August Happenings!

I haven't written since the dramatic rooster incident!  As much trauma and tears as that caused, it led into a couple of really wonderful weeks!

Within  a few days, the chickens became a tightly
bound social unit again.  What a relief!

Soon after the pecking order was established, Scrambled started
laying eggs.  She seems to be on schedule to lay 5 or 6 eggs
a week!  Good little Scrambledsaurus!

I picked peaches as soon as the u-pick place opened.  YUM!

I canned 20 quarts of peaches this year, and I froze six gallons.
Not to mention all of the smooooothies with fresh peaches!

I turned 25!

Matthew took off a few days this week in observance of my
birthday and our anniversary.  We decided to take on the project
that was our unfinished hearth.

Here's Matthew removing the particle board that was in our way.

 Now we're down to the thinset from the tiles that used to be here when
it was a not-woodstove-fireplace. 

We definitely deliberated about what we'd do to finish the hearth.  To buy the resources needed to tile this, we anticipated that it would cost around $100, especially since this was such a small project with no economy for size.  If you've read much of this blog or if you know me well, you may realize that I take how we spend our money and how we use the earth's resources quite seriously.  I felt really uncomfortable spending that much money on the cosmetics of the hearth, so I encouraged all my creative brain-power to think of a different solution.  I asked myself, "What do people use to keep fire in its place?"  My brain answered, "Rocks and stone."

So that's what we did.

I remembered that we had a bunch of stones in the used-to-be dog run. We gathered some with the prettiest colors and designs, washed them off, and used grout/adhesive to finish our hearth.  Total cost?  Twelve dollars.  It would have been $9, but neither us nor our neighbors had anything to cut out the old torn up particle board, so we headed to the little local tool shop (go small businesses!!), and we bought a wood chisel.  

Here's the final result:

 We like it, and I'm really glad that we decided to rock the system and try to find an alternative to traditional tiling.

Anyway, back to our happenings...

For our anniversary we decided to go camping in our backyard the night beforehand.
We made dinner over the fire, and it was really fun.  The one caveat?
We didn't have any good padding under (or on!) us, so we found our bones
crushed into the ground at night.  I became wide-awake around 2:30am, and
by 3:30am it became apparent to both of us that we were needlessly getting a bad
night's sleep.  We crawled out of the tent and back inside... Oh well!  It was fun, and
we learned!

I made homemade marshmallows (seriously!) and graham crackers for s'mores.

Sooooo good!!!

The next day, on our actual anniversary, we made a bunch
of homemade pizza and watched a movie.  Yum yum yum!
And lots of leftovers to enjoy!

I also sported a skirt and running shoes while loading the dishwasher.

Four years together can make you happy!

Four years together can make you silly!

Yay for our fourth anniversary!!

CSA Weeks 10, 11, & 12!

I've been busy the last few weeks!

 Week 10 had about 12 pounds of zucchini, lettuce, chives, corn, onions, bell peppers, green beans, cucumbers, and potatoes.

 Week 11 we had 13.4 pounds of corns, green beans, herbs, zucchini, cucumbers, onion, eggplant, tomatillos, tomatoes, and apples.

This week, Week 12, we have 15.2 pounds of corn, lettuce, eggplant, cherry tomatoes, zucchini, carrots, apples, onion, cucumber, and basil.

It has been good eating recently!

Meet Scrambled... (aka Evil)

It has really been a rough 24 hours in our household.

Remember our dear Deliasaurus?

Well, as much as we believe him to be a girl, we could no longer continue believing it once the sickle feathers and the crowing began.  I became so angry at him for being a rooster that I renamed him Stew.  He is such a sweet, friendly fellow, and I immediately felt the loss.  To be honest, it kind of feels like my chicken broke up with me, and I have been crying on and off since we found out.  I didn't realize quite how attached I was to his fluffy little white chicken butt.

The farm store where we got him allows for you to trade out your chicken if it turns out to be a rooster, so we spent the morning making a mournful trek to the store with our quiet, well-behaved rooster in a box.

The only chicken, besides chicks, available was a molting, mixed-breed hen.  We spent some time before-hand considering starting over again with a couple of new chicks instead, but we didn't want to get another rooster, and we decided that we'll probably get some chicks in the next year or so anyway.  Five chickens seemed like a good number, so we ended up getting a full-grown mystery hen.

With that, I present Scrambled:

When we got home, she was an angry, anxious little thing making the most upset of the chicken-y noises.  We were fairly anxious as well because we weren't sure how well she would assimilate with our two dear Buff Orpingtons.  We let her go in the coop hoping for the best.  She and the other two stepped outside to have a very brief kerfuffle, and then Baby Peep and Willow went running to hide in the corner while Scrambled commenced her dirt bath.

I should mention that at some point in here, I bitterly named the chicken "Evil".  Her attitude and deep black feathers along with my sense of loss over the angelic, white Stew was not a good combination.  Matthew said that I shouldn't judge her since she was stressed out.  However, the nickname has stuck in my mind, partly because I like getting a rise out of Matthew.  Good wife that I am.

Apparently Evil really wanted a long dust bath.  She bathed for a good chunk of time just outside the door of the coop.  A little while later, she finally decided to venture further into the run where the really good dust is.  There she stayed, bathing and letting us know that she wasn't particularly happy with us.  The other Peeposaurs escaped back to the coop to avoid the whole debacle.

After lunch, I noticed that none of the chickens were in the run.  I opened the coop door and looked at them.  They looked at me.  Then they decided that it was a good time to all have a good "bawk bawk bawk bawk bawk BA-GAWK!!!! bawk bawk bawk..."  I closed the door and let them have at it.  I know that they're having a tough day, too.

Willow and Baby Peep seem a bit confused by the loss of their leader.  Oddly enough, Willow seems to have quickly picked up her role as the older chicken, and she pushes Baby Peep around.  However, more in character, she is horrified by Evil, and she steers clear of her when possible.  Baby Peep is all kinds of laid back, and she is forever apologizing for her existence: "Oh, I'm sorry for being in your way (or eating your food, or...).  I didn't mean to exist.  I used to be an egg, and then suddenly... there I was!"  She doesn't seem to mind Evil, but she definitely likes to stay close to Willow.

This picture shows a bit of the chicken dynamic currently.  Willow is carefully avoiding Evil.  Baby Peep was going to perch on the branch for awhile, but since Willow didn't seem to want to be near Evil, you can see that Baby Peep is just about to hop off the branch to join Willow.

And, next thing you know, Evil is all alone again.

I'm grateful that the chickens seem to be getting through this whole thing without resorting to cannibalism.  I guess that we all just need to get over our losses, make new friends, and move on in life together.

Comforting Baby Peep with some delicious grains.

Evil finally was calm enough to come eat out of my hand instead of yelling at me.

I have to say though, our children will learn a strange expression instead of the normal, "Life is full of little disappointments."  In our house, we will now say, "Life is full of roosters."

May you be a good Peeposaur, Scrambled!  Please be kind to us, as we intend to be kind to you.  Please provide plenty of eggs, and do not hesitate to amuse us with antics.

No shave... Never

So. I hate shaving my legs.  I really do.  I always have.  I have not once shaved my legs and enjoyed it.  It's a futile task; they get poky within a day and "gross" within a few days.  Yet, for about half of my life now, I've been doing the exercise in futility at least once a week most weeks.

It all began in sixth grade.  I was eleven, and I was a cute little chubby thing with red cheeks, tousled hair, and Winnie-the-Pooh t-shirts.  Until PE happened.  In the locker room one day, one of my classmates (one of the cool ones) happened to look at me and she made fun of my hairy legs.  Mind you, I was eleven.  I probably barely had any hair on my legs, but that seemed to be beside the point.  At that point, I had no clue what "shaving my legs" was (ahhh... blissful ignorance!), but I remember feeling incredibly embarrassed by my obvious faux pas.

Some girls might have sat their mothers down and said, with all the adorable, angsty rage of an eleven-year-old, "MOM!  I HAVE TO SHAVE MY LEGS!"

I didn't.  At least not at that point.  Although, I do remember that I felt ashamed to wear shorts to school with hairy legs showing, so I wore tights underneath my jean shorts.  Problem solved!  Except not... because apparently that wasn't cool either.  What?!

I think I somehow made it to seventh grade without shaving my legs.  It might have been the anticipation of the dreaded PE locker room that year that finally gave me the gumption to tell my mom that I needed to shave my legs.

And shave I did.  Dry.

And now for the open letter to Mom:

Dear Mom,

You're a wonderful mother.  You put up with a lot, and you have a lot of patience.  You fed me, carted me around, and did all sorts of other things that made me not turn into a complete failure.  I appreciate that.  Well done.

One question:  Why in the world did you not tell me that I was supposed to shave my legs when they were wet?

Love, Karen 

I eventually learned from a friend that I was supposed to shave wet legs.  I ever learned about the mysterious world of shaving cream.  Oooooo... shaving cream.  While this decreased my razor burn, my sensitive skin has always been prone to it regardless of how I have shaved.  Plus, I took more chunks out of my ankles and knees in those early days than I care to remember.

Have I mentioned that I hate shaving my legs?

Not to mention the fact that it's really, really difficult to get rid of every single hair.  Having been traumatized in sixth grade, I was ever-conscious of the stray hairs that I missed once I noticed them.  I distinctly remember noticing a hairy patch that I missed on my knee during my ride to school in 8th grade, and I sincerely, sorely wished that I had just not worn shorts that day.  After all, I lived on the Oregon Coast.  There's never any particular need to wear shorts.

As I became slightly more comfortable in my own skin during high school, I allowed myself to shave only once a week even though I was wearing shorts daily for cross-county and track workouts.  Thankfully my hair was pretty blond, and I just always hoped that nobody would accidentally come into contact with my legs.  I didn't want to sandpaper off their skin.

On and on, I shaved.  Through the heat, the rain, the snow, and the wind.

Until this past winter.  I stopped shaving at the end of December, and I didn't (mournfully) pick the razor up again until May or June.  It was awesome.  I was free!!!!

This summer has been pretty cool in western Oregon until the last few weeks, so for awhile I was shaving every three weeks or so, just when it was shorts weather, and only my calves.

Yet, my five months of freedom made me rebellious and bold!  After shaving a few times this summer, I asked myself, "I don't like shaving my legs.  Why do I do it?"

It wasn't a rhetorical question.  I answered, "Because everybody shaves their legs."

My conversation with myself was off!
Me: Why should I shave just because everybody else does?
Me: Because you're shy and weak, and you don't want people to tease you.  Plus, you're already kinda weird.
Me:  (whining) But I hate shaving my legs!  This way they just get all soft and furry like God made 'em!
Me: Tough.  People will look at you and judge.
Me: Well too bad for them!?!????

I haven't shaved since.  I'm still not quite to the point where I'm able to look at my legs and not be grossed out, yet the fact that I feel grossed out makes me angry enough to keep going.  I have even walked around outside with shorts or a skirt on.

I'm upset because I feel like I have to shave my legs or be looked down on.  It's not like I think it's wrong to shave legs, but I certainly feel like it shouldn't feel mandatory!  I don't even have a daughter yet, and I already feel anxiety about her reaching the age where she too feels inadequate and unattractive as she is made.  And I know that I'll tell her that she's beautiful just how she is, but will I not be more convincing if she doesn't see me hiding my legs in the heat just because I haven't made time to shave in awhile?

So, there you have it.  I hate shaving.  I want to be a person who feels confident without shaving.  So I think I'm going to stop shaving now.

No shave!... Never!


P.S.

1. I know that my daughter (if I have one) may want to shave someday, and I don't intend to stop her.  I'll just leave it up to her.  However, I'm hoping that I can be a strong woman, and I hope that she maybe can draw from my strength.  Also, maybe I can find some families with similar values... and maybe the women won't shave their legs... and maybe my child can have a group of friends and they can run around with hairy legs comfortable and free throughout their teen years...  I can dream.
2.  Another perk of not shaving?  My skin stays shiny and healthy.   Ahhhh.  Plus, my years and years of razor burn tendencies (despite water and shaving cream and only shaving once a week) are now no longer a painful, uncomfortable bother.
3. Here's the beautiful, carefree hairiness.  You may judge, but I'll just assume that you're secretly jealous of the fact that I have not shaved for weeks.  Feel free to join me!

Just rambling again...

I decided it's time to upload from my brain.  Here's some stuff in there in no particular order.

• I'm already thinking about next year's vegetable garden.  It's exciting and also overwhelming and scary to me.  This year I didn't get started pretty much until April, and I really could have started some cool-season crops earlier.  Next year I want to get started earlier, and I want to do a lot more.  One thing I am kind of thinking about is tearing out a lot of the front lawn to put in food.  I'm thinking summer squash, winter squash, potatoes, garlic, onions and pole beans for next year...  I just have this fear of failing and having a bunch of bare dirt instead of the pretty front lawn that we currently have.  Fear of failure doesn't usually stop me, fortunately.  It just makes me nervous. ;)  In the long run, I'm kind of considering digging out the whole front lawn and just having garden beds (maybe raised beds...) with hazelnut shell paths.  A few houses in our neighborhood have that, and I always admire it.  We can do a bit more with our back and side yards, too, but there is a lot more shade in that area, so I'm thinking that our front yard might actually be where I focus a lot of my energy as we try to grow and preserve more of our food.  We are also hoping to get grapes going on the back patio, and we want to put some dwarf fruit trees in pots on the driveway, too...  We might be finished making our food forest before we die.  Maybe.
• Today at Goodwill I finally found a stainless steel pot that is big enough to hold enough peaches/pears/tomatoes/etc to fill the seven quart jars that go into my canner.  Last year the stove space was super tight because I had to use a smaller pot along with a large pan to hold all of the to-be-canned food.  Add the giant canner and the little pot for sterilizing the lids... It was silly.  I'm hoping to pick peaches next weekend for canning.  Tomatoes should follow soon after.
• I want to make a food dehydrator before next summer.  It makes a lot of sense to me to use the sun's energy to preserve food during the summer.   Plus, you can pack more food in less space.
• Summer term is finishing up this week.  I actually have really great students this term, but I am super ready for a break.  I need to get ready for next term (which I hopefully can do in a week or so?), and then I should have about four weeks with no teaching responsibilities.  Woo hoo!
• I just read a book about using bikes as transportation, and I have renewed my enthusiasm for being a bike activist.  By that I mean that I'm going to continue biking more and more.  Eventually, I'd kind of like to use my bike to go anywhere within 10 miles.  Even more eventually, I think it'd be cool to not own a car.  It's a goal of mine.
• It's also a goal of mine to a) make close friends in my area that I can hang out with regularly and b) start a food co-op in Hillsboro.  One of those should happen sooner than the other.
• I am really concerned about our world's future.  I kind of doubt that we'll cause our own extinction in the near future, but I can see us decimating our own population through our own haste and greed.  You are welcome to think I'm silly and pessimistic, but people have done it before.  If we can't even give up a little meat and use our cars a little less to help things out...  It feels like science is going to have to grow in leaps and bounds or bad things are likely.  Sorry, Midwest farmers.  Perhaps the population can demand a less water intensive crop from you next year?
• I love being part of a CSA.  I love getting food given to me every week and planning my meals around the vegetables we get.  It can be a challenge especially since that just not how we usually do things in our society, but it's fun, healthy, and we're eating a lot of veggies.
• I have learned even more about money and budgeting since we entered the workforce and even more since we bought a house.  I can see how people easily go into debt.  It's a challenge to figure out how much money should go to different places.  We finally figured out that, outside of our usual monthly spending, we needed to see how much money was leftover so that we could split it between a few categories: Putting extra money into the mortgage, retirement savings, saving for our next car (booooo... but our '95 Camry won't last forever and right now it's hard to imagine being without a car since there's no car-share available in Hillsboro and Matthew occasionally needs a car for his work... booooo), saving for house repairs/appliance replacements/etc, and then just a bit of savings for other things that may come up that we can't even anticipate.  We figured it all out, and we made a spreadsheet so that we know how much money we have designated to different things.  It's really helpful.  We'll have to re-budget when I quit my teaching job to start my parenting job, but for now it's really nice to be intentionally putting away some money in these categories.  I still spend time wrestling with how our resources are spent and wondering if we could do things better.  I always hope that we are doing the right thing, being responsible, and helping others enough.

Thanks for reading the ramblings.  As a reward, here's a picture of a pretty water lily from our pond:

CSA Weeks 8 and 9: Green beans!

 Week 8's share included around 12 pounds of:

• Blueberries
• Carrots (the Peeposaurs love the carrot tops!)
• Lettuce
• Cabbage
• Zucchini
• Mint
• Beets
• Green beans
• Cucumbers

Meanwhile, in Week 9's share, we have received 10.3 pounds of:

• Cucumbers
• Potatoes
• Lettuce
• Beets
• Zucchini
• Green beans
• Basil
• Eggplant

That's a lot of cucumber!  I'll have to find something to make with all these!