Partial this, partial that

Nothing's really done. (Yes I could go on to a "meaningful" post about What It All Means and how patience and growth go hand in hand, but I'm cranky and sore. So there.)

I can't even finish a run -- I'm walking easily a third of each one, and plodding in between. I don't know why I bother, except if I keep doing it, I assume that "running" will return to my running.

Oh -- one thing that wasn't done is that the killer hens, here pictured (don't they look innocent?)

did not get a chance to off their sister chicken. They managed to de-flesh the back of her neck pretty horrifically, but just before I was deciding that I couldn't keep her in the isolation coop and was going to have to move her on to the crock pot, a friend told me about someone who wanted a pet chicken to hang with their solo hen. Yippee! One less death at my hands, and one less old hen to feed. Hooray for kind hearted folks.

I'm growing the world's smallest broccoli. In order to redeem these vegetables, I'm going to have to eat the leaves in stir fry and cut the stems up and use them to eat dip, or something. Too bad I haven't much of an appetite these days.


Except for kale, the one vegetable that is making me smile. I made a kale soufflé the other day, even though when I was trolling around the internet for recipes the only reference to "kale soufflé recipe" I saw suggested that it would taste foul and therefore no one would wish for such a thing. Well, for a first time ever making one of these puffy marvels, it tasted great. But I love me some Lacinato kale.


Something's been digging in my unfinished garden. I just figured out what to do about it tonight, but I'll do it tomorrow, after another round of digging, no doubt. It may be too late to save the six cabbage transplants.


And instead of finishing any knitted project, I just have four in various stages of completion, being ripped out and redone, or languishing. This doesn't, of course, count any projects half done packed away (you know who you are, cotton throw and sock pairs).

Blue thing is a walking hat, oatmeal and red disappearing into the couch is a top down raglan for Thing 3, the Kauni is awaiting a day I feel strong enough to rip out three rows to redo -- I may never finish the neckline, never, I tell you, and the thing masquerading as a roll of toilet paper is the secret so far design that I have to consult with my buddy about tomorrow.


Humph. I'd like to finish something but that would mean, you know, knitting.

Another one down

My fellow urban farmer, Esperanza, came over today to help me end the life of our second rooster.

He was gorgeous.



It wasnt a whole lot of fun, and I really appreciated her help. I don't feel badly, apologies to my old, years-of-vegetarianism self, but I suppose when I enjoy killing a chicken, that's the time to go back to not eating meat. We discovered, as we dressed his body, that he had an impressive pair of, well, balls. This was one serious rooster. I'm going to do a search for recipes for old roosters -- this isn't a bird to fry or roast. I'm thinking very assertive spices and lots of moist cooking.

It wasn't all slaughter here today. We talked about food, and growing gardens, and what kinds of things our families were eating and why, and the funny names that homebirthers in the area give their children (can you say "Pterodactyl" as a middle name? I kid you not), and how we dealt with insect pests and could you use a garden clipper to cut the head off of a turkey?

Good times.

Talking turkey

Last night, Thing 1, Eric and I got to try to plug up the gaps in the poultry retention system. The turkeys are much more committed to escape than the chickens ever were, maybe because they're tree-roosters. Maybe I should have paid much more attention to Esperanza's experiences. We haven't had any walkabouts since one hen wandered off a couple of years ago, but the turkeys got into a neighbor's garden and made enough of an impact that he wasn't thrilled.

We promised to get them under control, and thought we had.

Then we saw this last night:


They kept leaping to the top of the coop, wedging their snaky neck heads under the wire, and wandering about on top of the run roof.

Since the bees were nicely tucked up in bed, we could run all over the poultry yard, wiring together any gaps. I hope it helps. Thing 1's maniacal giggling did not help.

Later, I was bemoaning something -- my lost youth or beauty, and Eric wrapped me in his arms.

"I think you're wildly attractive," he said. "In fact, you've completely reset my type."

I looked at him. "Really?"

"Yes. Now I like them . . . sort of skinny, and kind of . . . brown."

"What was your type before?"

"Willing."

It's good to have standards, I suppose.

I'm not good with percentages

But this sweater has to be over 50% done. I even started sleeve number two without stopping for another snail mitten. The first one went quickly, so I'm sort of inspired.

But whatever will I do when the pumpkins are all harvested? See the powdery mildew? It's only a matter of time.


I know! Variegated sage?


No, rosemary.


Oh, here's the best idea. I'll use someone too small as a model.


I'm also all about the tubes lately, as I have a fun little project out of handspun on the needles, but I don't want to show that one until I'm all done, really. It should make a nice picture show.

And we bought three turkeys yesterday, destined for the holiday table, and I killed my first chicken today. It wasn't a lot of fun, but it was doable and I don't really want to talk too much about it.

I need a nap, though.

Twilight Zone

There are some very weird things that happen around here. Not even kid-driven weirdnesses!

Our shower, for instance, has a love/hate relationship with the on-demand water heater. So when we shower, it ranges from really hot to rather chilly -- and the shower becomes a dance where one has to listen for the temperature change. On the upside, our showers are brisk and water-conserving.

Then, speaking of water-conserving, we use buckets to catch extra water, or to empty one of the kids' "warm-up" baths, and then to water the plants outside. Maybe because of that, the plants in the front yard have put on huge bursts of growth. For the first time in as long as we've lived here, the wisteria is blooming. The volunteer pumpkin plant had put out four pumpkins, big ones, and we were tickled. Enough for each child for Halloween! But now, every single day there's a new baby pumpkin showing up. Since I am all for increase, when I lug the bucket out, I do some assisted pollination. Maybe we'll have enough pumpkins for all the kids in the neighborhood.

We won't, however, have enough chickens for everyone. We had gotten the six new ones, bringing our total to ten hens. One of them had a congenital defect in her beak, so she didn't eat or drink as efficiently as the others. She seemed, however, perky despite small. Then, one of the completely healthy new hens died a couple of weeks ago. I didn't do any kind of post-mortem, and the kids buried her. I am so over naming the hens that I didn't even attend the funeral. When I told people one of the chickens had died, every one said, "The dork-beaked one?" But no. However, last night when I went out there, the dork-beaked one was dead. Lying right in front of the coop building. I noted that but figured I'd grab her body and put it in the city compost bin later.

Later didn't come until this morning. I'd wrestled the bag of honeycomb up onto the draining area, poured the already-drained honey into jars, and then after wiping up, decided I needed to tend to the living and remove the non-living. I grabbed newspaper and went outside. And -- the body was gone. I didn't see any tracks, or feathers, or anything. She was just gone. I assume something got to it and ate her, but I don't know. It felt like one of those scary kid-stories about how the hitchhiker just disappeared.

And I sort of talked to the guy at the camera-repair shop yesterday, and if I understood him correctly, the part to repair our camera isn't available or is only available on ebay, or we should parts our camera on ebay, or he wants our camera for parts, but I have a sinking feeling that I'm not going to get to use my camera again. This makes me sad, because I really enjoyed using it.

Fortunately, the place where my spouse works is having enough scandals and crises that every time he turns around, they're promoting him and giving him more money, and my job is steadier than I could have predicted, so we can afford another camera, but making the decision about what camera isn't easy for me. It has to have a really fast shutter, because my kids move so quickly -- I can't do that digital drag. I'd like it to date-stamp pictures as an option. I'd like it to have huge resolution so I can make big big blowups occasionally. I'd also like it to have easy to understand options, and maybe a clear manual. I'd like to be able to do macro shots. Spouse thinks a Nikon is the way to go, and maybe that's true.

I know that waiting on electronics almost always makes the price go down and the options go up, so I'm not impatient for that. But the all-words blog is boring me, and I'm two welts into the hot-color family snail mitten, and there's a lovely finished object just waiting for pictures, so I would like to have some pictures.

Not to mention, you gotta see these pumpkins!