"What if..." and other random thoughts

With the turn of the weather it's become comfortable to just go outside and sit. The last few mornings have found me catching some alone time out in the woods. Yesterday what started as a short stroll down to the boundary of our new acreage turned into 90 wander around full of wonder and discovery.

This morning I pulled my first cappuccino and headed back to a little waterfall I'd checked out yesterday; a perfect little sheet of water coming off a rock. I could tell that the level's already dropped from where it was a couple weeks ago when I brought the kids down to splash around...

Anyhow, I ended up finding a patch of dry grass on the edge of this little singing brook; there was a soft depression that my hip fit into just perfectly. So I laid there in the warming spring sun, not a bug in sight, and watched the water come over this little rock, sending splashes up onto the surrounding dry stalks from last years meadow. In the corner of shadow there was ice clinging to clumps of this grass where through the cold night stray drops built up. While I was there the sun was high enough to be shining on the ice, and it sparkled and shimmered against the dark mossy wet rocks.

You see, in the 15+ years I've been wandering into wilderness, it's always struck me "what if I lived in a place like this?" "what if I got to be here every day; this was what I woke and slept to?" I now live in such a place. And the answers to that question of "what if..." have been stunning in their beauty; cliche as it may be, it is like a flower slowly blooming; its secrets opening to the world.

I could go on and on, about the color of the stones in the creek, or the striking green of a moss-covered rock against the grays and muted browns of early deciduous spring. Of the leaf carpet just after the snow has melted, and the weight and water and pressed the jumble of leaves and branches into a smooth undulating fabric over the earth. Then there are the trees, the old maples and oaks that the old timers left to mark the edges of their fields, the stone walls, the ledges scraped bare by glaciers that left small boulders in the middle of the forest. Nestled into this is our little corner of home, our orchard, pond, buildings, and now garden. Each place coming alive in the spring.

I never knew spring could be so sweet. When we lived down in town I remember feeling like April and May would never end, out here though, I'm content to let them slowly roll on, watching the buds on trees thicken, hearing the songs of the first frogs to wake up. Seeing the pond just after the ice has melted in its crystal clarity before the algae and all the animals go nuts. And there's no bugs. Did I mention there's no bugs? No bugs. So blissful to just be able to be still.

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So I've got the serious itch to start spinning music. Spinning's sort of a silly descriptor for it since I'll be spinning a hard drive rather than records or even cds. Yup, it's all digital now, baby, and for less than the cost of a single decent cd deck, let alone turn table I can be totally outfitted with a console, new headphones, and a new external hard drive.

See, the thing I realized today is: electronic music is to my generation what folk was to the 60's. Burning Man is the current day Woodstock. Electronic music is everywhere, it moves across borders and languages; getting set up to produce it can be done for less that a nice accoustic instrument (let alone all the recording gear or studio time) would cost. In other words, it's a democratic music, and for the most part it is community-driven rather than corporate-commodified. I can go to BeatPort or Fiberline Audio and find brand new tracks from some folks that are just getting out there, and I can pick them up for less than a couple bucks each. That's pretty friggin' cool.

And then there's the whole DJ-as-bard (or folk musician). As a budding DJ, I've spent the last many years, almost a decade, collecting tracks, finding out what I like and then attempting to follow the thread through a maze of underground connections to find more music like it. There's been a lot of dead ends, there's a lot of noise. The flip side of the medium being so democratic is that there's a low signal to noise ratio; there's a lot of mediocre crap out there to wade through to find those really stunning nuggets. Though when those pearls are found, and then strung together...wow. It moves me, and moves my body. So like any other era's traveling storyteller, DJ's cast their nets, and while many do actually travel in the physical world, I think a lot more of us do our traveling in the digital one, surfing the net and iTunes for the next pearl to share....

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I've actually started journaling for the first time in over a decade. For a long time, I thought of my blog(s) as my journal. Though there's something magical about writing on a page. Last night while Kelly was out and the kids slept I wrote by candle light; the house silent. It was one of those moments where I connected to a long line of ancestry; perhaps the only other comparison that comes to mind is of picking berries by hand. It's just something that has been done countless times by an infinite number of hands. Sitting by candle light in silence; an archetypal human experience that hooked me into something greater than my life, in a moment something longer than memory...

my achin' back!

if i wanted spring to hasten it's arrival a few weeks ago and perhaps go south until it landed... i'm now thanking my stars at the slow, inching progress that is a Maine spring.

why the change of heart? one look at my garden list, and you would understand.

I have an infastructure list that includes:
-enlarging the chicken's fenced in yard... and keeping them there. Little to they know that their free-range days are nearly over. My babied seedlings and new sprouts will not become poultry fodder...
-scavenge barriers for upper garden beds (picture to follow... you'll get what i mean)
- build third and final greenhouse box (picture also to follow...)

I have a planting list that includes (in the next week):
- transplant next 100 strawberry plants (between yesterday and today, i got in 100... i have 100 more to go. 150 if i can't pawn 50 off on some other gardening friends. i overshot the strawberries a bit... in fact, i overshot the whole garden. that's my theme for the year. )
- seed first round of peas on wednesday
-seed first round of lettuce, spinach, radish, beets... other assorted greens... maybe broccoli
-plant remaining seed packets of flowers that need to be started indoors
-all above planting follows bed preparation: turning, rock-hocking, composting...

Misc. important tasks:
-FIND COW MANURE! in bulk
- begin to install deer netting

So, as you can see, i have plenty to be doing in 45-50 degree weather with leaves yet to emerge and night still leaving a frosty sparkle by morning.

But i love it! I love that my body is achy and every time i scan the property i see another chunk to work on. yes, it's a bit overwhelming and maddening when i'm trying to do something that is not paticularly kid friendly (i'm no longer planting small seeds with children present. not happening)... but WOW! i have always wanted to garden and grow on this scale and now it's happening.

It's a bit like parenting your first child really... all my other gardening experiences are like mere babysitting in comparison. Like the new parent i was, i'm reading voraciously and buying new products (yesterday... MooDoo (bagged composted cow manure) and fabric row covers)... constantly wondering if what i'm doing is the right thing and Googling suspicious or confusing behavior (yellow tomato seedlings? wilting broccoli seedlings?) I have no idea what i'm doing right and what i am completely flailing at. The proof will be in the harvest... or not... i suppose.

So anyway... we're gardening... it's fun :)
Here are those photos, as promised.

Here's the outside "greenhouse box" set up:


inside look:


Side garden views... these beds will be filled mostly with herbs, flowers, and greens for daily cutting: lettuce, spinach, chard, etc... As you can see, they aren't done, but are on my list. A few beds are set in with trunks of trees Kevin has taken down; one is ringed with random cinder block scraps that were in a heap from behind the shed. Today Liam and I picked rocks off the rock wall for another.


Here's that bed:

We also got up a flag pole (another felled tree) to fly our "Pesticide Free-Zone" flag. Saw it at a Farmer's Market the last time we were visiting Santa Barbara... loved it. So cool to finally see it flying! Was hard to get a picture with the wind just right, but it's a lady bug:

Moving to the lower garden.. here's a long view, chicken shack in foreground:
If it looks big, that's because it is. I guesstimate it to be about 1/3 of an acre. There's still a swath to the back and side that havent' been rototilled because it's too wet. The rest is good and ready to go, though.

Here's a closer shot... strawberries are on the far side. Not that you can tell. It's pretty unexciting to look at an open field like this, i understand.
Eventually, this field will be filled with the peas and beans, onionsgarlicshallotsleeks, a huge winter squash, pumpkin and melon patch, tomatoes, cukes, carrots and other roots.

So, thats' the tour, as of now. Going to try and stretch a bit before bed and be asleep by 10pm.

'till next time...

The (Blog) Drought (May Be) Ending

Hey all you 1 or 0 (binary audience, cool ;) faitheful readers. In an attempt to blog after drinking a very stiff vodka cocktail, I mean, keep you up to date in our world, I'm posting again less than 2 weeks (barely, maybe over) than Kelly did. My GOD what has happened. Perhaps it's the fact that spring is here and the coming green (and blackfly) explosion has me inspired. Who knows.

Anyhow, so yes, spring is here in all its slow-to-bloom glory. Seriously though, I'm loving just looking out the window at all the shades of browns, grays, and reds. It's all very stunning. Doesn't hurt that our daytime highs are into the whopping 40's. It has struck me the last couple of years (this is my fifth Maine winter) how the first days of fall when it gets to the 40's it feels so cold, though by the end of winter 40 is just balmy ;)

Anyhow, yeah, it's balmy out there ;) The last few days have found our little family spending lots of time outside. Not like we totally hunkered down through the winter, though it's nice to be outside and walk on the *earth* rather than snow. And have said earth not be frozen solid. When it thaws the whole smell of it changes from the crisp clean air of winter to the, well, earthy smell of spring.

Indeed, I stood outside today and listened to birdsong. Just stood and listened. It's been months since I've heard birds besides chickidees and ravens. And even then, the song of the winter is the wind in the bare branches or just plain silence echoing through the valley.

So yes, now the view is one of deep reds of ripe deciduous leaf buds and quickened blackberry canes, of dried grasses, fallen leaves, and soil. Soon it will be green beyond comprehension.

And with all this spring-ness comes water, water, water. Every vernal spring, seep, and stream is running full-bore. The other day Raelin and I were down by one of said seeps that Kelly and I have talked about turning into more of a stream bed. As Raelin and I stood there, me with shovel meagerly attemping to create a channel for all the water, I called to Liam, who had toddled out of site. He answered and so I figured what the hell, he's in hearing range. Not a moment later he appeared up by the house with ATW (that's "All Terrain Wagon" for you) in tow. And as if in slow motion, I watch as his little toddler body begins running down our front grass towing the wagon. I think to myself "oh shit, he's either going to trip on the grass and run himself over or get into the woods and trip and run himself over." So I start running toward him and the former happens. It's like slow motion. I can still see the image of his blond hair flying as not only he trips, though is pushed down by the empty wagon and then those big balloon tires run him over. When I got to him he was more or less self-extracted, though his head and shoulders were still a bit stuck. Since he wasn't hurt, just scared, it was all quite funny. What wasn't so funny was a couple hours later when I caught Raelin starting to make the same run, though this time with Liam *in* the wagon. It's nice to know that my kids know to stop when I yell that loud to stop ;)

Anyhow, we had another nice walk today. Kelly was off to work, so she dropped the kids off at my shed-to-office conversion project (more on this in a second) in the wagon. They were both calling out for a trip to the creek, so off we went. Took a brief stop by our pond, picked up some trash from our mid-winter roof replacment that had been buried by snow, then down to the creek. We left the wagon on our side of the little bridge (rotting, hence I won't take the wagon across), then up to see the neighbors' goats, then back down along the creek to see a series of waterfalls. At one point the kids took turns throwing rocks while I laid on a patch of thick dry grass. Ahhh, so blissful. As it was getting late I suggested heading home, and we decided at my suggestion to head home through the woods. Not a good suggestion as before too long the open woods turned into a combo of very snowy woods and lots of blackberry cane. By the time we got back to the wagon there was not a warm or dry foot among our little band. Raelin and I had decided earlier that the situation did in fact suck and had ceased to be much fun. Oh well, so it goes.

We also lost a bird, my and Raelin's favorite, to a red fox. There wasn't much left of her, I only found 2 feathers, which clued my in to the fact that we were dealing with a pro. See, other chicken kills I've seen by dogs, racoons, and the attempt by a hawk, have all been accompanied by lots of feathers and evidence of struggle. With this bird it was almost like she just disappeared.

So it wasn't that surprising the next morning when I looked out my office window to see a big red fox slinking around the chicken coop about to have another meal. The fox was stunning; don't think I've ever seen one that close and clear. If it wasn't going for my chickens I would have been a lot more in awe. As it was it was more an mix of anger and irritation. I mean, between the coop and the feed and whatnot we've spent a lot of cash on those birds, and if they're busy feeding the local wildlife (which should be hunting, granted), they're not feeding us with their eggs.

Anyhow, so off I ran out with a gutteral and primitive yell at the poor guy as he loped, make that busted ass, back down into the woods. Haven't seen a sign of it since, and once again the birds are out free ranging. They all seem pretty excited that the ground is thawed and they can actually scratch now.

Another thing that comes with the thaw is frost heaves. This year the roads have been particulary, shall we say nicely, beat to shit by it all. Big dips, cracks, and bumps. Big enough that coming home with the kids in the back "seats" of the truck (in their car seats, of course) I hit was must have been a 10" - 12" heave. The truck got air. I almost shit my pants. The kids hollered to turn around and do it again. Liam happily squealed about the truck going "ka-boing." That's what he does on the bed: "ka-boing."

So the office thing. Yeah, it's slowly coming along. Got a lot of the wiring done today. Almost, really, for reals, truly done with carpentry. Then insulation and sheet rock. Of course, noone's so interested in helping hang 12' sheets of drywall, so I'll likely just cut 'em in half (the sheets, not the people) and hang them myself. Kind of a drag to have so many more seams to tape, though I think less of a drag than having to beg and bribe my buddies to give a hand, and certainly better than paying the dry wallers $1,500 to come do it ;)

OK, off to bed for me, it'll be another early morning with the kids and my turn to get up with them tomorrow. Waffle day; Liam should be pretty excited. Wow, I just typed the last couple sentences with my head back and my eyes closed. Very few typing errors. Not sure if that's a good thing or not ;)

well, thank god there are 2 of us writing here (or supposedly) or the dry spells on this blog would more or less extinguish all life.

so, it's March. ahhhh...March. Undoubtedly the crappiest month of the year. It seems long, even though its' no longer than January, May, July, August, September, October or December. But ask anyone who lives in Maine or any other winter-retarded state, and they'll most likely complain about the unnecessary length of March. The smart (and flush) people leave at this time of year. It also helps if you have a friend or relative who is flush, or thought in advance many, many years ago when things were cheap, and purchased some habitable dwelling in a warm locale. Preferably near a beach.

Ok, so i started this entry weeks ago. But, no change. It's still March and it's still cold. Colder than usual in March, which is saying something. Even last year when we got snow into the second week of April, there were still some great mild days in March. Not so this year. I listened in on the first part of a maple sap tapping workshop this past weekend, and the guy said that up north they have 6-7 feet of snow on the ground and are having to dig out all their tapping lines to hook them up. We're talking thousands of lines. Not fun.

What is fun is getting the garden process going! Yes, even in the frigid temps, the seed starting must go on. Sprouting in the office under lights we have broccoli, cauliflower, onions and leeks. I'm waiting on 2 trays of shallots. Just those little plants make the office so hot and humid! I spent a couple hours at a cafe last week doing up a calendar of all our planting times. Supposedly this week i'm starting chard and head lettuce and peppers. The field is still so frozen, it's hard to get think we could be transplanting within a month, but it does happen. Gotta get my guy, Dana, back out here to turn the ground under and find a decent manure source. I have no idea what we're in for in terms of soil quality down there but... at least we got a winter cover crop in.

in other news... lost another bird today :( Our lovely Rare, the white Delaware, appears to have been picked off somewhere near the spring. Maybe a hawk or eagle? They've dive bombed in the past. So sad. Raelin keeps asking where she might be. Though dying and hunted birds are not new for her, she is particularly attached to this bunch, and Rare was one of her favorites. Good thing it wasnt' Eagle (our Araucana). She's practically a house-bird!

Well, in my mind, i'd love to post weekly pictures of the garden to chronical the progress. Yeah, your'e laughing. Me too.

hey, miracles do happen.

Waffles on YouTube, Chucker Helmets, and Highway Llamas

OK, been too long since the last post; sitting now on my first Virgin America flight blogging offline...think the best way to do this post is just a bunch of fragments to bring you, our steadfast (even in the drought of postings) up to speed on some of the developments out here.

Waffles...Liam's latest thing is waffles. While he likes eating them, he seems even more eamored of making them. Particularly the fact that they come out of the waffle maker. It is not uncommon to find our waffle iron out in the living room in the play kitchen stuffed with plastic beads, wooden toast, or whatever else he fancies "making waffles" out of.

It is also not uncommon that the waffle maker and the game of making waffles is the silver bullet to quell an otherwise tragic moment of toddler emotional upheaval. Typically it goes something like this:


parent: do you want to play trucks?
liam: no
parent: do you want to play with trains?
liam: no
parent: do you want to read a book or do a puzzle?
liam: NO!!!
parent: do you want to play making waffles?
liam: (crying immediately ceases and now smiling) yeah

The other day this went to another level. Kelly and Raelin went off to pick up our weekly share of the winter CSA, though Liam was to stay home with me. Of course this sent him into unhappy fits. I wasn't yet done with my work day, so Liam joined me in the office and as the ladies went out the door I started asking Liam if he wanted to watch videos of trucks, trains, or tractors. All of which were answered with a sobbing "no". Then the idea struck..."I bet YouTube has waffle videos." "Liam, you want to to watch waffle videos?." He did. So we watched the ad for the Cucino Pro Waffle Maker. Over. And over. And over. At some point I couldn't stand that one anymore and we moved onto various other waffle maker videos. We were still watching waffle maker videos when Kelly and Raelin returned...

Chuckers...the other day I was bringing Raelin home from ballet. As we drove past the golf course (sans golfers of course), she asked the inquisitive question "do golfers where helmets?" Having learned that it's often more fun and entertaining to hear the line of logic of a 3 and now 4 year old I innocently asked "why would a golfer need to wear a helmet?" to which she answered in the self-assured way only a 4 year old can: "to protect their heads from the balls they throw with their chuckers." I laughed. And laughed some more. And she laughed to as I explained that even though golf clubs look a lot like the Chuckit we used to throw balls for the dogs with, they actually hit the balls, and that they are also very careful about where they hit them.

On another trip home from town as we zoomed along our local regional highway (highway being a stretch for those of you in more populated areas) only to have traffic come to a sudden halt. 3 big llamas were on the road, looking more than a little bewildered as to how they got there and where they were supposed to be. I pulled over and called 911, mostly so I could report to the dispatch when they asked "what's your emergency?" "there are 3 llamas wandering around in the middle of highway 17." The dispatch took it all in stride, asking such pertinent questions as "have any of them been hit" and such.

Sex and the Ridge

Well, this week has given new meaning to the term 'January Thaw,' a phenomenon that is not uncommon. It *is* uncommon for it to be 60 degrees however. Usually we expect a few days that perhaps touch the low 4os. Our thermometer showed that it was over 50 in the shade yesterday. Crazy!! I sat outside in a light fleece and wrote in my journal while Liam slept, drinking in the sun. It was pretty spectacular in a global-warming kind of way.

is it wrong to enjoy some uncharacteristic warmth knowing its implications?

Discuss.

So, you are probably wondering about the sex part. Well, all that nice warmth has caused quite a snow melt exposing the greatest amount of grass and mud since December. The chickens were pretty psyched and scratched about as a group, under the pines and lilacs, their usual stomping grounds. I herded my own group of 2 out around 3:30 or so... empty the compost, bring a few things in to the barn, disperse the cooped up (pun not intended!) energy, etc...

Raelin, of course, bee-lined for the chickens. Her love of them is something fierce, i have to say. So while I was hanging out with her and the birds under the pines she witnessed the rooster mount of the hens for the first time. She was on it, in an instant.

"ROOSTER!! STOP THAT! That was NOT NICE!!" and charged at the eager bird who hastily dismounted and fluttered a few paces away. Raelin turned to me, a bit aghast.

"Mommy! Did you see that?! The rooster was pecking that Black Minorca! and he was doing it while STANDING ON HER! That was NOT OK!"

I had to stifle some laughter and just nodded my head, sympathetically. "Yeah, roosters do that sometimes. He's not hurting her... much," i mumbled the 'much' part, because i can't say her clucks were those of satisfaction.

Raelin got a goofy grin on her face. "Why do you think he was DOING that? Was he trying to talk to her? "

me, giggling. "something like that...." Best to keep it simple.

in the meantime... Rooster going to have to watch his back.

The deer have no idea....

where they're going. Seriously.

Have you ever followed deer tracks? In the snow? Today i packed on my snow shoes to take advantage of our latest foot of white goodness and head out to check out the acres that will soon be ours. i pick up some deer tracks just below the house and start on.

Ok, so they usually pick the path of least resistance, which isn't *so * hard in winter when all the non-woody vegetation that usually chokes up the woods has died back. But other than that... um, where are they going? I found none sleeping under what i thought looked like quite cozy little shelters under the arms of snow-weighted pines. I flushed not-a -one from any of the few remaining bushes offering winter berries. Didn't even catch any spacing out on the snowflakes that fell methodically from skinny naked twigs that just couldn't hold it any longer.

I found a few tracks that seemed to pause by one of the *many* (and by many, i mean, hundred or so?) seeps and mini-creeks that run all over the bottom acres. Good drinking there, i suppose. And as i followed their meanders back up toward the top of the ridge I did detect a certain direction. A certain, orchard-ly direction, - if you know what i mean.

Sure enough, the path of least resistance seems to take some deer right to (soon to be) our orchard where it suddenly becomes quite clear that yes, they know exactly where they are going, and it's to the top row of apple trees. With all the tramped down snow circling the trunk out to just beyond the canopy, you can practically imagine those fur-covered, hunger-rumbly bellies lifting up on hind-hooves to stretch just... that...much... further and snag a withered, but still edible and damn tasty in January (!!!) apple for dinner. They methodically spent some serious time pawing at the ground for fallen fruit as well as picked clean every one they could reach. There are a good dozen or so apples encircling the top like a crown. If i go knock them down, would they come back? Something tells me our visitors are repeaters...

And so I passed a pleasant (and physically challenging, if you are a soft mommy like me) hour tramping about the land below us, making note of the big trees, the grown in spots, the especially wet spots, where the sound of Rt. 131 started to get louder so that it felt unpleasant to continue going downhill... But mostly it was a pleasant hour of just me... and winter. A rare combination, (me alone, and a snowy winter like this!) but one i will gladly take as much as i can get.

Tomorrow: snow tunnels!!