The Chickens Have Landed

And boy are they funny! We now have a dozen Barred Plymouth Rocks, including a rooster (we'll call him "Stu").

We've decided that watching chickens is somewhat mesmerizing - sort of like watching a campfire, only more comical. Before we knew it, we had pulled up a couple of chairs and a couple of beers and were just sitting, staring at the chickens.

The rabbits have been successfully transitioned to their new home, and are a bit more comfortable in the shady, breezy barn than they were at the other house. Poor things are still hot though. I wouldn't want to wear rabbit fur in Texas in July either.

We took our male dog outside this morning to meet the chickens. He was curious, and tried to sniff them, but was very good and didn't make a fuss over them at all. They were surprisingly interested in him, though, and kept following him around, which I think made him nervous! We also took him down and showed him the pond. He was really interested in that, and tiptoed all along the edge of the water, but stopped short of getting in. As an overly protective mama, that was fine by me. ;-)

I wish I had more to report, really. It seems that while moving, unpacking, cleaning and putting things away, most everyday life activities are suspended. I think we're out of the woods now, though, and can start living more or less normally soon. I'm dying to dig up some garden beds, but I just can't get to that for awhile - too many other things have to come before that. Oh well, maybe by the time we're ready to dig the beds, it will be cooler outside!

I'll close this for now with a few pictures. Here you can see our front gate, and the evil cows that graze across the road. My dogs tell me that the cows' day is coming...



Check out the moon!


Peace -
T

Today's Must-Read

I'd like to direct your attention today to Sharon Astyk's blog. I beg you to give this a read, consider it carefully and take it to heart. This is not a drill, I am not some sort of fringe nutjob, and recycling and changing your lightbulbs, although admirable, is not enough.

People, it's time to get your houses in order.

Settling in and Laundry Line Disaster!

First, let me start by saying that we're absolutely thrilled to be in our new house. Seriously, we love it and couldn't be happier. We are, however, experiencing some "first week after moving" woes that we had forgotten about because we haven't moved in so long. Just normal things like trying to cook dinner without knowing where the dishes are, trying to go back to work when you can't find the boxes that house your work clothes, trying to simply exist and maneuver in a box farm, that sort of thing. These problems are compounded by the fact that we're so far out of town, because we really need to budget our time, and haven't yet worked out how. So we came home last night after our first day back to work and before we even knew what hit us, it was bed time. Our first day looked something like this:

• up at 6:00, out by 7:00
• drive forever, arrive at work in the neighborhood of 8:30
• work until 5:30
• drive forever, through driving rain and wind, worrying about the laundry on the line
• arrive home in the neighborhood of 7:15
• get soaked opening and closing the gate
• get even more soaked picking up laundry that's scattered all over the yard
• get yet more soaked moving my rain-pummeled seedlings under cover
• change into dry clothes, feed and generally pay attention to bouncing-off-the-walls dogs
• tear every still-packed box in the kitchen apart looking for things with which to make dinner
• make and (finally) eat dinner
• wash dishes
• run the two loads of soaking wet clothes through another spin cycle, and hang inside to eventually dry
• take showers
• Oops - it's 11:00 now.

It just felt like a marathon. I'll be really happy when we settle in to a routine.

We've also had some pretty serious laundry misfortunes. With all the moving and working on the property, we've dirtied many, many clothes. I have a gargantuan pile of laundry staring at me. Hubby was kind enough to hang my two clotheslines on Monday, and I proceeded to wash. It felt great to be out in the yard hanging clothes on the line. It felt like home. Naturally, as soon as I had gotten the first load hung and the second washed, a storm rolled in. Hubby arrived home and helped me pull the clothes off the line, and we waited. After a short while, it appeared to have blown over, so we hung them out again - both loads this time. At this point I got really cocky and put in a third load. And the rain came again. It was getting late in the day by this time, and the wind had died down, so we decided to just leave them on the line overnight and they'd dry the next day (yesterday) when no rain was predicted. "No rain" then turned into zero-visibility, pouring rain and high winds. Thus, our laundry wound up all over the yard.

Our dryer is broken, by the way, in case you were going to ask.

Every day things will get a little bit smoother. And we're still on to take delivery of the chickens this weekend, so we're really excited about that. I really will post some pictures soon, but there's not much to look at yet except piles of boxes, so I'm trying to clear some of that out first.

Lastly, it seems that our dogs have discovered the cows that graze across the road. They've taken to standing up on the couch looking out the window at them. And...barking...at them. They stare and bark and growl and twitch and bark and run in circles. Those cows are blissfully unaware that there's a fat little ham hock of a dog just waiting to rip their faces off if they get any closer. It's really, REALLY funny.

Moving Day! Errr...Night!

Since it's topping out around 102 degrees this weekend, we've decided to bump up tomorrow's move to tonight. We'll be doing an evening load-up, driving down tonight and unloading bright and early in the morning while it's still vaguely tolerable. Keep in mind, though, this won't make it much more comfortable. It was still 95 degrees at 9:00 o'clock last night, so really this will only serve to keep us all from expiring! Isn't this always how it goes?

You say "I'm moving!".

The "powers that be" say "Fine! Move in THIS!"

The Chickens Are Coming! The Chickens Are Coming!

On Saturday the 19th, we take delivery of a chicken tractor, about a dozen laying hens, a rooster, and all their associated gear. We're so excited! More details and pictures (of course) when they arrive...

Straddling Two Worlds

This is what I looked at while drinking my coffee on Sunday morning. Lovely, isn't it? This is the view from my kitchen door. This is what I get to look at every morning, starting next week. (The ducks are decoys, by the way - we're trying to lure in some real ones. We've seen them in the area, and we'd like them to stay.) If I walk past the pond to the right, there are some happy sunflowers to greet me. Mornings in the country belong to the birds, just as evenings belong to the cows. The frogs, of course, work the night shift. These prominent headliners are supported by an endless cast of bit players and extras - dragonflies, spiders, mice, rabbits, coyotes, snakes...and countless others we'll never see. I can spend my whole day hearing nothing at all except the windmill and the sounds of animals. I could go for days or weeks without seeing another person. I can see stars at night.

This is how I've been spending my weekends. So it has already become quite a shock to my system to spend my week in the smoggy, noisy, hot, traffic-congested city. We're already finding that the minute we hit "town", we want to turn around and go back. It amazes me how quickly we've settled into country life, and how other-worldly it already feels to pull into the parking garage of my office building. I walk through the marbled lobby of my building feeling as though I'm living a double life. Feeling as though I have a secret. The house that I've shared with my husband for seven years no longer feels like home to either of us. I'm anxious to get the rest of our things into the house this weekend, so we don't have to live the "two home" life anymore. We've given ourselves over fully to the new one.

Friends,

I'll be going offline for Independence Day. We'll be spending the weekend at the farm smoking some grass fed cow, drinking copious amounts of beer and blowing up as many fireworks as I can spare the expense for. I thought I'd sign off for the weekend by paying respect to some freedoms that I'm thankful to have.

• The freedom to have my own money, property and legal identity, and the freedom to more or less do what I want with same.
• The freedom to participate in the political process. I'm that guy that LIKES being called for jury duty.
• The freedom to set off fireworks in my backyard. WOOT!
• The freedom to stand up and speak my mind to anyone, anytime.
• The freedom to choose whether or not to work, get married, have children or practice faith. One size does not fit all.
• The freedom to love my country without propaganda. An American flag static cling on my car does not make me patriotic. The lack of one does not make me a hater.
• The freedom to choose my friends, regardless of their age, race, ethnicity, color, gender, sexual preference or religious affiliation. All the people you see around you every day? They're pretty much just like you.

That's really only a drop in the bucket, but you get the idea. What makes you feel free?

Peace, love & freedom fries everyone. Have a fabulous 4th! We will resurface next week...

-Tara