Help! Somebody Took a Bite of My Chicken!

8
Jun

It was bound to happen. Between the fox, the bald eagle, the dog and general wildlife, one of the chickens was bound to make an appetizer, if not a main course. And yesterday it happened. Somebody took a bite of my chicken.

A big bite.

Like almost her whole left wing is gone.

When viewed as a scientific experiment, it does seem to prove the survival of the fittest theory. The one that got nibbled was the smallest one, who has developed her grown up feathers the slowest and tends to be the last one to get the memo about taking cover in the hostas.

What to do now? We set her apart in her own convalescent quarters, luxurious by comparison. We bought some super glue so we can try to stop up her injury. But I haven’t had the courage to go out there and check on her yet this morning. If she made it through the night, that might mean she’ll recover. Being left alone without other chickens bugging you has got to help with that, so we’ll leave her separate for a while longer. Past that, I don’t know what else to do.

Anyone who has chicken experience, please feel free to chime in with any helpful advice. This certainly accelerates the coop construction plans! More on that project soon. I’m going to go check on Chicken and see how she fared. Wish me luck!

Lightweight Flower Planters

31
May

Does someone in your family love to mow the lawn? I have someone in my family who has graciously taken over all mowing responsibilities, but little did I know that he has a Golf Course Gene. I think he inherited it from his father. He expects our yard to look like a freshly mown golf course. All the time. This means, of course, that he is driven to cut the grass more than the reasonable one time per week that I suggested. (And we won’t discuss how, in his yard maintenance fervor, he weed-whipped the tops of a whole line of Siberian irises that were about to bloom.)

What this means for me is that although I don’t have to suffer through the noise and allergic reaction I would get if it was ME out there cutting the grass, my flower planters are constantly being moved. And not being put back. I don’t like how they look all mushed together on my front porch, so I end up being the one to move them back to their rightful positions. But planters can be HEAVY so I’ve pieced together ideas from a lot of other places, some of my own, and come up with a pretty good formula for lightweight, beautiful planters.

The key is foam.

Not froth, foam. (Note that in this link they are selling a package of foam blocks, not each one individually.) http://www.joann.com/crafts/basic-craft-supplies/styrofoam/?page=4

You can use styrofoam packing peanuts, you can use the foam that protects appliances in their shipping boxes, if you’re desperate enough you could even try a bunch of styrofoam coffee cups. It is important to note that I don’t mean florist foam that absorbs water — this thing is still going to be heavy enough without an additional brick of water in the base. What I ended up using was a big block of it. It looks like this:

Planters, foam, a diaper, landscape paper, and scissors. What more could you need — besides dirt and flowers?

In the past I have not covered the foam with landscape paper, but I wanted to add some gravel to the bottom of the planter this year, so I went ahead and covered all of that with a sheet of landscape paper, just to keep it all separate from the dirt.

Why the diaper? After numerous experiments I’ve decided that the cheapest most effective way of keeping my hanging baskets from drying out is to use part of a diaper in the bottom of each. But that, Dear Reader, is for another post. But you just read the punchline, so maybe I don’t need to do the post?

Maybe you still have a pot in your garage that was just too big to move around once you potted it up. I think you’ll find that if you use foam in the bottom of it, you’ll have a much easier time scooting it out of the way of a lawn mower, or to a better spot for more sunlight.

Do you have any tips for producing pretty planters? I’m always on the lookout for things that work in the garden so I’d love to hear from you!

Planters and Chickens

17
May

This has been a busy week! Amongst a lot of other things, I potted up the flowers and veggies I got at the Friends School Plant Sale and I brought home four chickens from my sons kindergarten class. Wow. I need to sit down.

As I was putting the plants into various pots, I was struck by one fact: it took me years to realize there are petunias and then there are TRAILING petunias. Not all petunias are automatically trailers, something I didn’t pay attention to and which caused me a lot of confusion. I finally learned this and yet last week I almost forgot it again! You can’t train petunias to trail gracefully down the side of your pot no matter how nicely you ask them. They won’t do it. And in spite of all this, the non-trailing petunias were actually in my cart! I almost spit on the asphalt floor of the temporary garden center when I realized it, I was so disgusted.

Whew!

I’m glad we got through that together.

But because we’re friends I just couldn’t let you make the same mistake I made (for years). I wanted to save you the frustration and angst I went through.

You can thank me later.

The other thing I felt you should know, us being such close friends and all, is that even though we brought home baby chickens, I don’t know what I’m doing. I’ve never had chicks and I’m still waiting for my requested library books to get in. In the meantime, if you, Dear Reader, have any words of advice or warning — wait! Don’t warn me. I already have them in a tupperware tub in my garage. But I’ll take advice, tips and encouragement. How’s that?

Hope you are enjoying your spring and that you are trying out something new that keeps you just a little off kilter. We can’t let ourselves get too comfy, now can we?

Here are the chicks:

Friends School Plant Sale 2012

14
May

As promised, here is a review of my first experience at the epic Friends School Plant Sale held at the Minnesota State Fair Grandstand.

It was great.

When we got there, we got a wristband. The wristband (at no charge) had a number on it and was our entry ticket into the sale. The MC (yes, she was on the mic) told people when it was their turn to go through the gate and all those with that number on their wrist band could enter. We had to wait a bit, but I was with a wonderful longtime friend and it was a gorgeous morning, so it was no chore. Plus there were vendors sprinkled around the waiting area, so it made for interesting people watching.

Lots of gardeners brought their own wagons or carts, some rigged up with various devices to fit as many plants as possible into their cart without them getting squashed (think shelving systems). These guys were the hard-core plant salers. Even if you didn’t bring your own, there were plenty of carts available to use.

Now the fun started. We got inside and I was amazed by the organization and variety. All the plants were sorted by category and were then in alphabetical order. It was a type-A’s dream come true. There was room between the aisles and plenty of clearly marked “employees” to ask for help (all the people working the sale were volunteers, parents, teachers and lots of students of the Friends School).

You should have seen all the varieties they had. I mean, things you’d have to special order if you relied on most local nurseries. There were a few things missing due to crop failures sad little empty places on the wooden shelves, but these were sandwiched between such abundant replacements that I can’t imagine people could complain much. The whole Grandstand was filled with plants front the front to the back, all the way across the whole first level, and some of them had multiple tiers. Crazy amounts of plants. And there were trees, shrubs and roses outside. It just kept going!

When it came time to check out, the process was simple. You were given a tally sheet at the beginning and it was up to you to write down what plant, how much and how many. You gave that sheet to a friendly lady at the tally table and she’d tippity-tap her big calculator and write up your total. Push your cart to a cashier further down and you’re done.

The whole thing took us about an hour and a half, and that was with a few backtracks and additions.

Overall there are a couple things I would mention to any person interested in going to the sale in the future:

#1. If you can avoid bringing your kids, you will have an easier time.

You can bring kids, of course, but it is a big place, concrete floors, I have no idea where the bathrooms were, and there are A LOT of people there. The whole experience will be more relaxing for you if your kids are playing with a nice friend or grandparent at home.

#2. You should go in with a plan.

Because of the magnitude and the crowd, it is not the place to plan out your planters. They have a great website where you can get organized ahead of time by creating a wishlist. When you print out the wishlist, it has the code for each plant, and that will help you find it’s location at the sale. And you’ll definitely want to have that list.

#3. You are among kin.

I was surprised at the patience and general good attitude of everyone in attendance. I watched people crush rosemary and smile as they inhaled the scent. I saw people oogle flowers in other people’s carts and comment on how pretty it was going to look. People were polite, patient, and nobody stole my purse even when I left my cart unattended multiple times. What nice folks. 🙂

Since you know you’re going to spend the money on your plants and flowers anyway, if you want to support a school in the process and have fun making an event of it, I think you’ll really enjoy the Friends School Plant Sale. And no, I don’t have kids at the school nor am I a paid spokeswoman for them. But it was a wonderful day with a great friends and beautiful weather. You’ll have to ask me in a few years when I’ve made it through the sale by myself and in the rain. It might just be worth it.

Children as Phantom Limbs

1
May

(…and I don’t mean in super hero terms)

I once read an article about the life of a suffering woman and her young daughter in an impoverished country. The family had dirty water and barely enough to eat. The reporter have the daughter a piece of chocolate and then captured a poignant moment as the mother wiped an errant crumb from her daughter’s lip and put it in her own mouth. The take-away message emphasized the hardship the mother was facing, the difficulty of her life.

Huh?

Did the reporter not realize that as mothers our children are, for many years, extensions of ourselves?

The chocolate crumb (which was something the daughter was lucky to even lay eyes on. If it was between me and my daughter and only one of us could have the chocolate, it would be no contest. I would win the crumb. She’s only four and I’m much bigger than she is.) on her daughter’s lip was really in that moment a crumb on the mother’s lip.

It is not until later when they no longer need our help, when they no longer need us to interpret their babble for strangers (and sometimes their own fathers), when they can tell us the sum of 135 and 24 that we become aware of their separateness. Or rather they become aware and we accept it, knowing it is an essential part of their development (thank you, Mr. Maslow).

But as they distinguish themselves from us, don’t we miss it — those un-self-conscious moments when they twirl our hair to comfort themselves, or when we can still carry them on a hip and we must reposition their hand because it rests on our breast? Our bodies were their bodies, at least for a time, and while we wanted a break (“Could everyone stop touching me for three minutes!?!”) from the demands on our bodies (while nursing how many times did you feel bovincial? — and is that a real word?), when we discover it has happened, it is a bittersweet moment. And if we did not physically birth the child, as is the case with so many mothers with the divine calling to adopt, there is still a physical shift, an invisible tether that leashed us to that child when we first held her, whether it be instant or by inches. Maybe that’s why certain people have lots of babies and huge families? because that dependant, needy phase can vanish just as you realize it is only a phase?

This connection is what those grannies must refer to when they tell the disheveled, sleep-deprived mother to savor the infant stage, toddler stage, cranky three-year-old stage, because “they grow up so fast.”

At that moment all we hope is that they WILL grow up fast.

But we can’t arrest time at a certain month or year. What the grannies mean is that after only a few looooong-feeling years, those dependent years will be ones we long for. Like an amputee feels a phantom limb, we will absent-mindedly do the baby bounce when we stand in line behind a fussy baby, or hurry to dig through our purse for a distraction in church when an impatient toddler squirms in the pew in front of us. Or quick snatch a piece of chocolate out of a preschooler’s hand, because, of course, that’s not a healthy choice…for a preschooler.

But maybe the grannies are right and we do need to be present and appreciative in the years when we feel like we’re under water in a sea of diapers, baby food, naps and very very short grumpy people. After a few more years they may still be grumpy, but they’ll no longer be short. 🙂

A Terrible Stealer of Joy: Worry

19
Apr

Alternate title: She’s a Freak…Yow!

It has been confirmed once again that I am the exception to the norm, that my brain doesn’t work in the similar patterns as the brains of other women, and that women today consistently share one common characteristic: worry.

Women worry about everything.

A woman worries if it is time to move her child to a front-facing car seat.

She worries about her husband’s safety on a work trip out of town.

She worries about the mole she noticed on her shoulder.

She worries about the comment she made at party last weekend.

These things are reasonable, when taken individually. Who doesn’t want to make the best decision about the health or safety of their family members? The thing that unites women is not just the fact that they worry about common things; it’s that they don’t just worry, they obsess.

Almost every woman I know mulls things over, and over and over, until a problem or decision that was fairly small gains unmerited importance and gravity. Will the house be ready when company comes over? Why did my co-worker make that suggestion yesterday and what did he mean by it? When my in-laws offer me a maid service as a birthday gift, what are they really saying?

The constant analysis and deconstruction of every detail of every interaction robs women of their confidence, their self-worth and their joy. Who has time to be joyful when there are so many bird-y things pecking at them all the time? If left unchecked, women’s worrying can make them stop trusting their instincts and put their worth in the hands of the people outside themselves. When allowed to grow, this shakiness can lead to chronic and sometimes debilitating anxiety.

I’m trying to discern why this is so commonplace. What messages are women given that leads them down this road? How can we keep this from being passed down to our daughters?

And how did it NOT get passed to me?

I’d love to hear your insights and experiences with worry and anxiety.

Gas Grill Safety

14
Apr

With the warmer temperatures and plants in bloom, the season of grilling is upon us. Everybody, fire extinguishers at the ready! I have had a few run-in’s with a grill, and I’d like to help you avoid the many pitfalls of dealing with fire.

According to the government FEMA website, “the leading ignition factor is a result of some mechanical failure, such as a part failure, leak, or break and lack of maintenance (43%). Other leading ignition factors for outdoor grill fires include “operational deficiency” (primarily leaving the grill unattended), misuse of the material ignited (combustible material was too close to the heat), and misuse of the heat of ignition itself (inadequate control of the open fire and abandoned materials).”

That website also notes that the highest occurence of grill fires happens during the summer months. Wow. I wonder how many taxpayer dollars went to observe that obvious fact. In the spirit of observing the obvious, then, I offer my own thoughts on grill safety:

#1. Bigger is not better.

Making the heat higher or the flames bigger will not actually help things. A moderate temperature to get things going is more efficient, since if you make the grill too hot, you’ll just have to wait for it to cool down anyway. I once tried to make burgers for our Meal Co-op and ended up with burgers like hockey pucks. I also ended up with a very light wallet since I had to order pizza to feed them all when my original dinner plans went in the dumpster.

#2. Temperance is not always a virtue.

You gotta have some kind of heat or your poor lil’ burgers will stay raw. Sometimes when you want to slow cook something, like a brisket for example, you’ll want to keep the heat low but then cook it for a long time, not something you usually want to do with burgers or brats. I can’t tell you the number of times I have tried to go slow and low with the burgers only to run short on time and try to get them done by cranking up the heat. See #1 above.

#3. Men who stand around the grill are actually accomplishing something…

Namely not burning the food. I used to think about grilling like baking: you put the meat in there at a certain temperature, leave it for the alloted amount of time, and when you come back it is done. In grilling, you definitely need to monitor the situation. If that means the guys can have a beverage of choice and visit with pals while doing something that saves me the hassle of running in and out of the house, then I’m all for it.

#4. A grill is not a pot of water.

Often times I will put a pot of water on the stove, turn the flame up to high and go deal with other things for a while. This is a bad idea with a grill. Just as putting the lid on a pot will help the water boil quicker (maybe? I haven’t actually done the experiment needed to compare and contrast the boil rates, but it’s what I’ve always done), closing the lid on the grill will heat it up faster.

A lot faster.

So fast, in fact, that before you know it there’s billows of black smoke and char on your window.

And your paint blisters and changes from white to black with an edge of brown.

And you have to tell your husband that you sortof burnt the house.

And he takes away your grilling privileges for life.

Have you experienced a grill mishap? Please help me feel better about my serious and potentially dangerous blunder by sharing with me. Be safe, and enjoy all your perfectly cooked entrée items!

Dirt and Cheap Fencing

9
Apr

This week we got the garden puffed up with dirt (soil, for you dirt snobs :), and because I know you’re dying to know, it was a tri-blend mix from a landscaping place in our area) and decided we needed some kind of fence to go around it, mostly to slow down the children, dog and deer who may tramp through it.

We went through quite a few fencing ideas before we stumbled onto deer netting. It is a tough plastic net with small holes and is designed to keep deer out of your plants. It comes on a roll that cost $18 and is 7ft wide x 100 ft long. They sell it at most big box home/garden stores and the 7 ft width is folded in half in the roll. I think they intended people to set it over the top of said plants, but we went a different route.

We kept it doubled up, bought 4ft tall plastic fence stakes at $2 each, and just unwound the roll of deer netting around the perimeter of the garden. It isn’t going to keep the deer from jumping the fence, but I’m hoping they’ll have better things to do. I have to hang some ribbons from the fence because it is virtually invisible and the dog already almost ran straight into it! In the photo you can see the stakes but just barely make out the fencing. I’ll try to get a better pic soon.

I may be crazy but I took at chance and my fellow veggie garden partner and I planted potatoes, onions, and two kinds of climbing peas. I may have to baby them along next week, since it is supposed to get a bit chilly, but everything is up for grabs this year with the early spring weather we’ve had in Minnesota. How are your garden plans coming along?

Rejection and Its Cousin, Failure

28
Mar

Have you ever been rejected? I mean, really rejected? I am staring serious rejection in the face and have realized that it is more than just simple rejection involved in the process of being rejected; it is also a facet of failure. To be rejected, one has to have failed in some way, to have been found lacking necessary attributes or be deemed unable to perform certain tasks adequately. This can be in a romantic relationship, a friendship, at work, at school, at home, almost anywhere you are, because part of rejection and failure is a falling short of the goal you had for yourself as well, and not only superimposed from outside yourself.

I’m curious about your experiences with rejection or failure and how you dealt with it. Did you hole up with a quart of ice cream (or my favorite: cookie dough)? Did you take up running? Did you paint with dark colors? Did you cry? Did you yell? Did it help to talk about it or did you have to process it internally? It looks different for each person, but I’m interested to hear from your perspective. I welcome your comments!

The Changing Blogosphere

27
Mar

When I thought about starting a blog, I considered some of the few blogs I followed. What was it about them I liked? What kept me coming back? Honestly, I’m picky and don’t desire to use much of my discretionary time online (except to check Facebook but that doesn’t count, does it?) so I haven’t subscribed to many blogs, but when I evaluate the common themes among my few subscriptions, I discovered something that influenced my own approach to blogging.

Initially the people I followed posted thoughtful, long-ish posts but infrequently, effectively consolidating the time I would have spent over a longer span into one post that took longer to read, but also offered a more complete and thorough treatment of an idea. But something has been happening lately, and I’ve noticed more blogs with short, one-quick-thought posts (which made me think of Mike Meyers dressed in drag on SNL when he told us to “talk amongst ourselves, I’ll give you a topic: the Roman Parthenon was neither Roman nor a Parthenon. Discuss.”), almost a thought jogger, if you will. And maybe that’s the kind of time people have: just enough to suggest a topic, let it percolate in the mind of a reader, and create a place for discussion of said topic if people wish.

The scary thing about that kind of “format” is that it assumes the blog has lots of readers and commenters (commentators?). What if you put an idea out there and no one says anything about it, or worse, nobody sees it at all? Even if that terrible event occurs, I think it is still worth it if merely for the exercise of taking a thought from inside my head and translating it into words on a page.

I’m going to try and shift my expectation for what my blog posts look like, try to make them shorter (and maybe sweeter) and I’d welcome your responses. This is, of course, ignoring the fact that it is warm here now and my garden is calling to me and spring kids activities are going to kick off soon, but a person can try, right? You’ll hear from me again soon!