Worms and Kitty Litter
Time is flying, so fast yet so peacefully. It’s hard to believe that just 6 days ago Matt flew into Coff’s Harbor (this is the closest airport you can fly into, remember that for trip planning!) Jess and I had a day trip out in Coff’s, too excited to stay at home and wait for 4 o’clock to roll around. We actually stopped en route and checked out a winery in a town called Raleigh. I did the tasting for the two of us, while Jess looked on curiously and understood that “wine” is a mommy drink. She just kept waiting for them to give her some grapes! The winery is a small family owned business situated on the banks of the beautiful Bellinger River. I’ve visited a few wineries, not many, but am always disappointed when you can’t see the grapevines. This one had it all, river, kind faces, grapevines, a dining area outside where you could order a bottle and a cheese plate. After purchasing a few bottles Jess and I took our picnic lunch to the river and had a lovely “silly” lunch. Any time someone does something remotely strange, naughty, incomprehensible, Jacinta will comment, “Silly Daddy” or “Silly turkey!” One of the best things about Jess is how much she makes us laugh.
Here’s a humorous story: tonight I was lying with Jess trying to emit sleep vibes and I felt a wet sensation on my cheek. I lied still trying to figure out whether she was awake or asleep, and whether the moisture was coming from her nose, her lips or her tongue. After a few seconds I asked her, “Jess???? What are you doing?” “Licking,” she replied. I then started giggling and she started giggling while continually licking my face. So a few seconds later I said, “Jess? I think that’s enough,” still giggling. She stopped licking my face and fell asleep. About two minutes later she woke up and started laughing, whispering, “licking…” We both giggled a bit and she drifted off to sleep for good.
Upon return, Matt rearranged our bedroom/living room/playroom to distance Jacinta’s crib from the cold night air coming through the window. Her crib now butts up against the end of our bed, and has a permanently open side over which she can easily climb in and out. This is a new freedom and toy for now she can jump and dive in and out of her crib onto our big soft bed at will This is especially fun amidst a nappy change, diving onto her soft lamb’s wool rug and rolling around nude on the soft bed, or playing dress up in one of the many love filled blankets draped over the side of the crib. “Rolling” is a good picture of Jess this week. A few weeks ago she learned this word after seeing a horse “rolling” scratching his back perhaps in the pasture. Now she rolls everywhere. Just today she had her first big roll down a hill, a slight slope though. She was so proud of herself I couldn’t get her to stop. Then she came upon some protruding roots and kept on rolling until she hurt her knee. She gets over sores pretty quickly though, so it was no big deal.
Speaking of pain, Matt has caught the family cold. He has taken on the lemon garlic ginger drinks, while Jess and I join him just to keep us well and to share the burden of drinking something so hard to drink (though it’s easier for us!) Jetlag has subsided and he even got to return to the bank for a day of wages. Besides working on healing, he has gone back to his position as the “mulcher.” He also decided that instead of being cremated he would rather be mulched. Ahhhh! I don’t like that idea so much, especially because he insists that I do it. But if you know Matt’s sense of humor, you should just chuckle rather than being disgusted like I am.
This weekend was to be dedicated to house planning. We have now been here over six months and have come up with hundreds of different ideas on how to adjust the house to fit its new occupants. We both have plenty of ideas to share, but the actual work is left to Matt as he is the spatial one in the family. I come up with funny impractical ideas, but sometimes he can use a piece of them while kindly mocking the rest. He then measures things, looks at what material Keith has gathered for us here on the land and then works it all out scientifically on paper and on a computer program. Coming up with a plan to suit Mary and Keith, the owners, my high ideals, Matt’s common sense and ideals, and also our checkbook is no easy task. I am happy to report though that today, we have gotten an “OK” from Keith and Mary and an “OK” from ourselves. Our checkbook has no voice right now, good thing, and Jacinta is just happy with life no matter where we are. So now Matt has the task of pretending he is an architect, drawing up very specific plans which will have to be scrutinized by “council,” before we can build anything. If this all goes through, we will build our own little house onto one the side of the house closest to the chicken coop and the view of the pond. It will have two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a “big” living space including a kitchen, a fireplace, couches, a desk, shelves, and all of our musical instruments. The prospects are very exciting and the work ahead is abundant, perhaps daunting.
Garden news this week seems easy to report, because I spent a lot of time doing one task which was finally completed. Keith and I finished digging around every last fruit tree and mulching them to prepare for winter. Why dig around a tree you just planted 3 months ago? Good question! The orchard is very close to the chicken forest which is filled with towering birch trees whose roots travel very far in search of nutrients. What better place to arrive than at each fruit tree where there are abundant nutrients thanks to compost and mulch! Another obstacle is that the orchard is on a hill, thus we can not get rid of all the grass at once for erosion would occur. I now know the true meaning of “grassroots.” Grass roots are incredibly fat compared to the size of each blade of grass they feed. They did not choose to vacate the space they have now sacrificed to the new fruit trees and they try very hard to go back home. If we edged them all, all 25 odd trees, the mowing job would become even harder. THUS….we had to dig around each tree, creating a ditch encircling a 6 foot diameter tree bed, so that we can easily see the encroaching roots and cut them off every other week.
This task is done, and we are thrilled. In the process Jacinta discovered many worms. She especially loves the “babies!” I can give her a few worms to look at on one side of the tree while I throw all of my might into the other side of the tree. Often her curiosity for texture takes over and she’ll yearn to touch the worm. She is slowly working up the courage to hold the worm herself, but for now she’ll shyly ask, “touch it?” I tell her that she can touch it, but she quickly replies, “Mommy! Touch it!” I’ll touch the worm or show her how to hold it, but usually she just looks on in amazement. Today she did touch the worm a few times with my guidance, and was tickled with the texture of the worm. Little does she know that I was scared of worms until a few years ago!
Besides the tree care, we planted a few more seeds this week, mostly lettuces, spinach and broccoli. Keith also picked up a ton of free kitty litter which we will use in our chook pen, mulch and compost. A true ton of kitty litter makes an enormous soft heap for Jess to climb up and down, fill buckets and roll around. Cleaning her off is another issue. I am happy to report that we are again eating garden produce: pumpkins and bok choi. Next week we’ll have lettuce and maybe even a few tomatoes.
Although there is joy in the veggie garden, the rooster saga is deteriorating. We can no longer call the chicks by their given names. We sorrowfully apologize for naming the chicks after loved ones. Daily I lament that Major had to hatch three male chicks and only one female. Hens lay eggs, a bonus. Roosters crow, fight each other and try hopping on hens as often as possible. In their efforts to fertilize the females, they also peck at them and hurt their necks. We have learned that young roosters have no problem hopping on their mom, their lovely mom that taught them everything except how to be male, that is instinct. Major will no longer sleep in the pen with them, you wonder why? It was agreed when I said I wanted to hatch the chicks and be responsible for them that no more than one rooster could stay. Now all three roosters are breaking the rules of the peaceful chicken kingdom here at 107 Coronation Road. We have tried to give them away, but no one wants roosters for the same reasons we have. They also do not want to bother eating them because they are bantams (miniature). We can not leave them to fend for themselves in the woods because if they survive they will harass the hens daily. If they are taken by the fox, the fox will come back hungrier and hunt the remaining chickens. The only remaining option is to kill them. This is the beginning of my learning of the circle of life on a farm. There is birth and death. Birth is lovely and exciting and death has been for me a sad sorrowful occasion. For others in the world, this kind of death is a celebration for it offers needed nourishment. I have always said I would never eat meat again unless I saw it live a happy life and learned how to accept the death of what is on my plate. This is responsibility I suppose, hard it may be, but yeah. That’s all I can say right now.
Matt has gone home (US) for a visit and feels rejuvenated by all of the love he soaked up. As I prepare for my journey home, making plans for every hour of each day I’ll be there, I continue to grow roots here in my new home. I have been lacking kitchen organization here. Petty though it may seem, putting my beans, spices and nuts in jars and placing them in a visible location has boosted my joy and comfort in the kitchen. Jess loves to cook with me in the kitchen and insists upon sharing everything. She has learned her mother’s will to force sharing on others as she shoves a bite of her banana bread in my mouth saying, “Share!” or crying, “share???” if I am too full to accept. My sister has asked me to be Kai’s godmother and elated, I accepted. Jess and I will be able to take part in his baptism while in Milwaukee. As Jess and I are feeling better this week, we went out to yoga. Yoga, out in the boondocks, an old town hall filled with a diverse range of people lying on the floor stretching together, ending the class with “Ohmmmm”s, which is strange to a lot of us, but we’re all there for some reason.
My reason is more to feel the vibe of all of those interesting people and chat with them after class. How many yoga classes end with gross coffee, black tea and mudcake? Most people stay after class chatting for at least 45 minutes sometimes over an hour. I may not partake in the cake, but I use this as an opportunity to let Jess, and I of course, soak up community. It feels warm.
I truly have bits of me in many different countries, but mostly in the USA and in Australia now. As you can see, my happiness comes from the US in one sentence and from Australia in the next. I sat and pondered the most influential women in my life the other day, and how life would be so much different had I not encountered them in my search for community. Some of these women are in Senegal, in France, in Honduras, in the US and now in Australia. There are warm communities everywhere, but you have to want true community and create it nowadays. We left a warm community in Michigan, where our friends would often gather at our home. We miss this community, and my family but are still attached thanks to airplanes, telephones and the internet. We are working on it here in a place big enough for a lot of fruit trees, heaps of veggies and lots of worms. The air is clean. Jess grasps at the moon and tries to “catch it.” Our water comes straight from the sky. I like simple processes and here I’ve found it easy to understand and to be thankful for the wonders of the earth. Right now I am particularly thankful for the searching I’ve been fortunate enough to do so far, and give thanks for the energy I’ve found to try and “stay a while.”
Jess is rustling and might escape into our bed if I continue pondering life with y’all.
Hope life is making you smile and laugh enough. Good night (:
Here’s a humorous story: tonight I was lying with Jess trying to emit sleep vibes and I felt a wet sensation on my cheek. I lied still trying to figure out whether she was awake or asleep, and whether the moisture was coming from her nose, her lips or her tongue. After a few seconds I asked her, “Jess???? What are you doing?” “Licking,” she replied. I then started giggling and she started giggling while continually licking my face. So a few seconds later I said, “Jess? I think that’s enough,” still giggling. She stopped licking my face and fell asleep. About two minutes later she woke up and started laughing, whispering, “licking…” We both giggled a bit and she drifted off to sleep for good.
Upon return, Matt rearranged our bedroom/living room/playroom to distance Jacinta’s crib from the cold night air coming through the window. Her crib now butts up against the end of our bed, and has a permanently open side over which she can easily climb in and out. This is a new freedom and toy for now she can jump and dive in and out of her crib onto our big soft bed at will This is especially fun amidst a nappy change, diving onto her soft lamb’s wool rug and rolling around nude on the soft bed, or playing dress up in one of the many love filled blankets draped over the side of the crib. “Rolling” is a good picture of Jess this week. A few weeks ago she learned this word after seeing a horse “rolling” scratching his back perhaps in the pasture. Now she rolls everywhere. Just today she had her first big roll down a hill, a slight slope though. She was so proud of herself I couldn’t get her to stop. Then she came upon some protruding roots and kept on rolling until she hurt her knee. She gets over sores pretty quickly though, so it was no big deal.
Speaking of pain, Matt has caught the family cold. He has taken on the lemon garlic ginger drinks, while Jess and I join him just to keep us well and to share the burden of drinking something so hard to drink (though it’s easier for us!) Jetlag has subsided and he even got to return to the bank for a day of wages. Besides working on healing, he has gone back to his position as the “mulcher.” He also decided that instead of being cremated he would rather be mulched. Ahhhh! I don’t like that idea so much, especially because he insists that I do it. But if you know Matt’s sense of humor, you should just chuckle rather than being disgusted like I am.
This weekend was to be dedicated to house planning. We have now been here over six months and have come up with hundreds of different ideas on how to adjust the house to fit its new occupants. We both have plenty of ideas to share, but the actual work is left to Matt as he is the spatial one in the family. I come up with funny impractical ideas, but sometimes he can use a piece of them while kindly mocking the rest. He then measures things, looks at what material Keith has gathered for us here on the land and then works it all out scientifically on paper and on a computer program. Coming up with a plan to suit Mary and Keith, the owners, my high ideals, Matt’s common sense and ideals, and also our checkbook is no easy task. I am happy to report though that today, we have gotten an “OK” from Keith and Mary and an “OK” from ourselves. Our checkbook has no voice right now, good thing, and Jacinta is just happy with life no matter where we are. So now Matt has the task of pretending he is an architect, drawing up very specific plans which will have to be scrutinized by “council,” before we can build anything. If this all goes through, we will build our own little house onto one the side of the house closest to the chicken coop and the view of the pond. It will have two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a “big” living space including a kitchen, a fireplace, couches, a desk, shelves, and all of our musical instruments. The prospects are very exciting and the work ahead is abundant, perhaps daunting.
Garden news this week seems easy to report, because I spent a lot of time doing one task which was finally completed. Keith and I finished digging around every last fruit tree and mulching them to prepare for winter. Why dig around a tree you just planted 3 months ago? Good question! The orchard is very close to the chicken forest which is filled with towering birch trees whose roots travel very far in search of nutrients. What better place to arrive than at each fruit tree where there are abundant nutrients thanks to compost and mulch! Another obstacle is that the orchard is on a hill, thus we can not get rid of all the grass at once for erosion would occur. I now know the true meaning of “grassroots.” Grass roots are incredibly fat compared to the size of each blade of grass they feed. They did not choose to vacate the space they have now sacrificed to the new fruit trees and they try very hard to go back home. If we edged them all, all 25 odd trees, the mowing job would become even harder. THUS….we had to dig around each tree, creating a ditch encircling a 6 foot diameter tree bed, so that we can easily see the encroaching roots and cut them off every other week.
This task is done, and we are thrilled. In the process Jacinta discovered many worms. She especially loves the “babies!” I can give her a few worms to look at on one side of the tree while I throw all of my might into the other side of the tree. Often her curiosity for texture takes over and she’ll yearn to touch the worm. She is slowly working up the courage to hold the worm herself, but for now she’ll shyly ask, “touch it?” I tell her that she can touch it, but she quickly replies, “Mommy! Touch it!” I’ll touch the worm or show her how to hold it, but usually she just looks on in amazement. Today she did touch the worm a few times with my guidance, and was tickled with the texture of the worm. Little does she know that I was scared of worms until a few years ago!
Besides the tree care, we planted a few more seeds this week, mostly lettuces, spinach and broccoli. Keith also picked up a ton of free kitty litter which we will use in our chook pen, mulch and compost. A true ton of kitty litter makes an enormous soft heap for Jess to climb up and down, fill buckets and roll around. Cleaning her off is another issue. I am happy to report that we are again eating garden produce: pumpkins and bok choi. Next week we’ll have lettuce and maybe even a few tomatoes.
Although there is joy in the veggie garden, the rooster saga is deteriorating. We can no longer call the chicks by their given names. We sorrowfully apologize for naming the chicks after loved ones. Daily I lament that Major had to hatch three male chicks and only one female. Hens lay eggs, a bonus. Roosters crow, fight each other and try hopping on hens as often as possible. In their efforts to fertilize the females, they also peck at them and hurt their necks. We have learned that young roosters have no problem hopping on their mom, their lovely mom that taught them everything except how to be male, that is instinct. Major will no longer sleep in the pen with them, you wonder why? It was agreed when I said I wanted to hatch the chicks and be responsible for them that no more than one rooster could stay. Now all three roosters are breaking the rules of the peaceful chicken kingdom here at 107 Coronation Road. We have tried to give them away, but no one wants roosters for the same reasons we have. They also do not want to bother eating them because they are bantams (miniature). We can not leave them to fend for themselves in the woods because if they survive they will harass the hens daily. If they are taken by the fox, the fox will come back hungrier and hunt the remaining chickens. The only remaining option is to kill them. This is the beginning of my learning of the circle of life on a farm. There is birth and death. Birth is lovely and exciting and death has been for me a sad sorrowful occasion. For others in the world, this kind of death is a celebration for it offers needed nourishment. I have always said I would never eat meat again unless I saw it live a happy life and learned how to accept the death of what is on my plate. This is responsibility I suppose, hard it may be, but yeah. That’s all I can say right now.
Matt has gone home (US) for a visit and feels rejuvenated by all of the love he soaked up. As I prepare for my journey home, making plans for every hour of each day I’ll be there, I continue to grow roots here in my new home. I have been lacking kitchen organization here. Petty though it may seem, putting my beans, spices and nuts in jars and placing them in a visible location has boosted my joy and comfort in the kitchen. Jess loves to cook with me in the kitchen and insists upon sharing everything. She has learned her mother’s will to force sharing on others as she shoves a bite of her banana bread in my mouth saying, “Share!” or crying, “share???” if I am too full to accept. My sister has asked me to be Kai’s godmother and elated, I accepted. Jess and I will be able to take part in his baptism while in Milwaukee. As Jess and I are feeling better this week, we went out to yoga. Yoga, out in the boondocks, an old town hall filled with a diverse range of people lying on the floor stretching together, ending the class with “Ohmmmm”s, which is strange to a lot of us, but we’re all there for some reason.
My reason is more to feel the vibe of all of those interesting people and chat with them after class. How many yoga classes end with gross coffee, black tea and mudcake? Most people stay after class chatting for at least 45 minutes sometimes over an hour. I may not partake in the cake, but I use this as an opportunity to let Jess, and I of course, soak up community. It feels warm.
I truly have bits of me in many different countries, but mostly in the USA and in Australia now. As you can see, my happiness comes from the US in one sentence and from Australia in the next. I sat and pondered the most influential women in my life the other day, and how life would be so much different had I not encountered them in my search for community. Some of these women are in Senegal, in France, in Honduras, in the US and now in Australia. There are warm communities everywhere, but you have to want true community and create it nowadays. We left a warm community in Michigan, where our friends would often gather at our home. We miss this community, and my family but are still attached thanks to airplanes, telephones and the internet. We are working on it here in a place big enough for a lot of fruit trees, heaps of veggies and lots of worms. The air is clean. Jess grasps at the moon and tries to “catch it.” Our water comes straight from the sky. I like simple processes and here I’ve found it easy to understand and to be thankful for the wonders of the earth. Right now I am particularly thankful for the searching I’ve been fortunate enough to do so far, and give thanks for the energy I’ve found to try and “stay a while.”
Jess is rustling and might escape into our bed if I continue pondering life with y’all.
Hope life is making you smile and laugh enough. Good night (:
posted by Matt & Shana & Jacinta & Genevieve Henry at
12:24 AM
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