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and then this happened. a special Easter visitor

By on April 9, 2015 in Farm and Garden

Growing up with animals, big and small, our children are very used to it and very comfortable with them.  There are some animals which we are mystified with.  Dear being one of them.  They are masters of not being seen in our woods.  I often have questions about them.  Where do they go when storms come,  where do they have their babies?  What do they eat when they are not stealing nibblets from my garden.  I see them as these mysterious beautiful creatures out there who do not need me to live.  At the same time I see them as the thieves who uproots my veggies, eat my strawberries and cause mischief.  I also see them as a meat source and so I guess I have a complex relationship with them.

This Sunday, just as I was finishing hiding the Easter eggs for the hunt.  I looked up and saw a small doe about 15 feet from where I was walking and it looked at me but did not run.  Weird!  Usually, it is enough for them to see my face in a window for them to run as fast as they can.  Eddie was helping me hide the eggs and he was a bit closer than I was so I told him to see if he could get any closer.  Slowly but surely, he did climb down to where it was and then the most amazing thing happened…  It came right up to him and sniffed his hand.

By this time, Nick had come from hiding eggs in the front yard and I asked him to go and get some organic popcorn.  It is all I could think to feed it and entice this doe to stay long enough for the rest of my family to witness this.  Surely if they did not see it, they would not believe us.

I went and got everyone who was inside where they could not see us hiding the eggs.  I was sure that this little doe would not stay with 8 children around but it did.  She did not like the girls for some reason.  I figured it was their flowy dresses so I told them to pick up their skirt and bunch them up so they wouldn’t flow around and then suddenly, they were acceptable to our visitor.  Everyone got to touch her and later on that day, she came back as we were playing in the front yard, looking for us.  We have named her Claire.  Saint Francis loved dear and so we named her Claire in his honor as well as that of Saint Claire.

What a wonderful little visitor.  I hope she stays close by though I will have to figure out how to keep her out of our greens.  So continues my  complex relationship but this time with a bit of personal perspective.

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Chicks, old and new

By on March 25, 2015 in Farm and Garden, Kids

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The past few days have been magical.  Totally magical.  It is still a bit cold out but once we are outside working for a little while, it is wonderful.  We have been exploring our woods every moment that we get free.  We are working on a redo of our garden.  Last year we just planted in the ground and did not make any changes.  Permaculture teaches to get to know your land for the first year without doing anything permanent.  Though it was hard, I am so happy that we did.  We took a year to follow all the seasons and get to know where the land gets too soggy after rain, where the water flows, where the sun lands during different times of day and year.  I pulled out a drawing that I made my first month here.  All those plans would not work now that I know this land a little better.

Yesterday we got the call we had been waiting for and took a break from the garden.  There was a box full of our chicks waiting for us to pick up.  A noisy little box of cute little fluff balls.  Just what we needed.  We left our brooder box in the barn back at the Florida house and I have not had the room to bring it back on any of our visits.  So the next best thing I could think of was a plastic baby pool.  We tucked it into a corner in the playroom close to the woodstove where its nice and warm.

If I need to find any of my children right now, I need only walk downstairs and I will find them.  In that corner, reading a book with a chick.  Playing closeby, taking an occasional break to visit a little yellow puffball.  And then there is Matthew.  He is obsessed and we are keeping him in our eyesite at all times.  He loves very deeply and chicks can’t handle that.  So, we let him hold his chick for a few minutes and then do our best to distract him with something else.  Luckily, I need say is the word “outside”  and he will gladly follow.

The older hens have been happily underfoot during our redo of the garden and I have to be very careful not to step on them or plow them over with the wheel barrow.  Anywhere that they see a shovel in hand, they are right by ourside in the case that a juicy earthworm should be uncovered.  I think they are enjoying early spring as much as we are.  This morning I got visual proof when the eggs were gathered.  A double yolk is a lovely thank you.

Tomorrow we will continue with the garden and I will be sharing that project with you.  Right now, I need to soak and diffuse some oils to help with the pains that always come with breaking my winter laziness and getting back into the swing of things.

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