higher still

We reached 82F (nearly 28C) today -- that was a first! Was it last September that I was this warm outside?

It was so unusual, so sudden and, looking ahead at the prognoses, so fleeting, that when we got up to open and freshen up the coop, we decided to stay out.

And this is how I find myself doing raspberry field (you can no longer call it a patch) work before 6 in the morning.






(The chipped area is the repaired field. Oreo and Butter are testing the raspberry leaves of a newly transplanted cane.)






We work hard and stop only because the thought of breakfast on the porch is so tempting me that I can't quite shake the image. (This photo is not of the breakfast table, but from the breakfast table, looking out.)











At midday, I ride Rosie (the moped) past fields to the east, still cultivated by a community of Laotian truck farmers.


 



I'm on my way to check in with my back therapist. It's my second and final visit, so that we may review the exercises that I really mean to be doing. My back is feeling too fine. If I had a twitch at least, I would have an ongoing reminder of how bad it could get. I would slow down and take heed. As it is, I have no twitch, ache or pull and so I continue to work. But, I have made at least one adjustment and it's a big one: I strap on knee pads when I head out to the yard. They remind me to get down rather than lean forward when I need to weed or plant. You gardeners out there, I strongly recommend them. $8.95 at Farm & Fleet.

Later in the afternoon, I have a wonderful iced tea break with a friend. So yes, I do have a bit of a respite. But immediately after, the garden beckons. Ed and I expand the flower bed and, too, we build a teepee for the soon to be planted purple beans...










And I finally tend to last year's strawberries. They are popping with new growth! I have no doubt that our chicks are going to go after the berries once they grow and ripen. For now, we have draped netting over most of the plants. Ha! As if that will keep chickens away! We'll surely have to adjust our game plan as the season unfolds.

Dusk. Take out pizza, I'm that tired. Head full of daffodils and summer mornings on the porch.

look around

There is so much to take in out there, in the fields and forests right now! So much to admire and find delightful! Not fair to pack it into a month or two! Not fair to create such intensity and then to move on to quieter times!

And it is intense now, in May. This morning again the clouds compete with the sun and though the clouds took hold for the bulk of the day, the morning was dazzling in the back and forth.






The chickens begin my day here, on Ocean. If you're used to seeing Ed at the breakfast table at the start of each post, I'm sure you've noticed that he has to take second billing now.






(I'm sure he'd like it fine if I just stayed with the chickens, but to me, a good day always has that kickstart from a morning meal together.)

After, I go shopping with my older girl. I know many moms enjoy shopping with daughters, but I am not much of a shopper so that we can never really play out this ritual. But, home ownership has turned my girl into a gardener and I promised that the first trip for perennials we'll do together. And I do love shopping for perennials.

And as if this wasn't enough, after finishing a run through the greenhouse with her, I convince Ed that he and I must do our annual pilgrimage to the place that eschews all annuals and panders to perennial addicts like me -- the Flower Factory.

Where will you put the new flowers -- Ed always asks. And each year the answer is the same: time to expand the flower beds!  Now, were I to start with a grand design, I probably would have planted everything differently. There would be order. Flowers would create a canvas of cohesion.

But it did not begin that way. It started small and grew incrementally and the only thing I will say in my defense is that I like garden chaos. Managed chaos, to be sure, but chaos, in the way that Monet's beds look only slightly orderly and cottage gardens look even less so.

I pick up the usuals: a few irises (bearded and Japanese), a few peonies (doubles and singles), a few daylilies (well, more than a few -- they are a staple of many of my beds), a few lavenders (for the chickens!), and Coreopsis and Gauras -- the cascading twinkling pink stars that stay with us all summer long (even though, unfortunately, they were a casualty of this last winter).






I place the pots on the picnic table. The chickens rest below. It is indeed a moment of pure bliss.

Later, Ed creates a trellis and we plant a Clematis vine against the sheep shed...






... and then we do spot work on a number of ongoing projects. The chickens follow us, always hoping that whatever project we undertake involves digging and therefore worms and sometimes it does and other times it does not...





















... and the day passed in this way, pleasantly, oh so very pleasantly, even though far far too quickly to fully take in all that's taking place around us. I'll leave you with just one more nubbin of beauty. Believe me, there is so much more! Just look around you! So much more!

work

When I work outside, sometimes I think my entire being is making up for lost time. So much of growing up focuses attention on the development of what's inside the head. And heart. The physical, except for dedicated athletes or wannabe athletes, is an afterthought. Oh, let me fit in yoga or a bike ride in between my desk job, driving to the store and cleaning up after the cat who happens to have an upset stomach.

If that is the case, then perhaps I shouldn't be surprised by how much I ache to work in the yard.

So many people would call it dull work. Mindless stuff. How're you going to stave off dementia if you don't exercise your brain more? I'd shrug my shoulders to that. I don't feel mentally lazy.

Oh! That smells of denial! People are forgetting their own first name and they wont admit to a weakened memory! What basis does one have for feeling alert?

Well, for one thing, I remembered my children's names. No prompt needed! Youngest One and Older Girl!

The more sympathetic among you will say -- it's not you, it's spring. Give yourself time. Come summer, you'll be running inside to cool down.  You said this yourself -- May is the gardening month supreme.

I understand that argument, but I don't buy it. I long to work outside even on the most dismal of dismal projects (eg. raspberry patch repair). I really do think I am just making up for decades of an indoor preoccupation.


Outdoor work defined this beautiful day. I am so focused on planting, on digging, on sowing, on weeding that I can't be bothered with photographing the cuteness of Scotch or Butter.  Well, with the exception of the time of our morning wake up routines.
















Ed flits in and out of my hours. There is breakfast -- we take it outside on the porch, but even here, my mind is on the annuals that need to go into pots today.






He then climbs the roof to make repairs...






...and I continue to shoo away chickens (it helps if I find worms for them; a meal like that zonks them out for a good half hour) so that I can do my work,  even as my hands crack  and my back threatens to stiffen and act up.






Evening comes early for me: I have a dinner date in town with old colleagues. Not a late into the night affair by any means. I'm on the road again as the sun draws closer to the horizon.





Home now. Checking the weather report for tomorrow. Only rains will keep me indoors. Or will they?

spoiled

 Sometimes it just happens. You're a parent, you need your kid to behave. You give a bribe. Maybe it's sweet, sugary and maybe it's excessive. You just want the kid to sit still, or go away, become invisible. So you hand over the treat.

I was reminded of this when I did my first of the season planting of new perennials. (After breakfast, of course).






Oh, the chickens were interested alright! It's as if everything up to now was just a prelude to bliss. They keep close to my hand shovel,  looking me right in the eye, hoping that I'll produce their caviar. Digging? You're digging? I want some of whatever it is that you're digging!





I should tell you this: I don't know how the weather was in your neck of the woods, but here, at the farmette, it was a brilliant day. Windy, true, but when the temps stay in the fifties, I'm not going to complain.

And so it's not surprising that I should set out to plant a few things. Slowly at first. It's a bit of a risk after all -- you don't know if the warm weather will last.

So I pause to let them feast on worms. In fact, I help them a bit here. Scotch gets one first from me, because she is the most tentative. But the others get their share. And before you know it, I've abandoned my plants and I'm digging for chickens -- finding worms for them. Ridiculous?

And this makes them sleepy. They nearly always nap after a big meal. Secretly, I'm thrilled: it's like your toddler has finally settled for a while! Wonderful! I can plant!






In the afternoon, Ed and I get back to raspberry patch repair (dig, pull, remove weeds) and the chicks are there as well and this time they need no assistance. When we stir up the dirt in this way, there are so many bugs and worms that it is easy for them to get their fill. And I'm thinking -- what a good life! Eat, nap. Eat, nap. Food readily available, in amounts that would satisfy a million chickens (I exaggerate; or maybe not...).

Does this create spoiled chickens? When is a happy chicken one who is too well provided for?

I'm not worried. They dig, they eat and they make us smile. And maybe somewhere in that chicken face, there's a smile as well.






To complete the post, let me put up a few photos that describe so well the last details of a sunny May day: 1. Oreo and Scotch, resting after a particularly worm-filled morning; 2. collecting eggs, with Isis in for the ride; 3. bringing outside the wintered-over geranium pots; and lastly -- 4. the farmhouse, finally putting on her spring cloak of greenery, with just a few early flowers. It's such a favorite image for me that I keep returning to it in the course of a day. So, here they are, all four snapshots:




















Think how much has changed in a month!

highlights

There are the obvious ones:

My daughter and her husband came over for dinner.




I served quinoa salad and shrimp. Ed left a handful of quinoa on his plate. Shocking. Ed never leaves food on a plate. I tell him -- you eat such garbage (dont ask me to elaborate) and you cant finish quinoa?
I ate some...
You cant be a vegetarian and not like quinoa. Or eggplant. Or zucchini. Or beets...
I like beets!
There's leftover beet soup in the fridge and it's getting mighty old.
I'll eat it tomorrow!
And the quinoa?
That too! Tomorrow I'm going to die of healthiness!

Anyway, the dinner with daughter and her husband was delightful. And good and healthy, darn it!


Other highlights:

The chickens woke to a new world, a puzzling world, but not an awful world. And for me, the sunrise was at a different slant.






And everything looked just a little special. Lovely, there by the barn.











Other highlights:

Breakfast was in the sun room and it was... sunny!






More:

The daffodils dazzled!











And, friends came over to meet our chickens and so we were motivated to put a little oomph into Sunday morning farmhouse cleaning.

These same friends are planning a trip to France and after their visit, I remarked to Ed how wonderful it is to hear their pleasurable anticipation. Of how romantic it must be to go at it together. Ed listened, considered it and answered -- we do romantic things!
You're thinking of what now?
I invited you to go with me to Farm & Fleet this afternoon! (He needed to return some V-belts for the Zero-turn.)



Let me add a few more tidbits here to the highlight jigsaw:

For example, there's the fact that I did not use that Zero-turn to mow the prairie grasses back of the farmette. I used the ancient, absolutely ancient John Deere instead.






It felt solid. I broke nothing. I got the job done. Ed watched from the rooftop where he was making some trivial adjustments to our porch glass roof.







And on our trip to Farm & Fleet, we stopped at Felly's Gardening Center. Just to see. I was tremendously impressed with how this store has evolved over the years: from a ho hum flower shop in the city, to a place of robust annuals and perennials for the serious gardener. Since Ed decided to take a nap in the car, I used the opportunity to stuff the car trunk with a number of lovely farmette flowering enhancements. When he woke up, he didn't even protest. Much.

At Farm & Fleet, too, we had some stellar moments.

Buying corn for the chickens.
Not that one! That's sold by the ton!
No it's not!
Yes it is!
Look here: fancy small bags. $6. Not by the ton.
Look there: big sacks. Priced by the ton.
(It's nice when we both can be right.)

And finding unusual veggies to plant in the garden. Horseradish, for example. (Is that a veggie?)


In the evening, after my daughter and husband had left, We look out and see Whitney, the white chick, wandering around the space of the old pen. She clearly has lost her sense of place. Ed goes out and she flies to him with glee. You could say it was in anticipation of a potential treat. Or you could say it was for a chicken's love of the familiar.  The person who helps fill her dream world of nibbles and water and a good soft place to rest her head.

And speaking of a good place to rest the chicken head, I did today place a few springs of lavender on the chips where the hens lay their eggs. Sort of like a thank you card. Maybe they wont be lulled into a sweet moment of comfort and security. But maybe they will. I hope they will.

moving day

I've noticed that people have different moving strategies. Some take it slowly: let's just unpack one box at a time... Others rush to put it all behind them: you decide where to put the spatula, throw it away for all I care! Let's just unpack already!

Some are bothered by moving. Adjustment to the new surroundings will be slow. Excitement is tempered by apprehension. Others don't care. New streets to cross? No big deal. New acoustics, lighting, neighbors, mail-delivery person? Fun!

If I had to put a label our chickens, I'd say that they belong to the set that's apprehensive, uncomfortable, disoriented, not ready, confused, disinclined to relocate.

And if they're going to be nervous about it, then I'm going to be nervous. And that translates into me wanting to get this done with quickly, methodically, without pause.

Perhaps I should have started with this explanation: today, Ed completed the fence building project and the sun greeted us (well, me and the chickens) with gusto, and so after delighting in all the wonderful luminescence of the morning...































...and after determining that it is warm enough to eat breakfast on the porch (it wasn't really warm enough, but we forced it)...





... I faced the chickens and said this: you are moving today!

They appeared indifferent to the news. Shows how innocent chickens can be.






But it turns out not to be an easy transfer. The space we chose for them (so many factors to consider!) was covered in good part by rotted logs. We had to clear most of those out first.

And as I lifted and heaved logs, I kept thinking -- when will my back snap? When will I regret having lifted one more log?

I was truly relieved that a couple of hours of this  did not undo whatever it is that gets undone in my back.

Alright. Space cleared. Now I help Ed put up the fence (so much prettier than the chain link one we used up to now!).

And finally, we move the coop to this new space for them.

And the chickens follow and they are curious and they accept that this is where they can now get their water, their food, their shelter...






...and then they promptly forget all about it and after a hearty meal of worms, they rest as Ed and I continue to lift, heave, and build.

Okay. The place is ready. Now we need to hang around the new location so that they know this is their new home.

And initially it works. I throw some corn on the ground -- they run, RUN over... But then they're off to who knows where.


It is the afternoon. A perfect one at that: mostly sunny and mostly warm.  And my back is not protesting too much and this is just such a relief!

So maybe we should continue working?  Yes!

More toil and sweat over the raspberry patch: digging, heaving, pulling out the countless clumps of creeping charlie.

And still my back does not protest.

It truly feels like a miracle.

Now if only the chicks would accept their new location...


They do not. They keep coming back to the place where the coop once stood. They appear befuddled. They come to the farmhouse door and set up shop there.

No, no cheepers! Let me lead you to your new address by the barn!
I do that. They follow. They eat the corn I give them (a treat!), they inspect the premises (nice, very nice!) and then they come right back to the courtyard.

Time to put some force behind the move. The sun is setting (ah! so you get a sunrise and a sunset tonight! Thank the chickens!).





It's their bedtime. I lead them once again to the coop and then I lock the new gate on them and walk away.

I mean, really guys: it's the same coop, only a few hundred meters to the side of where you were! You'd make lousy immigrants!

Goodnight, cheepers. I'll see you tomorrow. At sunrise. Or thereabouts.