What A Busy April

It is too true.  While many people are talking about the slower pace of life during this time of quarantine, I am busier than I’ve ever been.

I stepped up my game in the garden and pushed the limits of my budget for food forest trees, shrubs, and plants.  My supply of seeds was eaten by rodents, so I needed to replenish (my own fault), and fortunately I got my seeds and plants ordered in the nick of time before things got too difficult.

One day after my seed order was filled, the company I ordered from was slammed with orders and was asking people to be patient while they tried to keep their employees safe during operations.  Another company I had an order with, stopped taking orders just days after I got my order in, so they could catch up.  I watched anxiously while their stock dwindled hoping my order would be filled (they’ve got the best yellow crookneck seeds).  And the nursery I ordered trees and bushes from were unable to fill all of my order.

Everyone was scrambling and I felt lucky to have ridden the crest of the wave.  I’ve got all my seeds, and have been planting for two months.  In fact, we started eating from the garden just a couple of days ago.

But it’s Spring and my laying flock has really stepped up production.  I’m getting between 2 and 3 dozen eggs per day.  That’s a bit of a challenge because I only have one egg customer.  Meanwhile, I’ve set up an outdoor, self service egg selling station so people can help themselves and leave their money in a coffee can bank.  But no takers.  Even with eggs so hard to find, people walk past my sign and look and then keep walking.

Fortunately for me I was able to get eggs to several family members who were missing them at the supermarket.  I unloaded 33 dozen - two weeks worth of eggs.  It’s a relief that they won’t be going to waste.  And the thing I’m finding out is that people are no longer taking things like eggs for granted anymore.

I remember a friend of mine saying that people wanted to trade eggs for massage.  As a licensed massage therapist and energy worker, she was talking about how eggs weren’t valuable enough to trade for massage, and I realized how things have changed so much in our world.  There was a time when the local midwife or herbalist or healer/doctor would take payment in food.  Food was prized and valued, because people had common knowledge about what went into the growing of food, the raising of food, the time it took and the labor involved.  Now people buy cheap food at a corporate supermarket and they are so far removed from that process that they have no real appreciation for real food.  They have no experience with what it really takes to produce food.

Anyway, my flock’s eggs were truly appreciated when they made the rounds among my family members.  My mom told me she felt rich!  And talked about all the things she would do with eggs.  Just last week she was hoarding the few eggs she had left, trying to make them last.

Another thing the layers are producing right now are chicks.  I’ve had four hens go broody this Spring.  I’m glad they are going in a cycle and not all at once.  It started with one, then a week later, another one, then a week after her, another one, and so on.  I have one mama with her chicks in the yard, and another one in her house hatching out chicks these last few days, and another one due to start hatching out in less than a week.  I’m running out of places to put everyone.  Tomorrow I will be building another brooder and putting up fencing for this next batch due.  It’s tonnes of work and while not all at once, it’s coming pretty steadily in waves.

Meanwhile I’ve been raising meat birds too.  So I was able to get my family set up with birds in their freezers for the next few weeks.  Meanwhile the next batch of chicks arrived by mail last week.  They will grow up and feed my family just when they’re needed.  It’s intense though.  The harvesting must be done daily within a two to three week period when they are at a certain age and weight.  Since it’s just me, I’ve about reached the limit of what I can provide.  I’ve committed to providing birds for four families, which includes us.  But it is worth it to me.  I’m driven to do this.  It’s the most impactful way I can connect with my family during this time of quarantine.  It makes me feel less isolated, to make sure that as long as I am producing good quality food, I can share it with them.

It’s a bit like a family cooperative.  In that they pay for the grain “their birds” eat and for the cost of each chick, and I take care of the birds, raise them, harvest them, and process them.

As for my immediate family right here, I dream of producing the majority of our food on this land.  And this time of quarantine is really putting that dream to the test.  I’m finding it difficult to get certain processed things, like flour and baking soda.  It makes me want to be more creative about how I make bread.  Without flour, I have to find new ways to make bread from materials that I can grow on my place.  Like grinding corn to make tortillas, or using potatoes, or legumes, or starchy vegetables to create a kind of bread.  Maybe not a sandwich loaf, maybe not traditional pasta, maybe not wheat cakes, but something bread like that comes from my garden.

So living in this way, fills up a lot of each day.  And meanwhile, I’m still binding books by hand for our family owned business, Pegana Press.

Spring Chick Update

On Sunday I moved 35 Cornish Cross chicks outdoors.  I had to do some repair work on their little house, because the nesting box portion of their house in falling apart.  I got the house on Amazon, one of the last purchases I ever made from them.  I had a gift card that more than half covered this house, but it’s the true definition of flimsy.  Never the less, it does the job, as long as I stay on top of repairs.  And it’s perfect for this batch while they’re still small and getting used to being outside.  They will soon outgrow it.  And as I’ve learned through experience, chickens get attached to their homes and don’t like to be moved.  But for now this will do quite nicely.

The 15 Buff Orpington chicks and 1 (smaller than the rest) Cornish X were moved into the newly vacated brooder and are happy with their new space, it being double what they were in.  The single Cornish X is starting to grow at last and getting feathers and will soon join the rest outside.  The young Buff Orpington chicks will continue in the brooder for another two to four weeks depending on how fast they grow and weather conditions.  Then they’ll go outside too, in the Birch Grove Cottage I built for the October Buff Orpington chicks, which are now 5 months old and are in the process of being integrated into the existing layer flock (Buff Orpington chicks from last June).

Everything cycles.

An Alternate Reality: Episode 3-Making A Difference?

In episode 3 (recorded and posted on 3/3), I talk about the things I do to make a difference even when I don’t believe it will.

I didn’t go into a lot of detail in what I said about voting on the recording, mostly because I was having trouble with my recording tools and so I was distracted and didn’t say all I would have liked to on the subject.  I’ve gone into a little more detail here.

On Voting?

I don’t believe my vote actually counts.  I don’t believe it matters who I vote for because I think the people who consider themselves “in charge of the political process” are going to pick for us because they don’t trust people to choose their own leaders and they think they know what’s best for us.  Never the less, I still vote as if it absolutely makes a difference.  So even though I don’t believe my vote means anything, I still vote as if it all depends on me.

Because I will not give in to those who think they know what’s best for me, or what’s best for all of us.  They couldn’t possibly know because they can’t see through my eyes, or feel what I feel.  They don’t live my life and they don’t live yours.

I will not make it easy for “an established political elite” to rob me of my voice or my right to participate in democracy.  I vote because I think we can do better.  I vote like I believe it will make a difference.

Because some day it might.

On Climate Change

Another topic I spoke on, was what I do to actively fight climate change on a personal level.  I spoke at some length about that, so I won’t say more here.  It’s about choices.

An Alternate Reality

You can listen to An Alternate Reality at this link.

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Crowd Sourcing for Permaculture Project

Aren't they cute?  Every year, one of my hens does me a favor and decides to go broody.  These are my latest batch of chicks hatched out in August.  They're 4 months old now, and almost as big as the full grown hens.

I have been putting permaculture practices to work on my place and it has made an incredible difference to the land.  

Now I am in the process of getting my certification as a Permaculture Designer.  I will be designing Permaculture Systems to help people provide their own resources sustainably and to help rehabilitate the planet.  I think it's pretty noble work, and now it has called to me.

I'm reaching out to do some fund raising, so I can afford to take the course for this coming year.  A year long permaculture design course, very detailed and very in depth.

Please go to my fundraising page on Go Fund Me, if you'd like to contribute.

Thanks for reading.

A Word of Explanation

A couple of days ago, I embedded The Story of Stuff video into my post.  I would usually offer a few words (or 1,000) to accompany the post, but I didn't this time.  Partly because I was anxious to finish binding 6 more copies of The Golden Key for customers on our book website.

I got thinking about Earth Day on Friday because Google reminded me that there was such a thing.  I suppose if I still did Facebook, I would have been reminded much more.  But social media aside, the concept of Earth Day kind of annoyed me a little, but perhaps not for the reason you may think.

As I pondered this idea of Earth Day, I suddenly felt like it was only a pretense.  Only a sham.  It's just our culture going through the motions as we continue to destroy the thing that means more to us than anything else could possibly mean to us--The planet that supports us.  Our Home.  Our Mother.  Our beloved planet Earth.  If she loses her ability to sustain life, then we die.  I don't understand why this is not obvious to everyone.  I've been aware of the fragile balance of our environment since I was 9 or 10 years old.  How is it possible that the adults making the decisions to continue the destructive practices we have engaged in for too long would not be aware of something that is blatantly obvious to a child.  The answer to that question is that they are aware, but they have lost touch with their ability to care about consequences.

That describes a sociopath.  Sociopaths are identified as narcissistic with a huge sense of entitlement.  They are lying and manipulative, lacking in empathy or remorse.  They are charming and superficial, and live to please themselves, while disregarding laws, rules and the rights of others.

Those are the people who murder without remorse.  Those are the people who destroy without feeling.  Our society punishes 99% of the population with jail time and sometimes even by execution when they have been found guilty of engaging in those practices.

But the privileged few are allowed to go their way murdering and destroying, with no accountability for their actions.  They are also the ones running things on planet Earth.  They make the laws for the rest of us to abide by, but they--the 1%--are above the law.

Those are the things that cycled through my thoughts as I considered the social media flurry around this particular day, we call Earth Day.

As if we need a day to notice the planet.

But apparently, we do.  And I wondered how many people were profiting from Earth Day.  If I sound disgusted, it's only because I am.

But now something is giving me hope for the first time since the overtures of awareness rippled through with the Occupy Wall Street movement.  In this election cycle we are seeing something I've never seen before as a voter.  We are seeing people --both conservatives and progressives, mind you-- supporting the candidates that are outside of the norm.

And I love that!

To break out of that old routine that isn't serving us anymore.  Now that's progress.

So why did I post The Story of Stuff here?  Because the very first time I saw it, maybe six years ago now, I realized that this was a really good way to get that message out to people.  Here was a whole community of people all actively doing something to deconstruct the old ways of thinking by educating people.

I also wanted to stop censuring myself on my own blog.  I am passionate about resisting the status quo for the sake of the planet.  I think that The Story of Stuff is a good introductory video to hold a conversation around.  It's profound, non threatening/non triggering, and eye opening.

I hope you enjoyed it, and if you missed it, I hope you'll watch it.

The Story of Stuff

Please watch this video.