Happy Birthday to Mike

Proof that I made Mike a Birthday cake.  A Butterscotch Sundae cake from an old Betty Crocker cookbook.  It's taller than it looks.  This picture was taken before I drizzled butterscotch all over the top.  Perhaps the best frosting I've ever made.  (Maybe not...maybe it's just been so long since I've baked that it seems like the best).  But how can you go wrong with butter, powdered sugar, cocoa and cream.

Yes today was Mike's Birthday, and I went on a quest to find him a birthday present.  I went to seven places to find one book.  I could have ordered it on Amazon, but I only thought of it yesterday.  You know, I really love the ease of shopping on line, but I hate what it's done to the local economy.

While I was on my search this morning I went to Barnes & Nobel (no luck there--again, why should they stock a book that was written over a decade ago, when they can sell it on line), then I tried Walden's bookstore, only to find they were no more (I hadn't heard...) Then I tried Lassley's paper back exchange on the west side.  The sign was still up, but the building was empty with a for lease sign on the door.  

So much for the west side.

I headed down town.  No luck there either.  Not at Browser's and not at Orca books.  

Who Done It books is now only a memory.  When did it go?  Poof! Just like that.

I was beginning to regret having such a brilliant idea too late to order on line.  

I had wanted to get Mike a book that was number 6 in a series of 20 books.  We had the complete series before he decided to give that book to his dad a few years back.  Then last summer, he started reading that series again, only to find we were missing a book.  What a disappointment...and so he stopped.

I thought, "What a great gift!  By buying this one book, I'm really giving him an entire series back."  I just didn't know how hard it would be to find that one book or how hard it would be to even find a bookstore in this town.  They seem to be dwindling.

But I pressed on, and finally at the last place I had left to try, Lassley's paperback exchange in Lacey, was still in business, and there it was.  One shining copy.

Okay, not a shining copy.  It's a paperback exchange, so we're talking about books that have been read over and over.  But somehow, the quest made giving Mike that book all the sweeter, because it wasn't easy.  I wasn't sure I would find it and it seemed to make the ragged paper back more of a prize.

So I brought it home and wrapped it in a remnant piece of soft green plaid flannel fabric tied with twine (because I thought it was pretty) and handed it to him with a home made card.  Then we had coffee and laughed together while he opened his other cards and gifts from family.  And he was really excited about the book.  He started reading it later in the afternoon, and he's already a quarter the way through it...and remember it's not just one book...now it is 15 books, because he can finish the series.

Then I took him to lunch at Vic's pizza.  And when we came home, while he read his book with a cat on his lap, I made him a birthday cake.  He though he was in heaven.

I came of age in an era of materialism unprecedented in our culture.  And even though we used to make more money than we're making now, I always felt poor.  Somehow that has changed for me.

The more I step outside of what is normal and safe, the richer I feel.  Today, going on a quest for a Birthday present felt magical.  Would I find what I sought?  Would I win the day?

And Mike feels blessed because I baked.  Something I used to do often, but in these days when every moment is filled with earning a living or keeping up with household work,  baking is the last thing I have time for.  So now a cake becomes a magical and rare treat.  And that is how it should be.

What I'm really trying to say, in a long and rambling way is that all those things we once took for granted had lost their magic.  They had lost their zest.  But now  that we live a completely different lifestyle, where we work only for ourselves, we have come to appreciate the crafting of a moment into something more beautiful, and more magical.  A moment to be cherished and savored.  

Update on The Peepers

The Peepers have now become part of the flock.  The internet is a strange and wondrous source of all sorts of information, which is subject to the perception of whoever is sharing that information.  I had read that you should wait to introduce chicks into the flock until they were 16 weeks old.  My friend who runs a chicken farm disagreed.  Her opinion is --the sooner, the better.

The last two days, I had observed Ruby pecking at the chicks and apparently wanting to get back to the flock.  I could see she was torn.  She wanted to be with the others, but she wanted to take the chicks with her.  Having read "expert" advice on the internet, I was hesitant to introduce the Peepers to the flock.  But by just observing the behavior of the chickens, it felt like it was time.  So I asked my friend with the chicken farm.  She seemed to think it was long overdue.

Yesterday I put them in with the flock and cut a little exit in the fence so they could escape back into their yard if they needed to.  They were mostly just ignored, which was kind of a relief.  But they also didn't want to stay with the flock.  They wanted to be "home".  Their home.  So today, I put them in with the flock and blocked the fence.  They were distressed at first, but adapted.

Tonight when I put them all into the hen house they cried and cried.  Not the cozy peeps that I'm used to hearing at night, when they are still settling down after their busy day, but stressed out chick cries.

I went back inside my house and thought they would settle down, but when I went out 10 minutes later, I could still hear stressed chick noises coming from inside.  So I did a little energy work from just outside, and within less than a minute, I heard the little peeps trail off and it got very quiet.

I'm so ready for this to work.  I had a talk with Rocky this afternoon, and told him the Peepers were his responsibility now.  They are part of his flock and he has to keep them safe from hawks.  I told the Peepers they need to stay close to the flock and not wander aimlessly in the open.  

They had figured out their own yard, especially after several close calls with the hawks.  Their reactions were impeccable (no pun intended) on their home turf.  But watching them today made me apprehensive.  There is some open ground in that part of the yard, and they were mostly wandering around like lost children out in the open, while the full grown hens and Rocky were under cover a distance away.

Things were unsettled today, I'm sure they'll get the hang of it.  I just don't want to lose any.  I love my Peepers...no doubt about it.  But from a practical point of view, I also need all the egg layers I can get.

Mike asked me the other day, how many chickens I was planning on raising.  Here's my feeling.  I only have so much land, and it's not a lot, and I don't want to go into chicken farming.  But I want egg layers, and I want chickens working the land, which they do so brilliantly.

I started out with 4 hens in the beginning.  When my best egg layer was killed by a hawk, I was not only heart broken, but it upset everything with the remaining flock.  Ruby has been the only consistent layer since then.  I brought in Rocky to protect the flock...it was just a bonus that I got chicks out of it.

With only one hen laying eggs, I welcomed the chance to increase the flock.  And now that they're here, another one of the hens is finally laying eggs.  And I'm letting her keep them in the hopes that she'll get broody.  There are 9 eggs right now, so I'm hopeful.  And if she doesn't get broody, maybe one of the others will.  Ruby hasn't started laying eggs yet, so maybe she'll do it.  But the point is, the more chicks I have, the better my chance of getting egg layers and I'd like to have 6 productive hens.  I potentially have that right now.  But that's only if Ruby starts laying again and the other hen keeps laying, and four of the Peepers grow up to be egg layers...and only if no one else gets killed by predators.  So as I explained to Mike, if I can get another clutch of eggs hatched (the natural way--I don't do incubators), than I will be very happy.

My friend with the chicken farm was wondering when I was going to butcher the non producers.  I get the feeling she thinks that I'm being weak and maybe a bit sentimental.  But here's what motivates me, and it might not make sense to someone who doesn't work with energies like I do regularly, but I'll try to explain anyway.

In a very small flock, such as mine is, it takes very little to upset the balance.  One hen getting killed by a hawk didn't reduce my egg production by 1/4.  It impacted egg production by 75%.  My four hens were laying 2 dozen eggs a week.  Then I lost Penny, and two of the remaining hens stopped laying eggs, so now I was getting 6 eggs a week.  And let me just add, that my hens were all young and had only been laying for 3 or 4 months when this happened.  In the language of energy matrices, the matrix had been disrupted.

Add to the mix an aggressive rooster, and it has taken a year to recover from that one death in the flock.  It's literally taken that long for things to start to run smoothly again.  If I had taken out my two non producers, then the flock would take even longer to recover.  And now one of those two is actually laying eggs again - finally - and I'm not 100% certain which one is the layer.  So I guess I'm not in any hurry to start culling.

I love my flock.  Not because I think of them as pets.  I love them because they are members of my family now.  I love them because they teach me, and they give me food, or have given me food in the past, or will give me food in the future.  And in return, I give them food.  They work my land.  I give them shelter.  We are learning to communicate with each other, and that is really something.  This is who I am.  I'm not a farmer.  I love farmers, some of my friends are farmers and some of my family are but I'm not one and I'm not trying to be one.

I'm a kooky person who does a lot of different things to get by.  That's all.