Gratitude Overload

i realize that nearly every post of 2012 was about chickens.  that's funny!  if i were an alien reading this blog, or even just some other random human (hello aliens and random humans!), i might think that pretty much the only thing going on in my life in the past year (and ever!) is with regard to chickens.  which is certainly not a bad thing; chickens are funny and cute and interesting and i pretty much love them.  i've sure learned a lot about living with chickens this year...there have been many successes/gains and a few failures/losses.  and as of this moment, this 60th post, we are getting the best egg production we've ever had...in fact, just the other day, we had the FIRST FIVE EGG DAY.  seriously.  like a couple weeks ago.  the TUF holy grail!  every hen actively laying!  we haven't had another one yet, but there are consistently between 2 and 4 eggs in the coop every single day for weeks now.  so 2012 has most definitely been a powerful personal poultry year.

however, MUCH has gone on beyond chickenry.  so much, in fact, that i didn't instantly write about the 5 egg day!  i know, i couldn't believe it myself.  so on this last day of this year, i find myself contemplating past events and on-going processes that have filled the non-chicken aspects of my life, and i find myself to be Unbelievably Grateful. in the name of documentation, and at the risk of extreme self-indulgence, i will use this space to ruminate upon these things. (if you are not into the personal ruminations of random humans who are not you, now would be a good time to run away! i won't be offended. remember that "ruminating" literally means "chewing cud.")

WORK.

i haven't discussed my job on here at all!  my current professional incarnation is teaching 7th grade science.  this was my second year to teach science; the previous two years were spent teaching theater at a different school.  when i started out thinking about becoming a teacher, i kind of figured i'd be teaching language arts (NOTE: i do understand proper capitalization, grammar sticklers!)  but my whole career thus far i've been taking opportunities and learning experiences as they come, and i've felt very successful in the professional growth i've made, no matter how mad-lib-esque the process.

i feel pretty complicated about teaching right now, and the complications could fill a-whole-nother blog all by themselves.  it's a challenging, draining, invigorating, intellectually-stimulating, anguish-causing gig that takes up a lot of my mental spacetime.  2012 has been much more successful-feeling than 2011, and i have done a lot of growing and learning and working toward becoming better.  and i can see that i AM becoming a better educator, which makes me really happy.  i like doing things to the very best of my ability, so for a while i was discouraged when my teaching experience ranged from less than successful to really hard to damn near impossible.  but this year my perspective changed a bit--i've found that the thing i can do to the best of my ability is grow, and keep growing.  teaching is a process, and a practice, just like learning.  i strive to be the best student of teaching that i can possibly be, open and curious and observant, willing to try new things, continually evaluating my experiences, above all paying attention to the myriad needs and incredibly varied personalities of my students and classes.

but i am not gonna lie; just maintaining that perspective is its own studied practice.  this year i also found the words to tell myself this truth: i am not one of those amazing people who glean the majority of life satisfaction from the practice of teaching. i know incredible individuals who embrace the long hours and emotional drainage as the natural way toward personal fulfillment via their highly successful career in education.  my personal fulfillment comes from the availability of many different experiences, as evidenced by my mad-lib style career and multi-interest life. my optimal identity would equally balance chicken farmer/wife/cook/writer/musician/poet/pet enthusiast/philosopher with /teacher. often i find that these identities are not optimally balanced, and pretty soon there is going to be another REALLY BIG new identity to balance with these others. so i wonder what 2013 will bring in that regard.  more on the new identity shortly.

i will say this about teaching, though: i am extremely grateful that my job has built-in time during the year to take big brain breaks and work on re-balancing my various identities.  for all teaching's less-desirable aspects, getting paid to do things other than work for weeks at a time is a great, great gift.  this is not lost on me as i consider other possible career tacks for the upcoming year.  plus i love those dang kids.

ADVENTURES.

i love them!  we had a big one to korea, several smaller ones to the beach (twice), ft. worth (anniversary), houston for dear darling sister's wedding, and any number of home-based ones regarding pets, holidays, food, friends, and new experiences. we also started the process of a brand new kind of adventure, which goes with the new identity, which deserves its own discussion.  here is a pictoral recap of many 2012 adventures!

first time beach dogs!

seoul romantic!

snake charming!

xmas tortilla soup attempt!

gorilla bonding!

sister's wedding makeup!

xmas eve party!

PEOPLE.

twenty twelve was a really good year for the relationships in my life.  my sister got married to a wonderful man at a spectacular party, and we did some very grownuppy holiday management together.  i am so thankful for my close and powerful relationship with my brilliant, loving, considerate and hilarious sister--she is an amazing listener and has such spot-on insight about things.  we are very different, complementary people, and her energy is both grounding and uplifting.

i deepened my friendships with several women i met through work at various points, and now i am so grateful for each of them in my life.  one helped me fight off a snake and introduced me to raw kale squished salad, and also can linguistically nerd out in a flash.  another lets me come in her classroom and scream and storm and rant and rave and then geeks out about gross sciencey things with me.  yet another is going to be present at the birthing due to her big calm energy, invaluable experience and blissful prenatal massage techniques, which she is willing to TRADE for various sundries, as well as being a fellow aquatic invertebrate dork.  yet YET another lives down the street and has a toddler of her own, and is always available for support and advice and opinions and toddler practice and baby stuff.  i am so lucky to have these friends!

i am so thankful that dan and i have a couple amazing couple friends, and that we have our individual friendships within the couple friendship. c and j have been our friends for a long time, and j is an invaluable ear and inspiration for me.  she is articulate on subjects ranging from food to music to life etc, and has great perspective on all kinds of things.  c is hilarious and full of interesting ideas and thoughts.  plus they play music and cajole us into being social even when we're in full-on homebody mode.  aaaaaand, j's sister b and her fiance d have become our good friends too, and we've even had all sisters and husbands together for rousing karaoke fun!  can it get any better?

i connected and reconnected with many friends through various media and for various reasons this year, and i hope to build and maintain these relationships, new and old, in 2013.  one thing i'd like to work on about myself is friendship maintenance, and it's fun to have so many awesome people to practice on.  i am grateful for people who have visited from far away, for dear ancient friends getting engaged to wonderful new friends, for people who have moved away but stayed in touch and visited, for meeting new friends through old friends and expanding circles, for friends of unique circumstance (like having the same due date and doctor, as well as mutual friends).

i am always grateful for my parents--they are endlessly supportive and now very excited about the new addition coming right up here.  mom has been visiting from dallas, since i can't seem to ever get up there (i know, bad daughter!!), and has been a source of advice and comfort always and especially lately.  dad just moved a mere 30 minutes away, and i'm so excited to hang out with him more often. i am grateful for his calm insight and willingness to talk about anything and everything.  and my mother in law and father in law are also unbelievably supportive and generous, and i am ever thankful for my relationship with each of them.  we're also so lucky to have my aunt and uncle in town, and a new year's resolution is to make more time to spend with them--uncle  p. has been a major influence in my life since i was a baby, and i don't see him nearly enough.  and i also want to make sure to get to san antonio to see uncle r. and my incredibly tough grandma, who made it through open heart surgery and rehabilitation practically unscathed at 89 years old.  i'm so glad that the new addition has so many amazing family members...he doesn't even know yet how lucky he is, but i do.

and finally, i am so thankful and grateful every moment for dan.  my life is so full of delight and creativity and humor and adventures because of him.  i could write for days about it, but really there aren't enough words, so i'll just say here that i love him so much.

AND FINALLY....PREGNANT!

i still kind of can't believe it, but we are expecting a baby boy in early march.  that's really soon.  i wish and hope and think and wonder about so many things regarding him.  i have insomnia dedicated just to thinking about conversations we might have as he grows up.  i can't wait to see what he looks like, what he sounds like, what he IS like, what he likes.  i sure hope he likes us; i sure hope we are "adulty" enough to do this crazy next adventure.  i think we are; i have a lot of faith in us.  and, i mean, there are nine billion people on the planet, it can't be TOO hard to raise a kid, am i right?  i just hope we do it right. and by right i mean...well, i don't even know what i mean yet, i guess we'll see.

as of today i am 31 weeks along, and i've heard that the last weeks of pregnancy serve to ensure the mother is willing to do JUST ABOUT ANYTHING to get the little one out and on his physical own!  there have been discomforts, but they have been blissfully minor (heartburn, insomnia, early food aversions), and all in all i've had an easy and comfortable pregnancy.  so thankful, so lucky.  though the idea of birth is a little daunting, i'm going to be with people who are positive, loving influences in my life, and i'm going to be in a safe place with a doctor i like.  i am going to be able to focus on empowered openness to do whatever it takes to ensure healthy him and healthy me.  so, crazy as it all sounds, it's going to be fine!

i also hope he likes chickens.  and here we are, back to chickens. there was definitely a lot more to 2012 than just chickens.  and i am thankful for every chicken, every person, every experience that has taught me something about life this year.  so happy new year! 2013 is really going to be something!

Gains, Loss, The Future

ah, the beginning of fall.  when the temperatures drift down into the balmy mid-nineties, and there is a chance of rain sometimes.  actually, all facetiousness aside, the mornings and evenings have been beautiful!  and enough rain has fallen that the back yard is full of chickweed and egg production is ramping up again. i'm excited about the change of seasons, and fall air is some of the best air.

sadly, we have lost another chicken.  this time there was no disease or predation involved...earlier this week bolo vanished without a trace! there she is to the left, the big black one, having a roll in the dust with pearl last sunday.  by tuesday, however, she was gone. just gone!  no feathers, no yard kerfuffle, everyone had been in the run all day.  all other fowl were fine and normal. but when i went out to the yard after work to give the ladies and gentleman their yard time, she simply was nowhere to be found.

i keep hoping she might come back, but i think it's been long enough that such hope is lost.  my best thought is that she's been bodily assumed into heaven, rapture-style.  at least that's my favorite theory...several others make perhaps more sense but are far more depressing.  she was a non-flyer, but had accidentally hopped out of the run once a long time ago--she was never one for adventure.  

needless to say, all remaining chickens now have flight feathers 1-8 clipped on their right wing, like i did sammo a couple months ago, to prevent further chicken raptures.

i wonder if she accidentally hopped out again, went for a mosey, got lost....and then was bodily assumed.  at any rate, wherever she is, i hope she enjoyed her life here and is enjoying her next life.  if not, i'd like it if she would come back.

in other, better news, we recently acquired two new girls to bump up egg production and add some new feathers to the flock.  introducing tony parker and scotty pippen!

tony parker

tony parker is a lovely young barred rock hen, a classic breed. true to her name, she is especially quick and agile, and does not seem to like to get picked up yet.  however, once caught, she will happily sit on the available lap for pets and chicken talk.  she should start laying big brown eggs any minute!

scotty pippen

scotty pippen is a beautiful red star chicken who, unlike her new sister thus far, is quite friendly. she seems to enjoy being picked up and cuddled, and even hangs around waiting for such attention.  her breed is also an egg-laying machine, and so we are much anticipating her egg scene debut.  in fact, she was destined to go to an _actual_ egg laying machine--a big production chicken house--which explains why her beak was cut.  but here on the TUF, her beak can grow back in all its glory and she can party in the run and yard all day.  i look forward to seeing her beak back!

all chickens have made the adjustment seamlessly, both to the new additions and the loss of dear old bolo.  the flock numbers six once again--tumblr (the rooster), sammo (easter egger), pearl and ninja (original silkies), scotty pippen and tony parker.  we pause to remember the TUFlock chickens who have gone on to the great free-range in the sky: soft grey twitter, baby lil' bitz (we barely new ye!), and big black ol' bolo.  thanks for all the eggs and fun.

milk snail enjoying a fall morning

and finally, a bit about the future: dan and i are pleased to be expecting a new HUMAN addition to the TUF to join us in early march 2013!  all is well so far, and of course we will appreciate another TUF hand around to help care for all these crazy creatures. that's why people originally starting having kids anyway, right? more help around the farm?  maybe we can actually start that garden i've been screaming about since the beginning of this whole experiment!

speaking of experiment, and as a final note, here is a picture of the fantastic carrot soup i concocted the other day.  i had also (true to TUF philosophy) used a bunch of farmer's market vegetable odds and ends, and the frozen carcasses of a roasted local duck and chicken, to make a killer-awesome no-waste stock as the base for this soup.  i basically used this recipe, with lemon juice but no zest, a zillion cloves of garlic, and only 1/4 cup of cream, and it came out pretty dang delightful.  and healthy! mostly!

anyway, there is much coming up to discuss, what with the changing seasons, new girls, new food, new future prospects and all.  thank you for reading, Dear Reader, and though i'm clearly not the best at it, i'll renew my efforts to keep y'all posted and document the process!

On Recent Foods

i strongly recommend that folks

should eat a lot of artichokes.

steamed or sauteed, stuffed or dipped,

i am fully arti-whipped.

these were from a local farm,

pricey? yes! but what's the harm

in steaming up a few to see

'bout total veggie luxury.

pull a leaf off, scrape with teeth:

discard, repeat, 'til a wreath

of cast-off leaves rings 'round your plate,

and leaves a heart you're glad you ate.

grass-fed, local, gently raised--

one tastes the plants on which s/he grazed.

within the parthenon of meat,

little lamb chops reign elite.

garlic shards and fresh green beans,

lightly butter-sauced and steamed

lend the taste of summertime

to any plate they touch of mine.

early corn! the sun's warm rays

are captured, into sugar made

and packaged into rows and rows

of tasty kernels. tall it grows,

'til harvested and grilled in foil.

corn demands such little toil--

touched with salt and kissed by butter,

it makes gastronomics flutter.

seek the holy leafy grail?

look no further than sweet kale.

green of leaf, oft veined in red

kale is cabbage, finely bred.

chopped, sauteed and garlic-blessed,

this queen of greens outshines the rest.

Compost Kerfuffle

now that the nasty business of the total bummer is over, i will blog-bury it with a happy photo essay of funny chickens being cute! i give you:

The Compost Kerfuffle

sammo has completely buried herself in the compost pile.

intrigued, bolo checks out her literal new digs.

unimpressed, bolo scales the heap to its peak.

sammo emerges...

...

...and attempts to usurp bolo's position.

some awkward moments ensue.

finally they learn to share!

the end!

Garden/Snake

when i first started writing about our TUF attempt, it had a lot to do with coop construction...that was the first step toward ultimately becoming a Totally Urban Farm. another one of our original goals was to build and start a vegetable garden, and almost exactly a year ago, we built the boxes for it on the day we got our first egg. this is what it looked like back then:

then we got focused on the chickens all summer, and it was really hot, and then i was a science teacher for nine months (time consuming, that!), and so the garden boxes filled with weeds and turned into a chicken playground/hot dog wallow...UNTIL THIS WEEKEND.  design revamped, enthusiasm renewed, the TUF garden is within a few weekends' reach!

the 3 original 6'x6' boxes got a 2'x4' inset for easy harvest access. each inset got 2 18" square patio tiles, and the rest of the growing area (84 square feet!) got dug up and covered with hay to get all the weeds out of there.  shortly we will lay down some landscaping cloth, cover it with gravel, cover THAT with local topsoil enriched with our delicious compost, and we will be ready for a fall garden. for real this time!

this space on the side of our our house gets direct morning sun from about 9 am to 3 pm, then is shaded by the house for the rest of the day.  i'm hoping that will be enough sunshine to grow tasty tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers...we are garden virgins for sure, so this will be a learning process. just like everything about the TUF!

speaking of learning experiences: last early june we had a brush with our first Texas Rat Snake, which resulted in the snake making him/herself scarce for the rest of the year.  well, s/he is back.

and now it is more than a brush. it is WAR.  this snake has been stealing the lovely ladies' eggs for the past month, ever since the beginning of may.  "may's snake month," our neighbor once averred, and at the time i was skeptical. no longer.  i am certain that this snake is a significant factor in hampering the as-yet theoretical five-egg day.

my thought is to carefully capture it, constrain it to a pillow case, drive it across 183 and release in a woodsy area. it has probably devoured like a dozen eggs at this point!  i'll go out there, check on the birds, see the carefully crafted deep egg-nests they like to make, but they will be empty.  the other day i caught it in the act of eating one of sammo's eggs.  i made ready to do battle, but the snake dropped the egg (!) and beat it.  and two days ago, as we were putting up the chickens at dusk, we saw it curled in the nesting box.  tumblr was peering at it with great suspicion, and the other ladies were as far away as they could be inside the coop.  we made a heroic joint attempt to capture it, to no avail. snakes always turn out to be surprisingly strong and nimble.

thus, the battle of the rat snake continues, and i will update you, Dear Reader, as developments develop!  and summer is coming right up, with all its time and promise...cooking! grocery store adventures! gardening! more writing!  it's almost, almost here........

Fiftieth

this moment i sit on my back porch balcony, having concocted this adult beverage.  it's a fancy affair of orange juice, grapefruit preserves made by a good friend and traded for eggs, organic strawberries, and local vodka.  _lovely._ as is the weather, warm and breezy and greensmelling.

i won't lie to you, Dear Reader.  i've been holding out.  holding out for that most holy of theoretical days, the Five Egg Day. i've got five hens a-laying, and i really wanted to mark the Fifitieth Post with a Five Egg Day.  i also realize that april 10th marked the anniversary of my very first silly post, and i kind of wanted all these stars to align, you know?  fiftieth post, five egg day, year of TUF.   how poifect would that have been?

but nothing is ever perfect, which is exactly how everything should be.  the ladies and gentleman have the full run of the yard now every day, and seem absolutely thrilled.  we will occasionally leave them in their orignal run for a day, which they dearly loved at one time, but now they spend the whole time in there looking exasperated, as only chickens can.  so these days they are pretty much as free-range as it gets for a Totally Urban (chicken) Farm.

i can't believe i ever thought
he was a girl.

tumblr, while nearly intolerably loud, appears to be a fine czar of the yard. he is vigilant and watchful, and often puts on a showy, strutting, clucking display for the benefit of his hareem.  all the ladies have accepted his leadership at this point, and he seems to do a good job of attending the whole flock while devoting some individual attention to each hen.  i know that sounds ridiculous, but i swear he takes them on dates.  and he makes a variety of strange dinosaur noises: various forms of alarm or annoyance, surprise, his odd clearing-the-throat-while-howling crow, and the occasional elongated string of rythmically delivered clucks punctuated with bwak-KAWS turned up to 11.  i have decided this particular sound is the chicken mantra, actually....they all do it, though tumblr does it at a spectacular volume, and when they are at it, it is unstoppable. bok bok bok bok BWAK bok bok bok BWAK KAW bok bok bok BWAK etc.  happily, it doesn't happen THAT often.

the ladies have discovered that the yard is large and harbors many delightful nooks and crannies for surprise egg laying.  i have had an easter egg hunt every day since easter, and now i completely understand where the tradition originates!  why lay 'em in a logical place like the coop nesting box when you can lay them in grassy corners, between slats of leftover lumber, randomly on the ground...

so i sought to create some cozy egg-laying spaces in the exciting (to chickens) area under the porch/balcony in the back yard, with the intention that i could facilitate fun egg-laying practices while somewhat reducing randomness.  we also stashed the haybale dan brought home the other day under there, since we have graduated beyond the $4 bag of hay days (and the bales are only $15!).  we logically put it in the wheelbarrow, which we logically wheeled into the under-porch area for easy coop access.  WELL.

the very next day i discovered this very ILLogical egg placement.  spurning my delightful boxes, ninja and sammo laid their eggs right smack dab on top of the  haybale!  i guess no one ever accused chickens of being especially logical.

today, however, i found two eggs nestled in the big blue box.  twitter and pearl seem to get it.  oh well, as long as we're getting two and three eggs a day, i don't much care where i find them.  the ladies take turns being the super egg champion!

sometimes we get weird ones.

bolo

sammo

pearl

ninja

twitter

per usual, i have been enjoying some delicious egg dishes...

poached eggs perched over quinoa over refried black beans over organic salad greens, drizzled with balsamic vinaigrette....fast and fabulous!

migas (scrambled eggs/leftover salsa/bottom of bag tortilla chip crumbles) and toast!

more soon, Dear Reader, i promise!  because i have many more pictures of food and adorable pets to blither on about.  i can hold out no longer.  

and yet-the theoretical Five Egg Day  awaits.