that supports me financially, emotionally, and spiritually.

While I was writing manuals in Word, Web-based writing and networking grew and morphed, and continues to do so. There it is again, change and opportunity. So I'm actively studying the current state of web-based writing, including blogging, networking, and things like Twitter. I'm studying search engine optimization (SEO). I'm looking for the next shift in this wonderful connected world the Web has brought us.

I'm watching for ways to draw together seemingly disparate skills and interests (animals, technology, psychology, bead work and textile arts, small farm management, ...). They all have one thing, at least, in common: they all live in me. Ergo, they all fit together, and they all describe the way that I fit into the world. My work right now is to find how I can offer them up in a way that supports me and mine in return.

FRESH Eggs!

2009-01-27T18:28:00.000-08:00

Breakfast this morning included two fresh eggs for each of us. We are talking still warm from the chicken here. The whites are thick and the yolks are firm and round and deep orange. The flavor is great -- we had them over easy with not so much as salt and pepper and they held their own just fine.

Last week I started to have two eggs for dinner and ended up having four. I had them with Roasted Roots -- in this case a yam, a double handful of red potatoes, and a yellow onion, all cubed, tossed with lemon juice and olive oil, sprinkled with salt, pepper, and an Italian herb blend, and spread out on a foil-lined baking pan. Bake at 350 until tender and just starting to caramelize.

If you are thinking it might be nice to have a couple of chickens in your back yard, even just for the eggs, the answer is yes. Once you get set up with housing for them, their care takes minutes a day: Check that there is enough food & water, toss them food scraps from your kitchen and any weeds you've been pulling from your garden, and bring in the eggs. Most people end up hanging out with the chickens a bit more than that, though, because they are amusing. You'll want to really clean out the coop once or twice a year, say on some nice spring day as part of gardening. Other than that even cleanup is minimal (scatter food grade diatomaceous earth & wood chips once every week or two or three). All in all, a flock of chickens is much less work than a cat or a dog. And they do a great job on those garden weeds.

I've started selling eggs, too. Himself, watching the egg cartons pile up in the fridge, was threatening to serve chicken dinner if I didn't start selling eggs to subsidize their upkeep and housing. Our flock of twelve is producing almost five dozen eggs per week. So I ran an ad on Craigslist, and now have a few families that I'll be supplying on a regular basis.

Of course, that's encouraging me to get MORE chickens. I'll be putting in an order soon.

We have GOT to get that coop built. The big girls are OK in a sheltered run, but babies need better protection in the late winter and early spring.

The creek is rising

2009-01-07T14:28:00.000-08:00

There is a lovely little seasonal creek just behind our house. It usually runs from late fall to mid or late spring, maybe until early summer if it has been a wet winter.

At the moment, it is running the highest I've ever seen it. It's making a wonderful noise, and it's flooding much of the back yard. We've been clearing branches from the culvert to make sure it doesn't flood near the house.

The winter has, so far, been pretty extraordinary. A dusting of snow or a freezing night is usually a big deal here. We had snow on the ground from December 19th until this morning, and it was below freezing for most of that time. Here are some pics from the snow.

Now, of course, we have the high water (with plenty of rain coming down to join that snow melt). It's only January; we are getting into the winter weather season. I'm glad we have lots of firewood, and a generator.

The Year of Prompt Solutions

2009-01-01T20:30:00.000-08:00

The new year sputtered to a start in our neighborhood -- the pump went out on the community well sometime New Years Eve, and we all woke up to no water. Happily, it was fixed and the system recharged before nightfall. Maybe 2009 will be the Year of Prompt Solutions.

I've got some serious must-do items for the coming year: I need to get my house in order, literally and figuratively.

Literally:
We are still sorting through all the stuff -- from Jim's business closing, from my folks downsizing, from plain old unexamined accumulations. I am starting to see the light at the end of that tunnel, and that helps.

We still aren't really set up for the critters. We put temporary insulated walls up on the back porch to see the goats through our extra-severe winter weather. Gigi was still recovering when the cold hit and we really needed to keep them warm. We need a real goat shed for them. They won't appreciate it, though. They've gotten used to watching us in the living room at night. The chickens will appreciate a proper coop. They did amazingly well through the cold, partly by eating heroic quantities of layer pellets. But now the runoff from the melting snow is invading their run, and damp is worse for them than cold. Well, at least it is well-ventilated.

We managed to tear up the yard, front & back, last summer. Now we need to landscape and plant.

Figuratively cleaning house, now that's harder. I need to sort out some new directions for my work. I'm burned out on the kind of writing that has been my bread & butter for so long. Really, really burned out. It's a bit scary. So I'm looking at other ways to make a living. Faux finishing... I'm pretty good at it but this is not the economy to build a new business like that. (But, oooh, I do want to get into those traditional lime plasters. Beautiful stuff, natural materials, and it makes for a healthy indoor environment. That is what we will be wanting in our homes.) Writing is still my mainstay. I'm looking at ways to make money writing about things other than computers and software.

With the house clean and tidy, the animals properly housed, and work in front of me that doesn't constantly remind me of difficult times, I expect to have a lot more energy. Enough to get paying work done and still have the time and enegy to work in the garden and with the animals, doing the things that light me up.

I don't know how long your "must do" list is for this year. But I know we are all apprehensive about the economy, the ecosystem, etc. So let us raise our cups to the Year of Prompt Solutions.

Tea Sites

2008-12-07T16:42:00.000-08:00

StumbleUpon just led me to a great site for tea lovers. Gong Fu Girl appears to be Seattle-based. She posts lots of thoughtful information about buying, brewing, and enjoying tea, including links to tea houses in the area. I've added her site to my "Links I Like" list.

Of the essence

2008-11-08T11:01:00.000-08:00

In my last post, I listed some of the projects that we are working on. You might have gotten an idea of the outrageous level of mess and confusion I've been living with these last few months. For me the baseline for living is a clean and orderly environment in which to work, so the mess and confusion is a major issue. Added to that are worries about the economy (national and personal) and about the ecology. This is the kind of thing that spins me out and makes me completely dysfunctional.

And yet...

I am profoundly content. And I think it has to do with keeping the chickens and goats.

I wouldn't say that chickens and goats inevitably confer contentment. But for me, having critters in my life is literally essential: it resonates with the essence of who I am. Back when I was working with Curt Rosengren, the Passion Catalyst, he said to me, "You are all about Life." (I was having trouble coming to terms with the fact that the place I worked, which is not at all about Life, was a really bad fit for me.)

There is, apparently, some inborn farmer in me. It skipped a generation and I never got to spend much time with any of my grandparents, so who knew?

I just recently learned from my mother that both of my grandmothers loved to work outside. I knew that my father's mother worked in the fields a lot, but I had not known that it was her preference. Turns out she had a team of horses and hired out to neighbors as well as working her own acreage, back in the Depression when she was a single mom. I never even got to meet her; she died while my dad was still in high school. We would have had so much fun together.

My mother's father was good with animals, plants, and the land itself. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, before anyone was talking about contour farming, he used what he called "lay of the land." He pruned trees with a pocket knife, gently pruning the branches while they were still the tiniest of twigs. That takes getting to know each tree and shrub as an individual, and visiting it often. He could work with animals that no one else could get near. He had a series of farms that he bought when they were worthless and built up to be valuable, productive land. He died, a very old man, when I was five. I was with him perhaps a week in all of my life. But I find that I look at land and plants and animals the same way that he did. How did this gift come down to me? I think that my mother acquired his outlook on life, and it has informed everything she does all of these years. And that in turn was passed on to me. It's about respect and responsibility toward each living thing around you, and joy in sharing the world with all these kinds of life. It is about letting them be who and what they are -- reveling in who and what they are -- even when you must take complete control over their lives.

I am content because I have in my life what is essential to me. What is essential to you?

What a hectic summer it has been!

2008-10-31T16:07:00.000-07:00

The Mysterious Traveler pointed out that I've not been blogging. This led me to two startling realizations:

It really HAS been a long time since I posted anything.
Someone is actually reading what I post.

Well, I'm here to tell you, it wasn't for lack of material. It has been a crazy summer, and "must do by end of summer" chores are still piled up around us. Here is a short summary:

Remove sick trees
We knew we had a couple of sick trees. And I'd been talking with Josh (who we were renting goats from) about doing some landscaping. He does trees. So we had him look at the suspicious trees, and he pointed out some that we had not realized were a concern. I mean, he could walk up and stick his hand into a rotted trunk. So...

All told we took out 17 trees. At the base, they ranged in diameter from about 14 " to close to 5'. And in a lot of cases they were more rot than wood at the base. For example, the three maple trunks growing over our bedroom (actually over our bed) had a thin ring of wood around a massive hole in the center. I don't know how we got through winter storms the past few years without being crushed as we slept.

There is a lot of wood in 17 tall trees. Even after you discount the rotted parts. Really, really. A LOT of wood. We have

Hillocks of chipped brush and ground stumps.
A wall of massive rounds of firewood completely that blocks the back driveway.
The woodshed is nearly full of split wood.
There are towering heaps of split wood waiting to be stacked. Somewhere. (Note: Hydraulic log splitters are good things.)
And we bought 2 Costco tents to shelter the sawn lumber.

The guy with the portable sawmill is great, BTW. Greg's Mobile Milling. I recommend him. We are still getting the lumber in the tents, stickered so it dries properly. But we are set for fences, a goat shed, and a truly magnificent hot tub gazebo (that's Himself's pet project; I've attached a rider for a steam sauna/shower). And we have another heap of firewood from squaring off the logs.

All this tree cutting suffered some delays. Not through any fault of Josh's, I hasten to add. Mostly problems getting the crane operator out to pluck up the trees closest to the house as they were cut, and lay them gently in place for the miller. The guy who finally showed up was a prima donna who laid out the wood in a haphazard pile. When we could get him off the phone long enough to work. It was September by the time we had the trees down, and then we had to rent a backhoe to rearrange them so the miller could access them.

Get my goat(s)
I mentioned in my last post, ever so long ago, that I was considering goats. I got goats, I love the goats, but it was a rough start. Of the three little goatlings that Josh brought out for me to choose from, one died within 48 hours, and another a couple of weeks later. Josh looked at everything I was doing, where I kept them, what food they had access to, and assured me I really was not doing anything wrong. We never did figure out what happened to the first casualty. Josh took Sadie home for a backyard autopsy. She had eaten a handful of dry ferns (why, with all the lush green available to her???) and that blocked her up and gave her a bit of bloat. Which she probably would have survived; we were treating it. But she had a wee bit of a cold. Which she probably would have gotten over quickly. But with the bloat, she was laying down. And laying down was the worst thing for her cold. It turned into pneumonia. From eating the dry stuff to death was maybe 18 hours.

Rosie, meanwhile, was robustly healthy. Eating her way through a forest of blackberries, sweet, smart, and energetic. She even dealt well with being an only goat for a few weeks. Now I have Rosie and Gigi. Rosie is the clear leader & the brains of the operation. Gigi lets Rosie pull things down where she can reach them -- or calls for me to do it. Gigi is purebred Nubian; Rosie is 3/4 Alpine and 1/4 Kiko (and that Kiko is probably the source of her smarts and vigor).

Together they've cleared the back yard. We can see the trunks of the trees along the road in the back yard. We moved into this house nine years ago, and we have never seen those trunks before. They were smothered in blackberries.

Butterfly lady has extended a standing invitation to the girls to dine on their blackberries, so Rosie and Gigi are busy extending the neighbors' meadow.

Clear the coop area
Early in the summer, we identified a good area for the chicken coop -- at the road end of the back drive. It had a scattering of brambles and scrub, and it was really uneven ground, and it had a pile of mixed brush on top of an old maple log blocking access.

We cleared it.
It filled up with trim from the big (BIG!) cedar that needed to come down.
Chipped the branches -- coop area was clear.
Then the crane operator filled it with trees.
Himself moved those to the far side of the driveway, and then filled the area with logs positioned to roll onto the portable mill.
The millers cut that, then started work on the logs in the front yard.
Himself staged the rest of the logs on the coop area. (Seventeen trees. A LOT of wood. Lordy, lordy!)
The millers cut all but the marginal stuff at the back of the stack.
Himself cut the marginal stuff into rounds, and Millionaires helped move that to the driveway (where it now forms an impenetrable wall) when they were out to help move the heaviest lumber.

Now the coop area is pretty much clear. The slabs from the outside of the logs are pushed to one side, in a pile about 12' long and 6' high and 5' deep. When we can get to the coop area (past the wall of rounds in the driveway), we can rake it smooth, shovel in some sawdust and maybe some gravel so we (never mind the coop) don't sink out of site in the muck, and start building. The girls can hardly wait. I mean, really. They need their coop!

Eat chicken
Did I mention that two of the chickens turned out to be roosters? Those roosters turned out to be vicious. Rhymes with delicious, which they were also. I was the only one who could go into the pen once those roosters matured, and I had to constantly watch my back. Collecting eggs should not be dangerous.

Really, I didn't know chicken could be so flavorful. The pullets get table scraps, and boy did they enjoy the rooster left-overs. Himself was convinced that they knew exactly who they were tearing into. (The roosters were a bit rough on their girls -- but not as bad as they were on us.)

Tidy up the back yard
I mentioned the goats. They do a great job eating leaves and small stems off the brambles. I spent a lot of happy hours with the goats, clipping out the bigger branches so they could keep moving through the yard. Among other things, they cleared access to one of the trees that needed to come down.

Having the backhoe let us do a few other things -- take out stumps both new and old in the back yard, etc. We've been burning half-rotted stumps & roots off and on since the burn season started (1 October). I've scattered clover seed on the exposed earth, and started separating out the stones.

Right now, though, the back yard looks pretty raw.

We've identified a fence line; we will need to build fences to keep the neighbor's dogs away from the livestock. That's another story.

Bury my father's ashes
When enough of the back yard was cleared, we were able to access the spot where I wanted to plant a willow and bury my father's ashes. We had a tiny ceremony on his birthday. It was harder than I expected, but gives an element of closure.

Get things organized indoors
Himself started with the lovely room over the garage, that had been wasted on storage while designated as my sewing room. We've been going through everything, making a conscious decision whether to keep each item. I need to list the things we have decided to sell; donations have been going out in batches. We are maybe halfway through this project and I can't remember the last time we didn't have boxes of stuff everywhere -- all through the house, and on both porches.

I even burned old financial records -- cancelled checks from the '70s and '80s and '90s. That was hard. It was like burning diaries. So much of my life is recorded only in those old records.

Paying work
I did a little faux finishing. More technical writing at this point. I do that part time, for one client. I work from home & set my own hours, and check the goats and chickens on breaks.

Beadwork
Learned netting and ndebele stitch, and used them in some necklaces that came out great. I will get pix and post them.

Structural Materials from Cellulose?

2008-06-06T13:50:00.000-07:00

My Google home page led me to this article: New 'super-paper' is stronger than cast iron.

I love this. A gentler processing method for extracting cellulose yields a strong, resilient material. We get structural strength from renewable resources. I look forward to seeing where this takes us.

The information junkie considers goats

2008-05-19T11:32:00.000-07:00

First, I must confess that I am an information junkie. I collect information like a pack rat. When I'm stressed, I collect information frenetically. Not necessarily information that pertains to the issue at hand. Any and all information will do. Some odd detail about issues facing Andean potato farmers? I'm all over it. My wonderful psychologist suggested that, when stressed, I NOT listen to NPR.

So you can imagine what I'm like when considering a new venture.

Like, um, keeping goats.

You see, the brush is growing back. And there were areas that the goats couldn't get to because the ground was wet etc. And they are really, really nice animals. I was talking to Butterfly Woman yesterday, and she's thinking the same thing. Maybe we could go in together on a pair of goats. They have an old dog run on their property that could be the basis of a goat shed... hmmm...

So this morning the information junky was sitting in front of her computer, thinking about goats, and found the most wonderful site: Fias Co Farm. Excellent, practical information on goat care. And I'm definitely going to get some of the herbals they sell.

I've been planning to write "The information junkie considers chickens" for weeks now. I'll let you know how I organize the information (all on my computer; the last thing I need is more paper around the house!) And I'll give you a more complete list of links than the short list in the sidebar. Keep an eye out for it!

Sun on the feathers

2008-05-15T17:58:00.000-07:00

Today we had an abnormally warm day, and I decided to take the chicks out to the front yard for a bit of sun.

This is not a matter of taking them out and letting them run free -- too many predators & too many chicks to chase.

So I had to rig up a holding pen for them. I have scrap lumber and hardware cloth. Himself prefers that we not use up material that could go toward the desperately needed hen house, so I'm trying not to cut or nail anything. I'd be shy about cutting anyway, since I avoid using his tools or getting into his workspace.

I succeeded in putting together a VERY rough pen with boards (some of them already nailed together), a plastic table on its side, a pitchfork, a weed bag... you get the picture. My wonderful neighbor, Butterfly Woman, helped me rig up the last of it and load in the chickens.

The pen had three sections for the three flocks, although I hoped to bring that down to two flocks by the end of the day. The Specs are three weeks old and fast outgrowing their tub brooder.

Here are some of the Ameraucanas stretching in the sunlight, while Speckled Sussex chicks watch the big girls through the wire. The Amers loved the sun -- they'd lay on their side and spread their feathers out to the sun, exposing as much skin as they could.

After a while, the Specs found a way around the barrier between the pens and started venturing into the section with the Amers. To our relief, they were mostly ignored by the big girls, except for Rachel who would fly at them with talons out. But she made no effort to actually hurt the chicks, even when she had one cornered. She just wanted to make sure they know who's boss. The Specs have always been so full of themselves, it's kind of nice to see them taken down a notch.

Here is a shot of Rachel, showing off her black cape. As chickens go, she looks a lot like an eagle.

We did have eagles out today: a huge bald eagle and a much smaller one, very high up. It looked like a flying lesson.

Another large bird -- eagle or large hawk -- came in closer, definately eyeing the chickens. Butterfly Woman saw it in the treetops of the yard and raised the alarm. As it flew close overhead we could see very distinctive markings on the underside of its wings. No pics of that one -- I was too busy getting a cover over the chicks. It watched as we spread out the linen we'd used an a shade cover and the hardware cloth we'd been using as a divider between the Specs and Amers. Then it waggled its tail at us and flew away.

The Aussie chicks got to get out too. Here they are resting in the sunlight.

Pics!

2008-05-14T21:43:00.000-07:00

I'm finally adding pics to the blog. Check out the Caprine Dream Team post. I'll add to the chicken posts later. I still don't have it working as easily as it should, but at least it is sorta working.

My computer does not recognize an SD card in its own drive, but it turns out that it does recognize it in the printer (or in my Windows Mobile device, when it deigns to recognize the PDA). Whatever. I was able to import into Picassa.

And from Picassa, I could add them to a web album. Or with ridiculous effort paste them into an existing blog post.

Testing the predator-proof cage

2008-05-09T22:35:00.000-07:00

I had the chicken cage on the back porch nicely screened with bubble wrap on 3 sides, but tonight when I went to tuck the girls in (i.e., toss a drop cloth over the remaining side) the bubble wrap was shredded. Raccoons, I'm sure. Tomorrow I put on a better latch, before they figure out how easy the makeshift one would be to open.

When we build the hen house it will be a fortress.

Annie Get Your Gun

2008-05-09T15:48:00.000-07:00

Last night Himself and I went to see a great live performance of Annie Get Your Gun. Our neighbor, Renaissance Man, is doing the drums for the performance and invited us to the "night before opening" rehearsal.

The performance was thoroughly enjoyable. The cast (and the music!) is good all around, but the woman playing Annie is just amazing. Watching her transitions between bodacious and vulnerable really drew me in to the story. And her voice, both singing and speaking, is beautiful and expressive.

If you get a chance, check it out.

Venue: Magnuson Park Recreation/Theatre
7400 Sand Point Way NE
View Ridge (Sand Point/Magnuson Park), SEATTLE
206-363-2809
Opening Night: Friday, May 9, 2008
Closes: Sunday, May 25, 2008

A hard anniversary

2008-05-08T16:14:00.000-07:00

A week ago I had one of the harder anniversaries in life. My father died May 2, 2007. There were a lot of good things in the manner of his passing. We had a heads up in October, followed by surgery that seemed to be successful. When the cancer came back we had a scant two months -- long enough to come to terms, and long enough to say all the goodbyes. He was alert and relaxed a week before he died. There were just four days when it took two of us to take care of him, and we were able to do that at home, with hospice services. Morphine kept his pain at bay, and his head clear. He died in his sleep after a long life. In his last weeks all the fears that had constricted his life seemed to fall away, and he was more alive than I'd ever seen him.

All that is fine. But none of it changes the fact that a year ago I lost my Daddy.

I was in a REALLY pissy mood on May 2, 2008. I was on an astonishingly short fuse -- had to call someone back to apologize for yelling at them. (The issue was real, but my tone of voice was uncalled for and, more to the point, counter-productive.)

Last year, I was in that shocky buffer zone that keeps you functioning after a loss. Last year I spent months dealing with the paper work and errands connected with a loss, giving my mother time to grieve for the only sweetheart she ever had. This year, I had no buffers.

Just a suggestion, but if you lose someone close to you note the anniversary on your calendar and plan to be someplace comforting that week. Plan to be non-functional.

More peeps, and a quick calculation

2008-05-08T15:42:00.000-07:00

Stopped by the Grange yesterday for a bag of chicken starter feed, and WOW -- they finally got some Australorps! There were two dates this spring when they were expected. I ran down to Grange early both times, and no Aussies. Now here they were.

Yes, of course I bought some. Five little fuzzy black & white ping-pong balls.

These girls are really sweet. They actually like to be held -- one was clinging to the neighbor girl when she tried to put it down. Docile is good, in chickens. The Speckled Sussex still run away and then fight to get free while you hold them; the Ameraucanas are somewhere in the middle.

The Aussies are notoriously heavy layers. I did a quick back of the envelope calculation and figured I'll get roughly 300 eggs per month once the whole flock starts laying. That's 14 pullets at present, unless I have mis-identified chicks. It would be nice to sell enough in the neighborhood & to friends that I don't need to do a farmers' market very often. I see many egg dishes in my future, too. I'm pretty sure I'm going to end up wanting yet more chickens down the road, which will make matters better or worse, depending on how my egg marketing program goes.

I have all but the oldest chicks still in the house, where they can keep warm. I've read that chicks should NOT be kept in the house, and particularly not near food prep areas. Nonetheless, there mine are on the dining table, with a brooder light hanging from the chandelier. Well, Himself was adamant that they not be in the living room. Eventually they will all be outdoors, and I will miss their chatter. Chickens are all about their flock, and they talk to each other constantly, mostly with reassuring babble that comforts people too. With the youngsters, that babble is a quiet but constant peeping and chirping. It's really nice to wake up to.

Update on the waterers: The small one is IN USE, sitting on top of the Specs' brooder bin with the pegs poking through the hardware cloth. They love it. I had to rig up a cross-beam for the outdoor brooder, and then discovered that one of the peg holes in the bucket is leaking. I have it drying out now so I can re-seal it.

Keeping chicks supplied with water

2008-05-03T13:57:00.000-07:00

My five little Ameraucanas are five weeks old already. As babies they were brown and black pretty little markings on their faces. Then their feathers came in and in one day their faces changed completely. They are now almost fully feathered in beautiful dark browns and russets, except for Rachel who turned white with black speckles. She has a snowy white breast and has just added a coal-black cape. Absolutely stunning.

We got them into an outdoor brooder last week. It's just hardware cloth over a sturdy frame, on the back porch, with clear plastic and moving blankets tossed over, but the girls were so happy to have some space to spread their wings. The plastic tub we used for the starter brooder was getting cramped. The new space even has a low roost, so they'll stop roosting on the feeding trough. However they still fill the trough with the wood shavings we give them for litter, and then it's "Where's the food?" I just dump the trough into the litter and let them scratch for it.

Meanwhile, the four Speckled Sussex chicks are a week and a half old. Amazingly, they are growing even faster than the Ameraucanas. Mind you, the afternoon of the day I brought the Amers home I called my neighbor and said, "I think they've grown already." Got a big laugh until she came over -- they really had. So for the Specks to grow faster is saying something. At one week they were able to fly out of the tub brooder, something the first batch couldn't do at three weeks. They are already showing little serrated combs (no combs yet on batch 1).

And they are more rambunctious. Specifically, they keep emptying their waterer. I'm pretty sure it's usually a matter of scratching the paper towels on the floor of the brooder into the waterer, so that all the water wicks out onto the bedding, but they've dumped the whole thing over a couple of times too. Either way it is a problem. Growing chicks need lots of water IN them, and dry bedding.

Water has been a problem for batch 1, too, although they never dumped it. They just pooped in it. I kept raising it on blocks -- ideally it is about level with their backs, easy to drink from but hard to poop in. When I switched them from paper to wood shavings, the waterer inevitably was filled with bedding no matter what the height, and the bedding just soaks up all the water.

What I really want for watering is what they call a nipple waterer. Water goes into a pipe or reservoir, and fittings hang down to a height the chicks or chickens can reach by stretching their necks up to it. A chicken pushes on a post in the middle of the fitting, which opens a valve, and water trickles down her throat. Chickens don't swallow; they need to stretch their necks up and let the water trickle down anyway. So nipple waterers are a natural for them, and the water never gets dirty or spilled.

Most nipple waterers are designed for commercial operations and are expensive. However there is a company in Scotland that has setups for backyard flocks (look here). I've got the kit, but it isn't set up yet. Eventually I'll have it in a bucket in the coop, but there isn't room for a bucket to hang over the birds in either brooder. We've been scrambling to find a temporary solution using the pieces from the kit.

Meanwhile, we've been trying to use the "ball bearing in a tube" systems that you find in the pet stores for hamsters, parakeets, etc. The chicks love them, but they peck at it so hard that they jam the ball up into the tube, cutting off the water supply. And since the water tube is coming down at an angle instead of overhead, they often miss most of the water -- and there we are with the wet bedding problem again.

So... Today's priority is to get the brooders set up with overhead nipple waterers.

A caprine dream team

2008-04-23T15:37:00.000-07:00

It's been nearly two weeks since the neighbors brought the goats over for me to take a turn with them.

We had something between .25 to .5 acre in brambles: blackberries and salmon berries to a height of about 7'. They were growing over several downed trees and a seasonal stream, none of which you could see any more. It was pretty overwhelming.

I figured the goats would do the bulk of the work, and I'd be relatively free -- move them once or twice a day, and go in later to clip the big stuff out.

The goats do the bulk of the work. I do NOT get off so easy. But I love working out there with the goats.

Since the property is not fenced, the goats need to be tethered. This means moving them often. It also means freeing them when they've wound the tether around branches or brambles. The most experienced goat, the handsome buck Chop, almost never gets his tether tangled, but Daisy is new to the tether and has managed to truss her hind leg up in a complex knot, tight against a branch. All three does get their tethers snagged on things fairly often.

Chop posing for the camera; Chop working the brush

Clipping the big stuff doesn't wait either -- I need to clear more space to take them into, I need to clip away the canes they've wrapped the tether around, and sometimes I need to clip the brambles down so they can reach them.

All four goats are a pleasure to work with. They are gentle, easy-going, and friendly. Whenever possible, they are within touching distance of me, or leaning up against my leg. As we have gotten to know each other and they have gotten to know the yard, we've formed a brush-clearing team. I know the goats' preferences: Daisy prefers not to have to climb for forage, Princess is happy to do so.

Princess nibbles salmonberry leaves.

Chop will break down a wall of brambles with his body as a matter of routine, to get to the tender leaves at the top. Babycakes loves ferns. Princess loves Chop and wants to be with him whenever possible. And they know my preferences: when I pull up the tether stake, wait for me before heading out. Move slowly. Ignore the Rhody (it could poison them). Ignore the Camillia. I can point to an area and ask, "Could you get that out for me?" and Chop or Princess will give it a go.

And they do a GREAT job clearing the brush. This area was solid brambles just a day or two earlier:

More on the goats later, meanwhile here are some more pics.

Daisy checks out the living room; Scarlett checks out the goat.

Goats on the lawn

Daisy climbs a tree at dusk, to eat the ferns growing on the trunk.