Poultry

Yesterday we got a call from my sister-in-law's dad saying he had found an abandoned turkey nest with two chicks in it. My dad and brother hurried over there and found not two, but SIX tiny baby turkeys huddled down in a hole in the middle of Bill's field. Since we recently graduated our fresh batch of chicks from their brooder to the coops, we had the perfect set-up to bring the little chicks home! They are really young - you can tell by the fact that each one still has a tiny egg tooth on the tip of its beak (those usually fall off a week or so after they hatch). And they are definitely wild. Whereas our baby chickens have been handled since the day they hatched and are pretty used to being around people, these guys have probably never even seen humans before. Whenever we go to the brooder to peek in at them, they immediately freak out and run around cheeping and crashing into each other, then all go to a separate corner and jam their heads down like little ostriches putting their heads in the proverbial sand. It reminds me of playing hide-and-seek with really young kids who think that if they just close their eyes you won't be able to find them. Here they are in their corner:

And since I already had sawdust on my camera, I figured I should take you on a mini tour of the other chickens that fill my life. This is one of Crazy White Hen's chicks - we successfully moved them from the barn attic to their own private space where they can enjoy fresh air and sunshine. She is a good mama and actually pretty trusting of the kids and me even though she is still pretty wild. She lets us get really close to her babies as long as we don't try to touch them. They are curious little guys - this one was playing peek-a-boo with me from the other side of his feeder.

And then there are our adolescent hens - these are the ones we mail-ordered a few months ago. They have passed through their ugly phase and are now little versions of the hens they will grow up to be. This year I put my foot down and insisted on naming some of them myself (I finally got tired of my animals being named after male basketball players and Lego Ninjas). This is Fiona - she's my favorite (don't tell the others). Annie and Buffy proved too difficult to photograph.

Here's Flapjack (I obviously lost the name battle on that one). I actually can't believe I just wrote an entire blog post about chickens - I used to hate chickens and thought it was just plain weird to get attached to them. But here I am - now who's the weirdo?

January on the farm

What a lovely weekend this has been. Crisp outside, cozy inside, lots of projects to work on, plenty of sunshine to run around in...



Things outside are finally settling down into a pre-winter type of rest. We had to scrape ice off our windshields for the first time the other morning, and the piles we crash through on our way back inside are of old leaves rather than new.



The boys discovered "The Dirt Pile" yesterday and spent hours playing in it. I don't have a picture of The Dirt Pile, but it is so big that it is its own landmark, just like the barn or the chicken coop. Concerned because I hadn't heard the kids making much noise, I walked outside to check on them. Brett assured me "Oh, they're playing on The Dirt Pile," and I was immediately relieved. (Of course, after that I had to wonder what that says about me - being relieved that your kids are playing in and on a gigantic pile of dirt is probably not a normal response.) But The Pile is in the middle of a plowed field - no critters or ticks or nails or anything else dangerous to worry about. Just beautiful healthy dirt. They were so sweet playing together down there that I didn't want to get too close in fear of breaking the spell. As I snuck up on them with my camera, Moses saw me, and with a huge grin said "Mom, look at all these dinosaur bones we found!!!" while indicating the stack they had made of dirt clods. Man, my heart about burst with joy and thankfulness right there on the driveway. What a great life those boys have.



And when they came in it was hot baths and cozy sweats, a dinner of left-overs and a few games of Connect Four. Simple, unplugged, healthy. I love it. Hope you are all having a wonderful weekend as well.

Ah, fall

Fall is my absolute favorite time of year. I love dusting off my crock pot, pulling the big chunky sweaters and boots out of the closet, and drinking tea in the afternoon. And the anticipation of Thanksgiving and Christmas gives the whole season a backdrop of excitement. I took this picture of Moses swinging on the new swing Brett and my dad hung a few weeks ago - what a great thing! I took a turn on it and it goes so high that you actually get that roller-coaster swoop in your stomach on every down swing. The leaves on that tree are much prettier today - all orange and yellow and falling like confetti at the slightest breeze. It makes swinging feel like winning the Super Bowl - every time you even sit down a huge pile of leaves rains down on you. I hope you and your family are enjoying the fall this afternoon - we have NO PLANS! Unheard of and glorious!

You know you have boys when...

... not only does a toy gun make its way into the dish washer, but you don't even notice it's there until after you run the load.

Blackberries make it better

On Monday this happened:



Five and a half years of laughter, silliness, deep questions, lunch-time conversations, lego marathons and morning farm adventures zipped up his backpack for his first day of Kindergarten. He was excited, I was terrified. The day before, I reviewed in my head over and over how in the heck we were going to get out the door by 7:30 am to get to school on time, and then what in the world little brother and I were going to do with ourselves in the absence of our favorite sparkly five year old. What if someone was mean to him? What if he missed me? What if Titus realized that he doesn't like being with mommy all by himself? I was a big weepy ball of stress that needed to make jam. Seriously, sometimes you just need to make jam. So I did. I walked all the way to the end of the road and scoured those bushes like a mad woman (it's been a bad year for blackberries around here), falling into the thorns more than a few times. I filled up my lime green Easter basket to the top and sweated my way home. The end result: 8 jars of beautiful blackberry jam (which the guys are NUTS about) and one tired mommy who really didn't feel better about the Kindergarten thing at all but felt nice about having some jam stored away.



Of course, everything worked out fine. Moses loved his first week of school, though we are all still adjusting to waking up, eating breakfast, and leaving the house well before 8 am. I still miss him at lunch time, but am treasuring the alone time with little brother, who seems to like it too. Congratulations to all you other mommies who have survived the first few weeks of school - it sure is hard to let them go, isn't it?

Hexagon Flowers

Here is my hexagon progress to date. You are looking at 11 hexie flowers - only 106 to go! I made a lot of progress on our road trip, sewing hexagons until my little box got too full, then switching over to attaching them into flowers. As you can see, there isn't really a rhyme or reason to my color scheme. I'm just using fabrics that I like and planning on anchoring them with the occasional white hexagon throughout as well as white around the outside border. Everything I make ends up pretty bright and in violation of color rules, but I like things that way.



Our TV broke yesterday, which has been a blessing in disguise. Last night I worked on some hexie flowers while listening to Harry Potter cd's - bliss! Looking forward to doing more of the same tonight, as the hubbie has a few outside projects he's been working on after the kids go to bed.



This is my view beyond the little hexie photo shoot I set up. Here in bloggy land I tend to crop out the most important part of pictures, so I decided to give you a glimpse of reality. I'd like to find whoever invented Legos and kiss them on the mouth. :)

Model-A Adventure

A few weeks ago my brother and sister-in-law came to town and arranged for her dad to take my kids and I on a Model-A Adventure. Cindy's dad collects and restores Model-A's and has quite a beautiful award-winning collection. But that is not what we were off to see. We were off to see "The Coyote," a cut down, trashed Model-A with couch cushions for seats and a sheet of plywood to sit on in the back. It was awesome! Bill (can I call him my father-in-law-in-law?) tried to teach me how to drive a double clutch (still have no idea what that even is, which should tell you how my driving went) and was so wonderful about letting both boys drive (on Uncle Daniel's lap, of course) and not caring about us stripping the gears or whatever happens when you drive a double-clutch the wrong way. He kept insisting that "you can't hurt the coyote," and that certainly seemed to be true as we crashed along across the bumpy field that had recently been harvested for wheat.



Both my boys had a blast, and Titus was in some state of silent euphoria almost the entire time. As we bounced along on our plywood seat, I would occasionally ask him if he was having fun, and his responses was always "uh-HUH!" He is obsessed with cars and his sweet little heart almost burst with joy when he saw this:



We spent the last hour touring Bill's shiny collection of cars, but Titus would not leave this car's side. Bill let him go inside, and Titus spent an entire hour buckling and unbuckling his seat belt and talking to Chatters, the little chipmunk puppet that lives in the back seat. It was adorable.



Moses got to pedal around on Cindy's old John Deer tractor bike, and Bill sent me home with two bottle of Cilker olive oil (basically liquid gold) and a bale of raw cotton. How cool is that?!?! All three of us were in heaven. Thanks, Bill and Cindy, for a wonderful Model-A Adventure!

In which the two year old tries to pull a "fast one" on Mommy...

Me: "Titus, clean up the Legos."

Titus: "Oh, I'm too fast to do that."

Hm. This brand of logic sounds familiar...

Santa Cruz

Last Saturday morning we took a spur-of-the-moment trip to Santa Cruz. It was Brett's idea, of course. As much as I hate to admit it, I am not a spur-of-the-moment gal. I'm more of a plan-it-a-week-in-advance-then-make-a-list-of-everything-you-need-to-bring-and- worry-about-things-until-everyone-is-safely-in-the-car gal. *sigh* This is one of the many reasons that it is a good thing I am married to wonderful Brett. Anyhow, Brett threw the fishing stuff in the back and off we went. The extra wonderful part about the trip was that on this particular day in Santa Cruz it was 75 degrees! In January!!

After breakfast, we set up our chairs on the pier and made a half-hearted attempt at catching something. After unsuccessfully dangling our left-over breakfast sausage into the water for a while, we headed down to the beach to play. It was so wonderful to be outside and really really warm - you locals know that even in the dead of summer you can end up freezing cold in Santa Cruz. The boys ran for hours, and, of course, both got obliterated by the waves. If I had planned ahead I would have had a change of clothes for everyone. But this was a spur-of-the-moment trip, remember? So half of our crew rode home nearly naked, and I went to my hair appointment wearing wet shoes. (It seems 5 is about the age that riding in the car in his underwear begins to feel embarrassing to a boy.)

Oh, and doesn't this butterball look so cute in the sand? I'm sure the weather will get cold again, but it sure was nice to get a day of fake spring in January!

Legacy

Last night I was cutting fabric for my next quilt, and happened upon this treasure amongst my vintage stash (all of which is from my Grandma). In the bottom corner of a huge 5 yard piece of fabric, she had cross-stitched her name in bright red. I just love it. I can picture her getting ready to put the fabric away, seeing the bright red thread, and feeling like it just needed to be put onto the dark blue. I'm sure she free-handed this, too, since she was such an expert stitcher. Little things like this are so special to me - it is like owning a tiny piece of private crafting history. Nothing flashy - just a simple little bit of stitchery she did for herself. I wonder when she did this and what was going on around her as she took the time to pull each stitch through. Were kids clamoring for her attention? Was dinner waiting to be started? Was she listening to her favorite music on the radio? It is like this little red Marie bonds me closer to her, since I have done little things like this from time to time as well. Those short moments you steal for yourself to make something just for you.

I just returned from a last-minute and very short trip to Montana to visit Grandma Marie. They say "getting old is not for sissies," and boy is that true. I came home so happy to have seen her and blessed by the beauty she surrounds herself with, and also a bit sad. It is hard to see people we love suffer. Thank goodness this life is just a little precursor! Of course, she sent me home with a gigantic bin of beautiful yarn - her hands will no longer allow her to knit, but she is more than happy to pass on her stash to her protegée. I didn't take many pictures, though you can see some here from my last trip. I did snap this shot of Grandma's dog Anna's little breakfast nook. Uncle Brian has painted her a whole forest scape to look at while she eats, and a little wooden fisherman stands by to watch. It makes me smile. Happy sewing!

Family Picture

Well, it's that time of year when I go through the last 11 months of pictures and realize that we don't have a single family picture suitable for the front of a Christmas card. So I make a spur-of-the-moment decision to take a family picture RIGHT NOW, herd everyone outside, set up my camera on the rickety old fence, and hope for the best.

After about 20 shots of Moses grabbing his brother by the right eyeball, we decided to change locations (and I began to wonder why I hadn't done my hair or even thought about what I was wearing).

The change of location necessitated the grabbing of at least one chicken to add interest to the photo, which, of course, took long enough that Titus became hungry and cold, and the sun started to go down.

Chickens, it turns out, are slippery.

Perhaps a better idea would be to put the chickens in the background of the shot and get two much less annoying and unpredictable animals to add interest to the picture . We quickly scrapped that idea when we realized that dogs have no idea what "look at the camera" means (or apparently, "sit" or "stay,") and that Bentley looks like a terrifying underworld beast on film.

So, the Christmas card is still in the works. Maybe we'll try again this afternoon...

Sick Day

Today Moses was coughing enough to make me feel too guilty to take him to school. With nothing else on the schedule besides laundry, we ended up with a rare morning at home. And what a gorgeous morning to spend on the farm!

I think all three of us were feeling low on energy this morning, so it was nice to putter around outside doing nothing in particular other than watch the leaves blow around and enjoy the beauty.

Of course, there were bikes to ride...

And plenty of rose hips to throw at the geese (don't judge us, those guys ended up mean and we still have pretty bad aim).

Hopefully we're feeling better soon, but this ended up being a pretty great sick day.

Harvest!

Happy Monday! How was your weekend? This weekend was harvest time up here on the farm. My garden has kind of petered slowly, but my dad's is undergoing a kind of grand finale, and this weekend we all benefited from his hours of toiling outside. The main attraction was the harvesting of the pumpkins.

This year my dad grew "Big Max" pumpkins, which are supposed to be able to grow up to 72 inches in diameter. His didn't get quite that big, but the biggest one weighed something like 85 pounds. That's a lot of pumpkin! The boys and I have enjoyed watching the pumpkins in the front pasture get bigger and bigger, turning deep orange as summer drew to an end. We've also chased countless wild turkeys out of the pumpkin patch, so we have a kind of motherly attachment to them.

All together there were 8 huge pumpkins - our own mini pumpkin patch. I'm sure my dad will carve a few of them together with the boys, and I'm hoping he will give me at least one to eat, since my own "pumpkin patch" is nothing but one sad looking vine this year.

After the pumpkins, we moved to the second-most-exciting crop: popcorn. This is so cool - did you know that popcorn grows on a cob, just like regular corn? That's right, it doesn't grow in a paper bag filled with fake butter and salt - who knew? This is blue popcorn, and it didn't do very well this year because of the cool weather we had all summer.

However, after putting an ear in a brown paper bag and microwaving it for a while, it came out looking like this:

And the rest of the bag was filled with perfectly popped popcorn - YUM! I highly recommend growing this some year with your kids. Eating popcorn off the cob might be one of fall's most missed-out-on pleasures.
Thanks so my dad's huge garden, we now have TONS of fresh food to eat: corn, popcorn, pumpkin, Honeydew melon, two types of watermelon, tomatoes galore, bell peppers, sweet potato squash, and beets. I'm still contributing a zucchini and yellow squash here and there, so between our two households we are doing pretty well. Fall has definitely always been my favorite season, and now that we have a real harvest to celebrate, it makes it even better.

God bless this mess:

... or maybe send someone to clean it up. :)

Farm Update

As usual, I have been a bit remiss at updating the blog, and for that I'm sorry. Usually when things get busy I neglect the housework - that way only my family knows I am a flake. When I neglect this blog, however, all of you readers (notice how I have deluded myself into thinking there are tons of you) know it, and that's just plain embarrassing. Anyways, things HAVE been busy around here. Perhaps a more fitting word is "farmy." Things are very farmy right now, and I am loving it.

In addition to the usual watering of gardens, harvesting of and cooking / canning of vegetables, taking care of various poultry and training a crazy puppy, we now have Uncle David and his girlfriend Heather in town for an extended visit. If you know David, I don't need to elaborate on that, but for those of you who don't, allow me to explain. David is a beer-brewing, tomato-growing, extreme-sport-loving, caffeine-fueled scientist who spends about 13 hours per day doing experiments on mouse brains. Since arriving on the farm, he has shot and killed both jackrabbits that have been eating my dad's garden, as well as 17 ground squirrels. He has convinced my dad to plant ipecac (did you know that was a plant?) around the outside of his corn field to deter gophers, driven through In-N-Out Burger about 6 times, and basically become my oldest son's personal hero. It is all I can do to get Moses to come inside; he would rather die of exhaustion outside next to Uncle David than stop for one moment to eat lunch or even drink some water.

David's arrival was also the impetus my dad needed to "released the geese," who up to now were confined to an indoor area. They are now big enough to defend themselves against potential predators, and seem to be adjusting well to living in my dad's garden. Here they are: Hot Shot (the fast one), Bitey (the mean one), Lebron (the tall one), and Kobe (the other one). Between picking blackberries with Heather and doing experiments on the chickens, David also built the geese a new house and taught them how to swim in their "pond."

All in all, the "outside world," as Moses used to call it, is just absolutely fascinating right now. I have all kinds of blog posts planned for this week but might not get to any of them due to running around outside with my kids and the geese.

(Oh, and I'm sorry to disappoint you, but these awesome Incredible Hulk glasses are only available at the Modesto County Rodeo, so you'll have to wait until next year to get your own pair.)