Farewell, Bok the Chicken.

Pretty Bok
Image by Modern Scribe Photography

My sweet love had to put down our last chicken today; the poor biddy was sick and dying and he wanted to shorten her pain.

He spoke her a sweet eulogy:

"Rest in peace, Bok. All life is made new. All life is forever. Now feed the grandchildren of the worms you ate. Feed the blackberries whose fruit you loved. Restore the damaged soil. Return to us within the sweet black juice and we will remember you in the summer sun."

Our next step is a revamping of the chicken coop and run area, and so it may be a while before we have chickens sharing space with us again.  

The spring snows are still moving in, but we are looking at our yard with eyes towards growing season - planning to feed ourselves with raised beds and a potted garden this year.

Keep warm, think of spring, and have a good time!

Photo Post: Evenings at Home

Every evening when I get home, Eric and I open a beer and get the chicken scraps together and head down to give her a snack and check the lower lot berry brambles, catnip, mint, and wormwood. We'll take a minute to check the compost or clean out the coop if needed, and hang out until the mosquitoes are too much to bear.

Angel the Cashmere goat, who lives next door, begs for more honeysuckle.  She and her family merrily consume the tons of honeysuckle that I fling over their fence, which is handy.  That stuff is seriously invasive!

I was trying to get a picture of the tomato plant that Bawk is growing in her run, but she's a photo hog
(who also likes to peck cameras).

Catnip is in bloom.  I've been harvesting it like mad, and it grows to replace the cuttings within 24 hours, I swear it.  There was a little honey bee harvesting from the 'nip, and I went behind her to pick the stems that she'd already visited.

Rain on the tip of a blackberry.  Fairy wine in the making?

These busy days (Photo Post)

This is our chicken, Bok.  She is our official compost-turner and shoe-pecker.  Bok just finished a prolonged molt, and looks gawgeous!  Her death sentence was drawing near, as she hadn't laid in over a month, but today we peeked and found some lovely brown eggs.  Well played, Bok, well played!

The catnip is happy, even though the cold is keeping it close to the earth.  It still smells potent, and yet Akasha kitty doesn't care for it until it's dried and crumbled into her special Nip dish.

Thanksgiving table: Pumpkin, Mead, Gingersnaps, Cranberry Cordial, Truffle Honey, and not shown is the spiral cut ham, turkey breast, stuffing, beans, peas, biscuits, and more bits that were brought by dear friends as they stopped in!

The gingersnaps going into the oven were lovely!

THIS is why I've not been blogging...Holiday honey sales!  I'll be back with more words soon, I promise.

Circle and Circle and Circles again...

Candler in Spring, by Modern Scribe Photography

What a month it has been...camping, festivals, dear friends visiting my home and looking to put down roots in these sweet mountains.  There's been patterns woven, and circles coming 'round to completion. It makes me feel grounded, centered, and in tune with the world around me.

A part of being in tune with your world means walking in a balance between life and death.  There is never one without the other; life feeds on life feeds on life, and all life feeds on death to continue...you cannot have one without the other, and it is not something to be feared, in my book.

Life is beautiful:  I will be putting seeds into the earth tomorrow.  Peas and carrots, an onion that sprouted in my cabinets, some potatoes that decided to grow in my pantry.  I will watch these sprout, but will bring a difficult part for me...

Death is certain:  Of those seedlings that grow, some will die by my own hands as I thin the eventual green haze of fresh sprouts. I will be squashing bugs whose crime is only that they live, and want to consume the same leafy goodness that I wish to consume, and my only right is that I am larger. 

Life is astounding: My yard is bringing up it's own bounty: Yarrow, Violets, Dandelions, Sorrels, Heal-all, Clover, Plantain...last year's green friends are coming back: Chamomile, Comfrey, Marigolds, Lavender, and my Shehan Family Iris!

Death is sustaining: Our neighbor's yard is full of chickens, and a trio of goats who love to visit us at the fence to beg for scratch corn or tender honeysuckle vines.  The chickens there will soon have a coop, but until then, are relatively at the mercy of local foxes, and we often find a mostly fox-consumed chicken carcass being pecked at by the other chickens. Never forget, these egg-givers are tiny, feathered dinosaurs! 

Life is sweet:  And so is a yard full of clover and sweet green grass for our own two chickens to nibble on.  As of late, we've been letting them out of the pen to wander the yard for a bit while we clean out the coop and tend to our plants on the lower lot.  They have been having delicious dust baths and scratching through our compost, turning it and eating bugs and clucking merrily!

Death is merciful:  But the other day, as I stumbled down the hill to feed the chickens, feverish and barely awake, I noticed only one chicken freaking out as usual over her pending dinner.  I let her out, and peered into the coop to find the other biddie standing, puffed up and panting.  She wouldn't come out, but let me lift her out.  I could tell she wasn't in a good way, but wasn't sure what was wrong until I looked at her behind...without going into details, I can say that I knew quickly that the only cure I could give my poor egg-providing friend was a quick death.

Now, I've fished, and I've hunted squirrel. I've insisted upon knowing what it is to kill in order to consume - again, that balance of life and death.  But never before had I caused a creature to die by my own hands that I did not intend to consume, or for the sake of mercy.  It is far more difficult than one might imagine. 

Angel the Goat by MSP

Life is Changing:  More and more people are turning to the earth to provide for them, tilling their yards for garden space, picketing their city to allow urban chickens, and lacking that, supporting local farm markets.  I applaud the effort, and want to remind people about rain barrels, and compost bins, and container gardening, and encourage folks to jump in and TRY new things...it's the only way to learn.

Death is Change:  Next time you throw something into your compost bin, think about HOW it breaks down...your useless, discarded food bits and lawn clippings feed the happy little bacteria that consume, defecate, and thereby create fertilizer for the food that you will eat.  I will watch the plot of earth that covers the buried body of my chicken friend and see how bright the grass grows, and watch her death feed the earth.  I will throw squished bugs to the other chicken as I tend my plants, and watch her grow strong from their death.

We are all part of life, and all part of death. 

The greater circle encompasses us all, man, woman, fish, fowl, hooved, winged, whatever...

find your place and your center and grow from there. 

What's Coming Up in my Garden?

Spring is close...everyone that I see is big-footed and falling over themselves in a state of twitterpation. We had a lovely, loud rolling thunderstorm last week that must have woke up the snakes, and the goats who live next door reek of rut.  There was snow and rain all at the same time yesterday, and the roosters are losing their ever-loving minds...Spring must be near with all of those signs...

Last week was warm and lovely, a tease to make me cringe these ice-coated mornings of late. I woke on Wednesday and was go, go, going all day!  My housemate and I went down to our lower lot to do some maintenance to the area ignored during winter weather nastiness.

Biddy, June 2010, Modern Scribe Photography

The lower lot is where the chickens live, and since their pen and coop needed a serious raking and cleaning, we let the biddies run around the yard on their own for the first time since we've had them.  I get nervous because there are foxes and hawks, but I am glad that we let them free for a while. They were overjoyed, just a-scratching merrily, trimming grass and bug-hunting. We added new straw to their coop after dumping the old litter into the compost and turning it over for the first time this year - oh lovely, tumbling black dirt! It does my heart good to see such simple beauty.

While the hens kept themselves entertained, Sarah and I raked out the planting bed from last year.  The old dead grass gave way without a struggle in the damp earth, and the baby plants there were easily removed to give room to the clumps of yarrow bursting forth like vivid, ferny fireworks.  I transplanted some wild yarrow from elsewhere in the yard last spring, and now that it's had a year to settle, she sure has taken happy root in that well-draining spot!  I look forward to the smoke blends, the tea, and the tinctures that sweet and potent yarrow will be sharing with me this next season's turn.

There's also a new friend who will be sharing space with the yarrow this year.  Since I've left the swamp, I've missed the giant violets that filled my yard near the creek (read: drainage ditch).  On the local FreeCycle, someone posted about free violet rhizomes, and I jumped at the chance!  I picked up the plastic potato bag full of rhizomes and root clumps and skeedaddled back home like a kid with candy...so when we cleared the garden bed and turned over the soil, we planted the violet rhizomes under the sweet-smelling earth and after only a couple of days, I see heart shaped little leaves lifting up towards the sun, and there is one bud just waiting for a bit of warmth to bust!

It's the strange clock dance of Daylight Savings Time this weekend coming up...all I care about is playing in the widening expanse of sunlight in these warming days. Blessings and warm rain to you all!

October marches in...

Photo by Modern Scribe Photography

Cold and windy, dark and ominous, October is marching in, leaving muddy tracks on my carpet to mix with the windblown leaves.

I've been away from this blog and my shop for much of the warm months. I've been delving into gardening, raising chickens, working full time hours outside of the home, drumming, socializing, and altogether being a happy and busy bee.

Now the cold is returning, and bringing with it my nesting instincts. I'm ready to clean and create. So far this fall, I've put away some applesauce and pie filling after picking at Stepp Orchard in Hendersonville, NC. I have one jar of peelings soaking in rum, and another in vodka, for making cordials. I have a jar of spiced vodka infusing in my cupboard as well.

I'm eying the plants outside to prioritize the autumnal harvest...the burdock is dying back and after the first frost, can dig up his root for eating and pickling, oh, and the chicory, too.  The primrose is bright with flowers, and I've been pulling leaves of yarrow for drying.  We have a big jar of dried shitake mushrooms, and I'll soon be getting some pumpkins for carving, roasting seeds, and making pumpkin butter and pies.

We have recently used an extra bit of canvas to create a wind block for the chicken coop. The biddies are all fluffy and feathered out as the days get colder. They are happy, healthy, and producing well! Our first winter in caring for them is coming, and I'm confident we'll all make it through with all of our toes.


Enjoy this crisp season of woodsmoke, chill wind, and rustling leaves. I'll be in better touch with all you folks out there.

The wheel still turns

Well, it's been a bit of time, hasn't it?

The chickens are still chickening, the full time job is still going, 

and the garden is yielding tomatoes like mad.

I have missed blogging, but have been enjoying life and all that it throws at you 

in the long days of summer so full of potential...

I ain't gone yet.

Heh.

Scenes from my yard, or Why I Haven't Been Blogging!

Our new yard friends! Photo by Sarah Thomas, Modern Scribe Photography

Our yard friends give us eggs, by Sarah Thomas, Modern Scribe Photography

Lavender, soon to be in bloom, by Sarah Thomas, Modern Scribe Photography

Akasha surveys her domain, by Sarah Thomas, Modern Scribe Photography

Chickens, Eggs, Compost heap, Cats, Gardens, Craft Fairs, Farm Markets, Honey Jars, 

Wildcrafting, Bumble Bees, Midnight Car Accidents on our Road, Entertaining Guests, 

Gem Mining, White Water Rafting...and I know there's more!

This sure is a busy spring! 

I hope to be chatting with y'all later, but for right now, I'm just going along with the tide! 

Much love to you and yours and...

May the Best Manifest!