Damn chickens!

Here is Quincy with the chickens!

Last week I took my grandson, Quincy over to my friend's place to see their chickens. He was quite delighted with it all; the chicken house that was safe from predators, the nesting boxes, the names of the hens, and most of all, the beautiful feathers he found on the ground for his "collection".

These chickens have been a source of envy to me! I have wanted to have chickens for ages. Once, years back, we had a few chickens that were given to our daughter and we had to take them back and forth between Dade City and St. Pete every weekend. Those chickens were a big drag, quite honestly, because in town they ran around our house and in my workplace, pooping everywhere with great abandon. One weekend in the country they were eaten by predators, probably a fox or a bobcat. Then, I was so frantic with everything else I had to do I had no time to concentrate on the needs of chickens, so it was a blessing, despite the tears, when they got et.

But, fast forward to the present. I love fresh eggs, and I love the physical presence of chickens with their beautiful and funny feathers and their amazing sounds. As a gardener, I know I would love having chickens eating bugs and depositing their droppings for fertilizer. I love the image of myself as a person Who Keeps Chickens. But we think of ourselves as the free spirits who come and go and it is hard enough to think about what to do with a small dog, let alone chickens. So, we are still chicken-free here on the ranch. (Cows take no particular day to day care.)

My spouse hates the idea of killing anything, especially a chicken. I tell him that we would have ALL HENS and they could provide us with the fresh eggs that are so much tastier than the ones we buy at the grocery store. We are still debating the issue.

Meanwhile, my friends who decided to keep chickens, ordered several batches of chicks and picked them up at the post office. Yes, that is how you do it. These tiny chicks were certified and promised that they would be all hens. I could hardly stand it not to go there every few days to see them growing up. And they are certainly beautiful! All glossy colors and breeds. They gave us delicious eggs when they had excess. During the day those chickens walk and strut around free and fly up into the trees and then go back into the chicken house into their little nests and lay double yolk blue eggs. Oh, how envious I have been!

Turns out that there were THREE roosters in the bunch and they were very abusive to the hens. Time for stewed chicken (roosters). So my friend's spouse said he'd do the dirty deed, leaving only one rooster. He got out the hatchet, and as the rooster rebelled, he accidentally hit his own hand with the blade. Lots of blood! He quickly bound up his hand with an old sock and carried on. My friend had the boiling water on to dunk those roosters and thus be able to pluck the feathers.

When it was all over, and the roosters plucked and in the freezer, it seemed that the injured hand needed major attention. So he went to his son, the veterinarian close by, and was stitched up in no time and bandaged with stuff dogs shouldn't chew.

I wonder if I should suggest that they go in for ostriches next? I hear that the meat is good.

Worries in the Green Swamp

A year ago I was obsessing about the resident sand hill cranes who were hatching eggs on their nest on the pond, their first clutch. Both of these two chicks died, one from unknown causes, and the other one was eaten by an alligator (in front of my eyes!) The parents, "Bob and Emily", just took off after this disaster and I thought I'd never see them again.

This year in early spring they returned, did their mating dance with much bugling and throwing of sticks. I carefully paid no attention (this is life in the wild). And then one day Bob and Emily appeared with one very cute reddish chick. All spring this family of three were to be seen in the pastures and in our yard. We named the baby Sidney. I found their nest in a different pond with no alligators and each night the family of cranes returned to their nest.

Three days ago I noticed that Bob was injured and limping! I was able to get close enough to see that his foot was intact and there did not seem to be anything broken. But he couldn't really get around very well. Emily and Sidney kept him in view at all times as he stood in the shade. When they got too far away, Bob bugled to them ("Get over here! I am still in charge!"), and they return to him.

So, I worry. Will Bob recover? Why are those buzzards hanging out in the trees overhead?

I always want to fix things. My beloved old dog ate something terrible and has been sick for two days. Seems she's better now, wanting to eat her food and greet friends.

There is always something to worry about! Of course there is the oil spill and unemployment and illegals I know and love..

But tonight there is a fullish moon and good friends to share dinner and the sides of the lane full of wildflowers. The blue curls are so elegant and tiny, and there are masses of small yellow daisies. The may pops on the fences have bloomed and are producing fruits. Iron weed is about to bloom, and our yard is full of all colors of crape myrtle. Despite the summer heat that we all complain about, this is truly the most beautiful place on earth.

The Two Habitats

I have two habitats, maybe three. The first one is my home on the edge of the Green Swamp, far away from everything. The water board folks occasionally drive through the property on their way to checking the river and tending to the vast acres on the watershed. But otherwise we live in our splendid green privacy where we shower outside in a grape arbor (and whoever goes out first in the morning must prune that shower curtain and urge the spiders to go elsewhere and flick off the green tree frogs who congregate there.) No swimsuits needed here.

We go to sleep with the cackles of the barred owls and wake up to the noise of the dawn chorus of birds. We sleep in our high bed with the dog and my quilts, nothing to wake us except the full moon shining once a month with such magic ferocity I must get up and walk around through the porches to admire it. In the moonlight I can see the cows lying peacefully in the meadow, and if I walk down to the fence I can smell their sweet breath.

But we must have our fix of urban life! Last week in midtown New York City, we strolled out to Times Square, after a wonderful restaurant dinner. Traffic has been banned there and there are lots of chairs and tables full of people (millions of people!) Above us the vast neon lights blinked and jazzed, reflected on the glass faces of the buildings. So many people! All kinds, ages. Tourists from Indiana, Muslims in full regalia, dreadlocks, very short skirts, turbans, kimonos, lots of babies in strollers, old folks, friendly policemen directing people. I can't get used to the noise! Sirens, taxis, the hum of hundreds of my countrymen having fun.

We took a long subway trip to a wedding and the whole thing was an adventure, a visual treat. Across the aisle on the train from us was a dad and his little girl, entwined in the need for sleep. I loved watching them as they kept hitching up their stuff as it fell apart. Many kisses. They were beautiful.

And then, as we exited the train, a family we had observed who was clearly on the way for a day at the beach with many kids and coolers, tumbled out of the car screaming and roiling and bursting. As we left the train, those usually uninvolved New Yorkers were stepping out from the doors, and there was clearly a bloodied woman calling for the police. It didn't happen in our car, but clearly there was some kind of assault.

The wedding took place in a park under the Brooklyn Bridge. No one could hear the words of the ceremony because of the racket from the trains crossing the bridge, but it was lovely - so New York.

We love the array of arts and music in the Big Apple and we eagerly embrace it. But at the end of the days we are exhausted from the bumping up against so many people. We are glad to get on the plane for home. I could hardly wait for the Moment when we drive down our lane between the fingers of swamp to home.

The third place we call ours is a small apartment we are renovating in the green and leafy part of Old Northeast St. Petersburg where we go sometimes to be with our family and friends. In terms of privacy, this place has the least. Neighbors are so near you could reach your hand out from your window and touch. But, unlike New York City, those neighbors seek to know you and watch out for you, and that is amazing.

Part of the price of living here is that the satellite sometimes refuses to download photos. So just imagine the contrast of the Green Swamp and Times Square.

Is technology affecting our brains?

In the last few days I have read in various newspapers (some of it on line) that 'studies show' and people think and psychologists contemplate that we spend entirely too much time in front of our digital screens large and small. It seems we are addicted!

There was the story in the NYT about children who cannot get any time from their parents because those parents were always texting or face booking or in some way or another hooked to the immediacy of their personal screens. We saw photos of families in which each member was engaged in some sort of technological interface with their chosen plasticated hardware as the family ate breakfast or dinner, each family member encapsulated in his or her own digital world.

And then there is the story today in our local newspaper about the guy in a pornography trial who was so addicted to those photos on line he could think of nothing else. What a quinella-the addiction to the computer screen and quirky sex!

I worry about this stuff. Like many people, I consider the computer a major part of my life line to the world. I connect to friends, shop, maintain political connections, connect with Facebook and utube, look up stuff, play games sometimes. When the internet is down so am I.

I have made the decision not to text or tweet, though I am tempted. Having come to age in a different and non digital world, I don't have the first instinct to call or text someone about every little thing. I grew up with regular phones and public phones when I had to go that way. I am glad for personal cell phones and actually use it as my primary phone. But it makes me absolutely crazy when the satellite that powers my computer goes down!

My five year old grandson who was trying to get on line today says to me, "This is the slowest computer I have ever seen!" Hey,this is paradise and far from anywhere! But I sympathisize. I think our brains are becoming different.

I don't know where we are going! I do not believe that the friends of mine who have decided to eschew cell phones and/or email are on the right track. I do believe that the constant texting and phoning is mostly quite silly and inconsequential, not to say dangerous when we are in our cars or in the proximity of our kids.

Today I received an actual handwritten letter from a young friend. He thanked me for my gift of time and love, and it was lovely. We forget in this digital age that personal attention is best. We all want to spit on the signatures to find out if what we receive is not ersatz.

What do you think?

Moving Days

When insomniac during the period of selling our old house, working on selling our daughter's house, putting in a bid on this one and generally trying to make the ham and eggs come out even, I counted the number of moves we have made over the years- fifteen!

So, we are going to try the grand experiment of living in a family compound. What you see here is the main house where our daughter and her family will live. In back there is a funky three car garage with an apartment above it. That's ours!

The main house is lovely, a restored 1925 bungalow updated with a great kitchen, new energy efficient everythings, hardly any yard to take care of, and in an old fashioned neighborhood with neighbors who pop in to bring welcomes. (and tell all about the past owner.)

The so-called carriage house aka the funky garage is all potential. The contractors will begin in a couple of weeks to make it into a comfortable and even stylish two floor abode for us when we come to town a couple of days a week. I am certainly on board for all the actual facts of moving. We spent a day unpacking the kitchen stuff, horsing around and setting up furniture, taking everything out of the POD, breaking down boxes, and trying to find stuff.

The dogs were particularly irritating as they whined around being insecure and getting underfoot. Quincy, who's five, was delighted with it all and very excited to find that his beloved stuffed animals made it through a couple of months in the POD. He explained to me that Goldie, the stuffed goldfish had been o.k. because there was lots of fish food in the POD, but she was happy to get out. I can hardly think about the day when our own storage unit will appear. Surely no roach, let alone a stuffed fish would make it!

I am o.k. with the actual moving and I can imagine the process of gutting the garage and putting in a living space for us. Basically, I think this idea is a good one. I think of days when
Quincy will pop over for breakfast or we'll all eat dinner together on the future patio. I imagine my daughter and me walking our dogs down to the waterfront in the cool of the evening..

But for me, home is here on the edge of the Green Swamp. I fell in love with this place twenty years ago. It's terribly inconvenient, like having a lover in Argentina. Though I had the best work anyone could have, I craved those weekends, even before we built the house and all the other structures and we camped out with the bugs. I love the land and the space and the gardens and the privacy and the possibilities of the natural world. And now that I really live here, I can expand my horizon to include the local community and new friends and commitments. What could be more perfect than the long hours I spend making quilts and pots and paintings? Or walking up to the main house in the evening where my husband is finishing the dinner for us? Or having friends visit and we sit on the porch watching the birds?

We will have our own place in town and it fills me with the greatest pleasure and gratitude that our daughter truly wants us there and that we will go there and know that in that big house across the yard are people we dearly love. And I also know that as the years go by and we cannot manage our country lives, our small city place will be just right. Not yet, though.

I'm Back!

Here's Dylan with his sculpture made from the huge quantities of squash I brought from my garden into Lacoochee School on my last day of volunteering this year. It was a very fun day and the creations were awesome. We ate prodigious amounts of local watermelon, distributed their cookbooks from our year of cooking, and finished the day with the last chapter of "Little House on the Prairie". I have loved my 'adopted' classroom. I know I will see these kids next year, and maybe some of them over the summer at my 'camp' here at the ranch. I love these kids.

While my internet connection was down for several weeks I have been seeing the vegetable garden through to the harvest. The lettuce was the first to be fried by our early summer heat. But the cucumbers have loved this hot and rainy time. We have maybe twenty cukes each day, and even the tomatoes are coming along. We had to repair the fence that fell down under the weight of all those heavy squash. Even in this hot weather there is always something to eat.

This morning very early we began digging a channel for the new cable from the satellite. It is about five hundred feet from my studio to the main house, and lots of roots along the way! Now, all is completed, our backs are tired and we will sleep well tonight.

Here is a typical evening's harvest. I feel like a wonderful purveyor to the cook! "Here's what there is today. What will you do with it?" Andy, the cook, makes very interesting dishes with what I bring.

During this time of a few weeks, actually two months, all we can think about is the oil leaking into the Gulf. None of us have ever considered oil rigs. They were just out there (Drill, baby, drill) and I have never supported having those rigs anywhere near. But now I scour the photos and the streaming videos, trying to understand what is happening.

I think this is a disaster of enormous proportion to us all. I think of the children's book 'Motel of the Mysteries' in which in the far future some anthropologists have unearthed a civilization that was buried in paperwork. Will our current society be buried and left for dust by the unintended consequences of technology? There is so much stuff happening in technology! Who of us could have known that the drilling for oil would bring such disaster?

And who of us could have known how greed has insinuated itself into every part of our lives? I have watched the Florida politicians of late hang themselves on matters of ethics. The only candidate (so far!) I can support is Alex Sink for governor -smart, capable, and squeaky clean ethically. I was impressed at first with Charlie Crist as he became independent, but right now he looks like a lightweight, ethically speaking. Surely he had to know about those cronies close to him. And if he did not, as he said, he's not that bright.

Aargh! Seems just right to us to live here on the edge of the Green Swamp where nights are dark and stars are bright, where bobcats and alligators cross the road and swallow tail kites fly in the sky and little kids can collect ant lions in the sand.