Monthly Archives: April 2009

Following through – A Challenge

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Every year, as Spring comes around, I find myself reflecting on things that I’ve done in my life that I really enjoyed, but are no longer a part of my life. For one reason or another, I’ve given up on them and I wish I hadn’t. So, this year, I’m making a list of those things I’d like to follow through on. Join me if you like. Make a list of those things you have done in your life that you really enjoyed and wish you still did. Then pick one (or more if you like) that you commit to add back into your life this year. Be sure it is something that brings you joy! Then leave me a comment and let me know what you are committing to!

Things I’d like to follow through on: (not in any particular order)
1* Learning a foreign language - I use to be fairly fluent in Spanish, but lost it after college. I’ve also studied a little Italian… I’d love to speak both again!
2* Latin Dancing – I took classes at one time and absolutely loved dancing!!! It made me feel so sexy… I loved the flow of the steps, but I felt weird dancing with other men… I didn’t feel like I could be as sensual as I wanted… Toby doesn’t really like dancing… So, I stopped.
3* Tae Kwon Do – years ago, I was a green belt, and I was good at it too! I really enjoyed the spinning kicks!!! But the Dojang moved, and I quit.
4* Hooping - haven’t hooped in months because of pregnancy and now, not begin able to find the time. I really want to get better. It’s like a form of meditation for me
5* Travel – not so easy with kids and a homestead, but I love to visit foreign places and learn about other cultures!
6* Singing – I used to sing in high school and college… mostly opera! But, somewhere along the line I lost my nerve and became more of an introvert. It makes me feel so powerful, though.
7* Piano/Fiddle – I played piano and guitar when I was younger but didn’t appreciate it as much as I do now… I’d love to become more fluid with my playing!

So, to start with this year, I’m going to make a commitment to hooping again. At least once a week, but hopefully more! Heidi, who lives on the land, said she will hoop with me. I’m going to make a little sandy spot somewhere on our land for a hooping pad.

I’m also headed to the local dojang on Monday to check into Tae Kwon Do classes!

What about you?

Candling the eggs

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We went out to candle the ladies eggs this evening. I made my own candler with a strong flash light and a piece of cardboard wrapped to make a cone for the egg to sit above. that focuses the light so that it shines through the egg.

I thought it would be a good idea to see how development was going. That way, if there is an egg that isn’t developing or is full of bacteria, I could get rid of it so that it doesn’t explode or contaminate the other eggs. This site has some nice pictures to follow, as does this one. The main thing was looking for the blood vessels. It’s not so easy when you have chicken that lay dark eggs. I checked Snowflakes eggs at 7 days and saw a spot in each of the eggs (the eye of a developing chicken), but couldn’t see veins. Today (day 11) when I checked I was able to see a moving chick in each of the eggs! YAY! You go Snowflake!! she’s on seven eggs.

In Sparkle’s eggs, it wasn’t as easy. She’s only been on her seven eggs for 6 days. I found three that had obvious blood vessels and 4 eggs that I couldn’t tell. I’ll candle hers again at 11 days to see if I see any moving chicks.

We tried to take pictures, but our camera sucks! Here’s the best one we got. There was a moving chick in this one. You can’t see that, but you can see the air bubble that develops along with the chick.

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What are we going to do with all these babies?? We need to build a larger coop!

Story Dice

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I saw the fantastic idea of story dice here and had to make some! So, I ordered a bunch of blocks and Kaia and I spent a few days last week painting. She made a winter set and a spring set, and I made 4 sets of 4 blocks (extra sets for Kaia’s school K-2 class rooms). It was so fun thinking of things to put on them. We did a boy, girl, turtle, dragon, rabbit, house, beach ball, candle, egg, tree, car, bike, book, cupcake, flowers, boat, hat, balloons, ring, cup of tea, rain, butterfly, and a question mark (to make up your own). You can play many different ways, but the way we use them is to throw them out and create a story with the pictures that are on top. One person will start with a picture and then the next person adds on to the story with the next picture. It’s a really fun way to encourage creativity and imagination.

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Our Broody Ladies

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Well, they say (who ever They are) that Silkies often go broody and make great mamas. So far, They are right. Both my silkie ladies are broody. Snowflake started sitting on eggs this past Sunday, and Sparkle started sitting a few days ago. So, Toby, sweet construction man that he is, made a broody box for the ladies. He constructed it so that two chickens can use it at the same time, without getting into each others business. I’ve heard that once the chicks hatch, the mamas can get violently defensive. So, we didn’t want to risk that by having them sit in the same area.

Each ‘pen’ is 3′ by 18 inches, making a 3′x3′ box. They have an area for sitting and a space to eat and stretch their legs a bit. The top is hinged so that we can get in and out without too much interruption to the ladies.

Here’s my hotty husband getting started with the box.
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Putting the box into place, just outside of the main coop.
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Looking into one of the ‘pens’
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We moved them in tonight, once it got dark (it seems to bother them less if you move their nests at night.) Snowflake (sitting on 7 eggs) settled right back down and Sparkle (sitting on 8 eggs) went to check out the grub.
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Hopefully, in early May, we will have some babies.

My Child is driving me crazy!!

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sdlkrnyiod!! ltionadfshlk!!! Did you understand that??? NO!! That’s because it is crazy language! I know, all you parents out there are saying “yeah, I know what you are going through”… But OH NO! She is driving me up the wall, out the window, and over the yellow brick road!! How can a 5 year old have such control over my emotions? I truly believe that at the exact moment of her birth, the stars aligned to create a mother-daughter relationship that would encourage me to bang my head on the wall… or the floor… or the door…

Example 1:
“MOOOOOOOOOMMMMMM! (said in a loud, whiny voice) YOU WOKE UP BEFORE ME!!” (I’m sitting in bed, not yet having opened up both eyelids!)

“MOOOOOOMMMMM! WHY DID YOU CHANGE LEIF’S DIAPER WITHOUT TELLING ME????!!!” (Oh, I didn’t know I had to inform you of my every movement!!)

“YOU CARRIED MY SIPPY OUT TO THE CAR, SO YOU HAVE TO CARRY IT BACK IN MOOOOMMMMM!!! (While I stand at the door with my hands completely full with groceries and a baby, and she carries nothing)

And as I try calmly to tell her why she needs to help carry things from the car, she puts her hand to her ear pretending to talk on the phone, holds the palm of her hand up to me, and turns the other way! OH no you didn’t just tell me to ‘talk to the hand’!!

Oh My God, child! Get over this phase fast, will you please!!!

OK, end of rant! Momentary sanity has returned…

In other news, we had our house featured in the New Life Journal again. It’s a great article and makes me feel very proud. Though we certainly didn’t build our house to get recognition, it’s certainly nice to get a pat on the back for it!

One of the bee hives survived the winter and one died… I think they starved. But, the hive that survived seems to be going strong. I went into them today to be sure they weren’t getting ready to swarm… but no signs of swarm cells. They were actually very calm and it was nice to work with them without feeling intimidated. This is the first time I’ve gone into the hive by myself.

Two of our hens have gone broody… our silkies. We built a little make shift broody nest for the first one, but now that two are broody, Toby is working on a little broody house for them. He should finish it tonight, so I’ll take pictures and post them.

Speaking of pictures, we spent Wed. afternoon getting family pictures taken. The man who took pictures of my earth belly offered to take family portraits in trade for my time posing for him. Of course we took him up on it. He is such a great photographer, but also a really nice guy! It was fun spending the afternoon with him. Here are some of the pictures… there are a bunch more, but he hasn’t posted them yet. I’m not a fan of the first picture, but that’s my own vanity finding fault with my double chin and squinty eyes… I love Leif’s smirk in the second picture, and Kaia and Leif’s twin stares in the third… and the fourth one just melts my heart!

Keeping busy

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We had one of those wonderful weekends where you stay really busy with all kinds of fun stuff!

Though we don’t really celebrate Easter, Kaia and I wanted to do something crafty for spring. First we made sweet little birds nests (and ate way too many M&M’s) We brought a few to a birthday party on Sunday, but what we left at home is all gone now :-)

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We dyed some of our eggs, too. But, since we get dark eggs from our chickens and you can’t see the dye well, we tried a new dying tactic.

First, you set up your dyes in glasses and hard boil your eggs.
Then, you roll the cooled eggs around, cracking the shell, but leaving it on the egg.

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Plop the eggs in the glasses of dye and leave them for a few hours, at least (we left ours overnight).

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Then, take them out of the dye and peel off the shell. The inside of the shells are just as beautiful as the egg.

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The darker colors came out best. Some of the eggs didn’t peel well at all, I think they were a little too fresh when we boiled them.

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We plan on having deviled eggs later on this week.

Yesterday, while the moon was in scorpio, we planted spinach and chard seeds out in the garden beds, and started cilantro and fennel in soil block in the cold frame.

With the weather warming up, I really need to go into the bee hives and check them out. But, the weather has been either rainy or too windy. Soon, hopefully, so I can add more supers if they need more space (to keep them from swarming).

Roots and wood

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I put out some roots yesterday while the moon was in Virgo… potatoes of all colors (red, blue, white, yellow fingerling, new potatoes). I did intensive planting of 50 potatoes in a small raised bed, each potato was placed 9 inches apart in all directions. We’ll see how it goes. I also planted beets (Lutz’s salad beets, which make good greens as well as large beet roots, and Chioggia, which are the red and white bull’s eye beets). And since the onions I grew from seed are still looking puny, I put in a pound of onion starts, too.

I also planted a rose bush. I know that’s not a root, but I’d just received it in the mail and it needed to get in the ground. It’s a Rosa canina rose. I’ve been looking all over for it and found only one supplier, and it was going to cost $70 to get it shipped to me. Even though these aren’t the showiest of roses, the hips they produce are huge and I use them a lot in cooking and medicine. Many other roses produce nice rose hips, but this is the kind you will get when you order them from an herb supplier. So, I thought I would have to be without…then Lizzy Lane found one on Ebay for me… in Italy! I contacted the seller and they were the nicest people! They said they would send me a small start for $11, including shipping. It arrived in beautiful condition on Wed. so I plopped it in the ground yesterday. Yay!

Here’s a rose hip recipe for you:
Rose Hip Jam
Fill jar 2/3 full of cut, sifted & deseeded rose hips.
Cover with apple juice.
Let sit 4 hours to overnight. May be blended for smoother texture. Refrigerate.
Slather it on toast, use instead of jelly, or just eat it with a spoon!! Mmmm

Toby’s started work on a wood shed. It seems to rain every time we need to bring wood in for a fire, so we thought it would be nice to have a dry place to stack it for next winter :-)
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And, I don’t think I ever put up pictures of the guest house once we finished it… well, almost finished it. Heidi’s been living in it since late last year, but it still needs water, electricity and finish work. It’s cute though, eh?
guesthouse

plantings

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I set out my broccoli, kale, and lettuce/greens seedlings today. (The moon is in Cancer, a water sign good for planting leafing vegetables.) And tomorrow the moon moves into Leo, a fire sign good for planting fruiting plants, so I am going to start my tomatoes and eggplants. From reading other blogs it seems like I’m way behind on my plantings, but if I calculate my plantings by the average last frost date around here (April 21st), I’m not supposed to start tomatoes until about now… am I way late??

I have another question… When I start my vegetable seeds, unless the seed package tells me otherwise, I always just stick the seeds in the soil…. I know some seeds need cold, some need scarring, some need soaking, but which seeds? Is there a list of seeds needing stratification or scarification?

EC

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Ashley asked about the little potty Leif was sitting on… We are trying something called elimination communication. It’s where we watch the signs that Leif makes when he is about to go potty and make a noise when he pees or poops (like a tssssss, or a little grunt). At certain times of the day, or when we see those signs, we sit him on the potty and make that noise and he goes into the potty! That way, he spends less time in messy diapers. It’s really simple, I just haven’t taken the time to do it enough with him. I should be putting him on the potty when he wakes up and after he eats. Problem is that when he wakes up he is usually starving to eat, so he ends up going while he is eating. And after eating he usually falls back to sleep, so I don’t want to wake him up to go potty ;-) Still, it’s really cool when I do sit him on his little throne and he goes into it!

amazing…

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These last two days have been so amazing! Yesterday, as Kaia and I were driving home, we passed by one of the cow farms down the road. Most of the cows were far off in the field, but there was one standing right by the road. I noticed that she has an amniotic sac hanging out, and when she lifted her tail there were two front hooves! So, we pulled the car over and watched the sweet mama cow give birth! It was so beautiful!! And as soon as the baby came out it twitched its ears and tried to stand! Amazing!

Then, today, we spent the evening hanging out with a deer! She walked right up our road and stopped by the house to say hi. She must be a lost pet or something. I called the nature center but they said there was nothing they could do. I hope she doesn’t get shot… she’ll walk right up to you and let you pet her! She even walked up to the back door as Suki was barking her head off from inside. We spent a few hours outside with her and then she walked off into the woods. I doubt we’ll ever have an experience like that one again!

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