Momentary Magic: Leap Day!

In fact, Leap Day is a very fleeting kind of magic.  It only last 24 hours, once every 4 years.

I recently heard someone talking on a local radio station about doing away with leap day.  Not only that, but he seemed to think it would be a very good idea to divide the calendar evenly so that the first day of each month always fell on the same day, and we would never need new calendars.  He must have realized that in order to have such symmetry you could only have 364 days in each year, because he concluded with the idea that we could even everything out by having a leap week every few years.  So that would be 13 months of 28 days with a “leap week” every seven years?  You would still need that special calendar every 7th year, the one with the extra week in it.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but that would mean the days we mark as seasonal observances, such as solstices and equinoxes would still occur, only on different days, each year as we would continue to lose a day out of every year.  Perhaps we could ask the earth to orbit the sun faster instead of taking 365.24 (approximately, and I’m rounding down) days in which to make this journey.

No.  I love leap year.  I love that we’ve created this special day that only “exists” every 4 years.  To me it is a magical doorway.  One that leads to Imagi Nation.  I would never want to see us do away with it just to make a tidier row of boxes on a calendar.

An Alternate Reality

That’s the name given to my new podcast.
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It’s a format where I can give a voice to my observations and ramble a little bit about...oh, you know. Just life

An alternate reality sort of describes the way I’ve chosen to live.  I really don’t fit into the parameters dictated by society, especially for someone my age.

Born under mutable Gemini, I find myself constantly drifting from one expression of reality to another.  It follows me in my daily routine, (what routine??) and allows me to navigate through a sort of platform 9 3/4 on my way to whatever expression of myself I need to be to get the job done, whether I need to be a book-binder, a farmer, an energy worker, a writer, chief cook and bottle washer, accountant and book keeper, and/or just general dog’s body and go-for.

After a few years of living like that, I had sort of moved into a very narrow expression of myself, perhaps in order to move into the confines of each job I was asking myself to do.

“Wait a minute!”  I had to ask myself, “When did that happen??”  Time to let my mind expand again. Time to remember a more fluid way of doing this.  Time to release tightly woven bonds that have crept in...the learned patterns that twine around me like ivy twining round a tree.  Eventually the ivy becomes a parasite that kills its host.

Yeah, so fair warning...If you listen to An Alternate Reality, you may be in for that kind of a ramble.  Also stories, essays, and just plain (or not so plain) observations about life in my little world, and the world beyond.

Spring Chick Progress Report

At three weeks this is the difference between a Cornish Cross chick and a Buff Orpington chick.  The Cornish X are bred for fast growth.  They are a broad breasted meat bird.  The Buff Orpington are heritage birds.  They are good egg layers, good moms (they go broody), and are not bad meat birds, (though I have no personal experience with a Buff Orpington on my table).

I took this photo to illustrate the difference in size since both these birds are three weeks old.

Which is why I had to separate them 10 days after their arrival.

54 chicks started out in this 100 gallon stock tank.

 















I lost 4 of them over the first three days, which left 50 birds.  Or so I thought.  (It turns out when I went to separate them out, that I had an extra bird-hooray!)

By the time they were 2 weeks old, the Cornish X were so much bigger than the Buff Orpington chicks that they seemed packed in like sardines

I had just been waiting until they feathered out a bit to move the Cornish X out to the lean-to on the south side of my house where I keep the brooders.  And after two weeks their wings had feathered out enough for me to feel comfortable about moving them out of the house.

That left a lot more space in the tank for the remaining 15 Buff Orpington chicks plus one unidentified bird (it looks like a Cornish X, but is small like the Buff Orps.  And since they hadn’t feathered out much at all, they are still indoors.

And here they are now at three weeks old.

The red heat lamps make it hard to see them in photographs, but you can see they have a lot more room to move about.

And this is the Cornish X in their brooder at two weeks old.

And here they are a three weeks old for comparison.

You can really see the growth in just one week, the box looks much fuller than in the first photo.  And since there are 35 birds in this 4’ x 4’ brooder, I imagine that they will be ready to move again in a week.

In good weather, the ideal scenario would be to move them outside at 4 weeks, but during this time of the year, with the colder temps, that will depend on them getting more fully feathered out.  They are nearly there, so I may get them outside in a week.

At 5 weeks, I expect to be able to move the Buff Orpington chicks into the brooder, but again-that depends on how far along their feathers are.  Still, I do have three heat lamps and it stays quite toasty in the brooder when I use all three.

After 5 weeks, I will be more than ready to have my dining room back.  Those little guys generate so much dust.  But I must admit, they also generate pure joy in the house.

Momentary Magic: Spring Chicks

Spring chicks just arrived this morning in the mail.  I have them under a red bulb heat lamp.

There was a time when my flock self multiplied.  Chicks were hatched on this place naturally and grew up being cared for by a mother hen.

Then one day nature in the form of coyote stole in and changed all that in one sad summer afternoon. The saddest part of all?  Coyote wasn’t even hungry.

What a waste.  All those lifeless bodies.  All the joy drained out of the hen yard.

Now the joy has returned in the form of Spring Chicks.

They don’t have mothers to raise them or to keep them warm or to teach them how to scratch the soil.  Even so, they figure it out.

It is miraculous that 54 tiny chicks can be packed carefully into a cardboard box, and shipped across the country.  The miracle is seeing the soft look on the faces around me when I pick them up at the post office.  The woman at the counter handing them over with blessings and well wishes.  The people in line murmuring that it was worth the wait just to see a box of chicks arrive in tact, their robust chirping filling the post office lobby.  A sign they are healthy and alive.

I drive them home with the heater cranked up into the 80s in my car, and I coo reassuring words to them all the way.  And when I unpack them-another miracle.  They are warm as toast.  The box is warm.  Tucked under their little straw mat, there are two heating packs, still warm after 40 hours of travel.

I find myself warming with gratitude.  It has not always gone this well.  The last batch of chicks arrived chilled through.  I lost about 17% of those chicks.  It took them a long time to even begin to thrive after being so compromised.

But these chicks stayed warm.  They not only survived, but they are vigorous.  Eating and drinking right away.  They haven’t passed out on their little faces with their little wings spread out, like I have seen others do in the past as they try to recover from the stress of being shipped in the mail.

The loud complaining peeping from being packed together in a box for a day and a half, has been replaced with the soft conversational chirps as they chat among themselves.

Right now I can hold 3 in the palm of my hand and all 54 chicks fit comfortably in their 100 gallon stock tank.  They will soon outgrow it, but for now it is the coziest place in the house.  Just the right size for newly hatched chicks.

Welcome home, dear ones.

Thank you for being a part of my life, and allowing me to be a part of yours.

Thank you for the miraculous joy you bring with you.

A Plastic Free Solution: Freezing Chicken

In 2014 I participated in the Plastic Free July Challenge.  It took my awareness of the plastic issue to a whole new level.  As an omnivore, I became aware that if I buy meat, it will come wrapped in plastic or plasticized butcher paper.  After researching other buying options, I realized that the only way to avoid plastic is to raise my own meat.  Having only one half acre to my name, I chose to raise chicken.  My cats eat raw chicken, I use the eggs, we two humans and two cats can eat quite well on one chicken a week, and the flock is partnering with me in my permaculture design project.

My usual practice is to raise a small flock of chicks to maturity, harvesting one or two birds per week as needed.  This way I am able to keep birds in the fridge without using any plastic packaging.  I have a large stainless steel bowl with a stainless steel pizza pan as a lid, which keeps the chicken fresh for a week.

Once or twice a year I find it to my advantage to have a chicken in the freezer.  My freezer is small, and I prefer to have live birds on the place that I can harvest for fresh food when I need them, but I always take the last two birds out of the flock together, which leaves me with an extra bird in the fridge for the week.  Last summer I decided to freeze that extra bird.  It dressed out at 9 1/2 pounds and I decided it was large enough to stand in for Turkey at Thanksgiving.

Since I am always aware of the single use plastic issue, I have a stock of several large plastic bags that I use over and over.  I found a bag that I could barely get the bird into, sealed it, and felt like I was good to go.  Except, three weeks later when I was moving it around in the freezer, I stuck my thumb through the plastic and ripped a large hole in the package.  The only thing I could think to do was to wrap the whole thing in a towel.  I found the largest, thickest towel I had, wrapped it well in layer after layer and put it back in the freezer where it stayed until November.

The week-end before Thanksgiving I put the bird in the fridge to thaw, and a couple of days before Thanksgiving day, examined the bird.  It was moist and fresh looking, without a hint of freezer burn.  I breathed a sigh of relief since I was hosting Thanksgiving this year and didn’t have any birds over 4 pounds on the place to take it’s place.

In short, it roasted beautifully, and everyone marveled at how such a large bird could be so tender.

That got me thinking about the plastic issue.  I have been hesitant to freeze meat because I didn’t want to deal with single use plastic...or any plastic for that matter, if I could avoid it.  Now that I know it can be done, I decided to try it a second time.

Today, I took a large piece of well washed natural muslin fabric and wrapped it closely around a newly harvested bird that dressed out at 12 pounds.

I continuously wrapped the fabric around the birds several times until it was well insulated.  Then I started on the next layer.

Using an old, clean bath towel I had on hand, I wound it twice around the bird tightly, making sure to insulate all parts of the bird.

For the final stage, I repeated the process using a larger bath towel.  

None of these towels are what you’d call thick and thirsty.  They are old and worn, and I’m just glad I didn’t have time to cut them into rags like I had been contemplating doing.

But it is noteworthy that using towels to wrap meat for the freezer, adds to the bulk.  If I already had sturdy large plastic bags that I was using over and over, I could simply wrap the bird or meat in a layer of muslin fabric and then place it in the plastic bag.  That would save space.  If I was worried about cross contamination, I would wash the bag as soon as I had removed the bird or meat and then would store it in the freezer.  

I chose muslin fabric because it’s what I had on hand.  I can rewash it, and reuse it multiple times and when it is too worn out to use anymore than I can compost it.

And now a disclaimer.  This idea took form to suit my needs, and my ideals.  I’m only packaging this chicken for my own use.  If I were selling chicken, I would have to handle it differently, and I would have to use different packaging.  There are regulations guiding food production for sale.  But since I’m not providing chicken for public consumption, this works well for me.  I’m more afraid of the prospect of facing an over polluted world than the remote chance that I might get a few extra microbes on my food from wrapping it in cloth instead of plastic.  But as always, I encourage people to do what makes them comfortable.  Use this idea or not, but use your common sense.  Listen to what your gut tells you.

The Saturday Breakfast Serial

This week I’m taking a break from the Serial.  :)  I may start a new one next week.  If you haven’t read the Desk, you may find all 8 chapters under the label “Saturday Breakfast Serial” in the side bar.

Have a great week end.

Tea for Tue: Our Lady of Guadalupe

Two years ago today, I painted this picture on the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe.  Here is the story that goes with the painting.

The Prayer

Three of us stand with canvases and easels in my friend's tiny home.  Her plush black cat looks on with ancient wisdom shining behind her benevolent and mildly curious gaze.  A stool in the corner holds brushes and paints.  I have never painted before.  Not on canvas.  We begin with a story and a journey.  And we begin with a prayer. Which writes itself in charcoal on my canvas.  We drum the canvas and we bathe it in rose water to invite the prayer in.

Did I mention?  It is the feast day of Guadalupe.

The Vision

I see her in my mind's eye.  She fills the cosmos.  She is woven into the fabric of the universe.  She is so big, I can only see her face and shoulders.  She is too big for me to see all of her.

The Painting

Over the prayer, the painting begins to emerge.  The face takes on shape from the prayer and the rayos, the corona around her, takes on a color I did not expect.  The Roses explode from her dress in all directions, merging with the cosmos.  And her hair...most surprising of all to me...her hair is white.