Moving on, The weather has been fantastic the last 3 days. Warm and sunny enough to make the corn stalks stand up nice and straight but with lots of big fat juicy looking clouds and and a breeze I can only describe as hypnotic. You know, the kind of breeze that makes you wanna hang out and nap in a hammock all day long, a book or magazine across your chest ,as though you might be tempted to read, if the breeze stops swaying your hammock so perfectly. If... yep those kinda days. My favorite because they hold the promise rain. I love a good summer storm,the ones that start with the silent illumination of heat lightening early in the dusky twilight (resembling fireworks on mute) and rumble into the after dinner hour with a cool, occasional gust of wind tinged with the scent wet pavement somewhere,and damp grass. Oh yes, those are the best,because you know it's only a matter of time before those gentle rumbles off in the distance get a little more insistant and the first white hot streaks of lightening crack! open the sky loud enough to make you jump. For me, that signals bedtime. I just wanna curl up next to Edd or the kids and listen to it all tearing and thrashing and pouring down onto my metal roof. It's like a lullaby...
Okay, so the weather has been perfect and we have 7 bunnies now. Two copper satins(bunni and clyde) and 2 broken chocolate netherlands(shushi & tolva),2 black netherlands (Penelope & bear) and a gray chestnut netherland (Dr. Danger). They are all between 3 weeks old and 6 weeks old and so freakin cute you wouldn't believe it. I will post pics as soon as my laptop stops hating me and throwing tantrums-I swear. We have watermelons,eggplants,tomatoes(5-varieties of heirloom) cucumbers,mixed bell peppers(incl chocolates) and all our hot peepers on the vine! yes, they have all begun producing and I am excited beyond words. I actually got to pick a few sweet peppers during Owyn's birthday party for her friends to try and what an impression that made on her little Townie friends!! They had more fun taking a 30 minute tour of our little farm and learning about composting and clean water filtration than they did at the carousel. I was so proud and so was Owyn, her little chest all puffed out and a smile across her entire face as she explained about the breeds of Bantam chickens we have and why they are special. Her party was threatened by one of my rainstorms I so love while we were in town ,so we drove ALL her guests out to our place and had an art party. Layla helped with the painting and so did Esme. Owyn's friends were impressed that: 1-we HAD a house chicken,2- it could paint. We toured the farm & they asked lots of questions about our charcoal water filter and our composters and our chickens. They hand fed the girls bananas("I didn't know chickens ate bananas!") and held them and pet them ("OMG! they are so soft!","they don't even bite","where are their teeth?"). So much fun. Owyn is still talking about it and we have such lovely artwork to remember it by too.
Layla is not going to the Spring Formal, after all. Sadly she made some very poor choices regarding her school work and has been grounded because of it. For her sake I will not go into detail, suffice to say she is VERY GROUNDED. However, Today she came to me in tears and apologized for saying she hated me when she was angry. I was admittedly taken back a step or two by her unsolicited confession and asked her ,"what happened to bring this on?" she replied," I was sitting here doing my schoolwork and I realized how hard you work for us, how you have ALWAYS been there no matter what and I felt like an ass,I felt really sorry,I love you Mom". Then she shows me her final essay for history,the schoolwork which gave her the epiphany. My teenager who has constantly reminded me that I ,"ruined her life" by moving her here has written a beautiful 4 page essay about how getting back to basics and upholding the ideals supported by the "American Dream" of the pioneer, would benefit our our country and improve the quality of life for everyone involved. I almost swallowed my tongue. She is happy here. She gets lonely-we all do occasionally -but she is happy. She is going to survive this and thusly so will we all. AMEN!!We have discovered that we have at least one drake duck (Kieren's-Diablo) and possibly a second drake as well (one of the Pekin) we are very excited at the prospect of ducklings to hatch. We also have a male Rock Cornish with potential breeding there as well and therefore a great deal of savings for meat production poultry. Cornish can be culled in approximately 8-10 wks and will produce large,juicy and tender breasts and leg/thighs pieces for the freezer or to sell with minimum expenses due to rapid maturity. The first set of hens we purchased when we came to the farm will be laying in approximately 6 wks. that should bring our egg production to about 75 per week, once the remaining 30 pullets(young hens not sexually mature) start laying we will be collecting over 200 per week. We have plans to add another 50 straight run (unsexed)chicks to the yard in July. Edd will get his Phoenix rooster (hopefully) and we will have 3 new breeds of heritage hens to add to our inventory. On that note I must encourage anyone interested in purchasing a hen or two for their backyard coup to invest in the Mottled Java. They are an asthetically exquisite hen to look at and have interesting personalities to boot. Mine resemble muddy dalmations(too many spots that start running together) and they are very bouncy and springy in their gate. Beautiful really, a larger and no less attractive bird is the Silver Brahma. My SB hen is so creamy looking she reminds me of snow ice cream,or coconut milk. Everytime I look at her I just wanna Pina colada! Very gentle breed for having a giant status as well.
Well, the thing with Dawson's Stepdad finally blew up ,but it smoothed out much quicker than I thought it would and the children were able to stay friends. I would be lying if I said things haven't changed. You can just feel it in the air when he's here now,but Kieren still cares for him and they are great friends, so I keep my mouth shut-literally,I know I can't trust the kid now so...- and I let it roll.Layla and Darris are still "not dating" and that's going fine I guess, he's shy,she's shy-could be in their 30's before they kiss and that's FINE BY ME. Really it's ok. no rush, take your time...
Worked for the first time in Georgia this past weekend. It was great to see all our friends there again-it's been awhile. It was good to work again too. Business is so slow in our town and I hate that Edd is pulling the burden of all the bills himself most of the time. I have been the "bread winner" for so many years now, I don't know how not to be, so I am in a bit of a crisis. I have just thrown myself into baking bread and maintaining the property and the children's schoolwork, and the animals. I love being here,with them. I love listening to their laughter when they don't realize I'm listening andI love making love to my husband with the windows open on cool evenings and not worrying about anyone seeing us. I like peeing outside. There, I said okay. Edd didn't think I would but hey, I don't care. There is something so feral, so FREE about hiking up your skirt ( I frequently work in long lightweight skirts) or dropping your pants and peeing right out in the open and not worrying or caring if anyone sees you. Seriously, like, three cars per day between the hours of 8am and 630 pm drive by my house (incl the mail person)-my whole family could urinate in the middle of our road and no one-NO ONE would ever know-til now.
Which leads me into the next topic I would like to cover before I sign off this evening: Urine as compost. Yes, you read correctly no need to re-read it. I am experimenting with the concept of our families household urine as liquid fertilizer. I recently read in an article of HOMESTEAD magazine that if you collect clean urine samples from your family members and "cure it" for 30 days in a sealed container then you can pour it directly into your garden soil and it works like MIRACLE GROW for the soil. Though it may sound gnarly and the teenager staunchly ,"refuses to pee in a freakin funnel-geez MOM!", I will keep you posted as to whether or not the tomatoes burst with blossoms or turn yellow and die. Keep reading! It just gets better, and better....
No comments:
Post a Comment