Working At Relaxing!

"I popped a rib out" I tell the man that we are getting the hay from.  I take a moment to wrestle a bale into the back of his truck, that we are borrowing to transport the soft yellow-brown, slightly itchy material.  We are building another Elliot Coleman style compost bin, something we had huge success with last year.  My husband and I had a fall wedding and part of the decorations were multiple bales of hay stacked with pumpkins, gourds, mums...the typical New England fall decorations.  And being super frugal, we put our wedding decorations to work.  They helped us make about three yards of compost for our veggie gardens. And yes there is a picture of me jumping for joy atop the black gold that we made!  (I actually have compost listed as one of the most romantic gifts I've ever been given by my husband.)

I popped a rib out, uttered from my lips on several occasions in passing conversation.  The horror on people's faces.  I stop to digest what I've just said.  I popped a rib out.  I say it as if it happens to everyone and that this is as common of an occurrence as drinking a cup of coffee and hitting a bump.  I'm not sure how-it's the second time this has happened in the past few years.  No doubt it has something to do with me moving incorrectly.  And this seems to be just another notch that I've gained on the belt of 'I'm an ageing individual'.

However, my ageing, arthrictic body has been warning me to slow down.  And so I found myself attending a yoga class in an attempt to aknowledge it.  I've decided to work on me and learn about relaxation.  And almost like this was my destiny, to learn about relaxing-my partner and I were given a hot tub.  It needed a few minor repairs, but my husband is the resourceful type, and had it up and running in no-time.   Okay, so there was some time.  (Especially while Rob worked at his full time job, I cobbed several part time things together for work and we were helping organize the town's first garlic festival).  The part for the repair sat in a box.  Umm, for over a month.

So this past weekend while the leaves were still rustling in the trees,warning winter that it's up next, my husband and I remembered to go out and check out the foliage.  We climbed up some trails that we hadn't been up before or hadn't visited in a long time.  We did two hikes, one to Sterling Pond, a trail just outside of Stowe in Smugglers' Notch.  The other trail was Deer Leap in Bristol.  And with each step we took, we breathed in the crisp fall air.  Our eyes were dazzled with brightly colored fallen leaves, wet moss-covered rocks and we were reminded of what it feels like to let ourselves be still. 

I squeezed in getting a henna by Rebecca Freedner from Heartfire Henna.  I'm not sure how it was that I decided that I liked henna, because up until a year a go I didn't know much about it.  But when Rob and I decided to get married, I was pretty sure that if anything was going to make me happy-it would be henna.  There wasn't a wedding dress, a photographer or a ring-but we got henna.  And I was super happy.  You have to sit still to get henna and to me it's the most tranquil way to be pampered and bigger bonus you end up with a cool design to ponder for however long it takes for it to wear off.  It also helps if the person doing the henna is the pure embodiment of mother nature.  Or has the affect of warm chocolate chip cookies, a good night's rest and your favorite apertif all in one!  Rebecca has that magical henna touch.   

If you were wondering when I'd get back to the hot tub....well here it is.  Imagine the shock when I sat immersed in a bubbly mix of steaming water and I looked out onto the world my husband and I had worked so hard to create.  The flock of chicken retirees meandered about the yard gossiping.  I  looked down the hillside onto our hoophouse with fenced in gardens, still producing food into October!  The beautious chicken coop stared back at me with it's tidy flower gardens framing it, a few vibrant blue Aconitum (Monkshood) standing tall.  And I gazed at the small berry patches, still producing a berry here and there.  It was stunning!  And for a few moments, I allowed myself some deep breaths.  And I forgot  about the sore spot where my rib sits misallinged for the time being (it has worked itself back into place before) so I won't give up hope on it.

As I work harder to organize and make the most of my energy, I recognize relaxation to be just as important of a component of my daily life as anything .  Maybe that means that I periodically stop for a moment to stretch in the opposite direction while I'm weeding or that I take in my surroundings while I rush about feeding and watering the chickens during my morning routine.  It sounds wrong to use the words working at relaxing but I think it is definitely becoming part of the whole, at Chicken Hill.

Chickens Are Love

I was in  the chicken coop saying  good night to my hens and doing the normal head count. There was blood. Not a lot but just enough here and there to know something was amiss. This is my first batch of chickens and they are ageing at over two and  one half years old. I always hear chickens can live a long time. But I’ve lost three chickens of late, I’m getting squeamish and every ailment or abnormal behavior has me racing to the Gail Damerow poultry book. My girls are slowly slipping away---and I’m so attached it’s hard to accept that their passing is a normal process.

I was in the coop watching ten birds jostling for their evening places and they weren’t going to stop to point out who was ailing in the flock. So I quietly observed until I saw Combover, her backside had a scratch and for whatever reason, this overweight gal is a bleeder. I swear that the force of her mass keeps a constant pressure on her exterior that prevents her from clotting. In the past two months I’ve fretted whenever she has a sore or a cut, applying liquids, jellies and finally resorting to a horrible purple spray paint substance called Blu-Kote, which claims anti-microbial properties. I’m not a fan, but it’s the only thing that stays stuck to Combover and prevents her and her coop-mates from further agitating her injuries. And so I learn to live with a Plymouth Barred Rock chicken that happens to be black, white and the not so normal polk- a-dot purple.

My chicken rearing started on a whim. My husband Rob, (then boyfriend) had taken a job in Santa Monica, California but I opted to stay in Vermont. In the brief time that he was gone I decided that I was going to fulfill my dream of raising chickens. And I think it was just as much a shock to me as it was to him that I decided to get chickens in his absence.

Lucky for me and the girls, Rob decided that California wasn’t where he wanted to work and live and returned home. He returned to both our bathrooms filled with tubs of little, downy-soft chirping bodies, vying for the warmth of the brooder lights. And no chicken coop!

Rob couldn’t build a coop fast enough. He claimed that the incessant chirping kept him up at night. And the dust from their feed was another story. But how I loved those little chicks! I didn’t mind that we spent every moment hammering wood together, painting, attaching chicken wire, etc. to create a home for the new addition to our lives. Rob thought I was crazy. (And for the record still does).

I don’t regret for a moment the choice to incorporate chickens into our lives. They bring me such joy and happiness as I watch them on a daily basis. Each has her own personality. I have chickens that follow me around when I garden, hopping into holes that I dig, looking for earthworms. The highest on the pecking order is Biggie Fry who thinks she needs to oversee everything including when it comes to her humans. Guest are followed closely by her watchful eye to make sure she’s not missing out on any of the fun and to be sure that guest conduct themselves appropriately. Good Red jumps on my lap with the grace of a gymnast, earning her the nickname Mary Lou Retton. Baby will trot behind me and constantly cry. A recent guest asked what the name of the chicken was that kept following us that I would say “shhhh Baby” to. When I told her it was Baby she just looked at me dumbfounded. And Baby looked up at her and cried some more, obviously she wanted to be part of the conversation.

I undertook raising poultry because I wanted to raise animals that would provide us with food. We were also getting more serious with our vegetable gardens and had erected a small hoop house to extend our production season. We’ve even had multiple discussions about raising meat birds, something that has been put on hold for two seasons now. What I never would have guessed is how much chickens can be love. I have chickens that jump up on my lap for a snuggle. They show delightful curiosity and in general are impossible not to watch in utter fascination-because you just don’t know what their next move will be.

Tomorrow, my husband will hold Combover, my rather large hen, while I spray her with Blu-Kote. And at Chicken Hill Gardens, nine of the most spoiled, past their prime, egg-layers will look on for a moment until their attention is drawn elsewhere.

Tomatoes, for the record, are almost past but not my memories of them....

Tonight, in Monkton, Vermont- frost threatens and I'm happy that my lettuce and tender crops in the raised bed gardens are snuggly wrapped with blankets.  My hoop house is shut up tight, but will need more work before I deem it fit to grow suitable cold weather crops into the early winter months.  Lucky for us we will see a reprieve in weather by the weekend.  But I know it won't last for very long!

All summer, as I trod down to my hoop house, I had every intention of starting a blog.  Time is just what I had to think about it, since it takes me about an hour to water my 30+ tomato plants and other assorted  warm weather crops.  And during the heat of summer I would make that trip two to three times a week.  It's a small hoop house by industrial standards-but for a home-owner, whose desire is to feed my husband and I, it's a suitable size. 

I mentally took notes on what tomato plants seemed to be performing best.  And I had every intention to weigh each plant's yields and take detailed notes on what varieties tasted like-or how they were best used (salsas, sauces, or freshly eaten), we even dreamed up a tomato tasting, my husband and I.  Did any of this come to fruition?  Nope.  I lost count around 150 to 200 lbs of tomatoes.

What I can tell you is this, I ate fresh tomatoes from summer to fall.  I still have buckets to can and I am cursing when I will find the time to process them.  Yet, it seems like just yesterday I was lamenting for the taste of a fresh tomato.  Now I can't wait to rip out the lovely beast that tower to the top of my (kind of short hoop house at about 7-8'tall) and still dangle lovely green orbs. 

 

I have a lovely collection of home canned products put away for the chillier months and into the season before we hopefully see an abundance of this fruit again.  Ketchup, salsa, pasta sauce and a gem of a condiment that we refer to as sweet chili sauce (something passed down from my grandmother).  A concoction of tomatoes, onions, peppers and a few spices that boiled down with vinegar make the most delectable condiment on pork, eggs and just about anything!  All these canned goods line our shelves and make me smile with pride. 

So who cares if I don't quite recall how many tomatoes came off the Constuluto Genovese and why it took so long to put in the Purple Cherokee and Red Siberian tomatoes this year (our favorites from last year)-or even that the Brandywines just didn't do that great.  I was thrilled by varieties with great names like: Mater Sandwich and Giant Tree Tomato.  Jet Star was so super prolific, that while I was checking the hoop house this evening I picked a few more tomatoes that were ripening.   Through out the growing season I popped various cherry tomatoes into my mouth like candy.  I'm over-joyed with how our first year of raising tomatoes in a hoop house turned out.  And we were fortunate in that we escaped blight, something that many of my gardening friends had their entire crops wiped out by when tropical storm Irene blew it into their gardens. 

For now I dream of the seed catalogues arriving during the snowy months and what tomato varieties I will try next.  I have great memories of an exceptional tomato year and until I get out the yogurt cups and seed starter mix I will enjoy what I was able to preserve.