A photo, courtesy of our resident 2 year old photographer, taken today while out with the flowers. I'm amazed at some of the images he captures.

Rainy day indoor fun... Self portraits

Colven disappeared into the loft with my camera for a few minutes and then called down to let me know he was "all finished." I was so curious what might be on the camera haha. Funny kid!

California Cousins

We are so fortunate to live near family. Yesterday we had a break in the rain and cold of late California winter, the sun was out, the grass is green, the sky clear! Beautiful! The kids soaked up some much needed sun and I had to run in and get my camera because they all just looked so darn cute. They have so much fun together. What a dreamy life.

A beautiful sight

I absolutely love having chickens. It has been so fun (and sometimes a lot of work) so far! This is what I get to find when I go into the coop for one of the two or three trips in to find eggs. Fresh, warm, clean eggs nestled in pine shavings. So fun! One of the Buff Orpington gals is busy laying in the center nesting box.

I took this photo of the new batch of organic chicken food. I want to feed them whole grains instead of the pellet or crumble mix which is so commonly fed to poultry. One big reason is I want to avoid soy for them, and it is nearly impossible to find a soy-free pre-mix. Also, these grains can be sprouted to achieve maximum nutritional value as well as cutting down on wastage from spilled feed. When a crumble or pellet feed is spilled or dropped on the ground it essentially becomes garbage. Whole grains can still be found and if left behind for a few days they will sprout and become more tasty. I made this new batch from a different recipe this time than I have used before and I have to say it's really pretty ;) The chickens seem to be loving it as well. We now have 400lbs of food for them which should last a bit, eh? Now the trick will be cutting the cost of the grain itself. In the next few months I need to do some research and see if a new supplier I have found will cut the cost as much as I think it will. Even with shipping they have to beat Whole Foods, right?

The new recruits

I have been terrible at posting lately! Life has been busy. I thought I'd post quickly the new 3 week old chicks we got today. They are Speckled Sussex, a breed I wanted to get when we began our flock last summer but they were quite an elusive breed to procure. I'm feeling lucky to have a few! They will only be in these cramped quarters for tonight, tomorrow they move outside into the house we are building for the broody hens we will have someday. They'll be separate from the main flock for a number of months still, I think at this age they would be pecked to death. These new chicks bring our total up to 28. Once I get a feel for the good layers and friendly breeds we'll start culling out the "undesirables" to reduce the flock size. I'm still trying to figure out how many chickens we need to not only keep our growing family in eggs, but provide enough chicks who grow into chickens to make yummy dinners. I have absolutely no experience with this, so getting a handle on the exact perfect number is still fairly elusive for me. It's all a work in progress, this life of ours!

Rainy day silly kid

Colven called me over to read to me. He is looking at the sign which holds the address to our house. He read "one, noodle, noodle, noodle, omelet"

Hot damn!

Our first egg!

And to think I headed out to the garden just to see if I had managed to trap the gopher who was wreaking havoc in the chamomile!
What a good day in the garden! ha!

What change would you like to see?

http://change.gov/

A blood red genital mutilation post

We have been busy busy with holiday travel and family in town so I'm lagging on a new post. I have one in the works with lots of photos, but in the meantime I wanted to share something I feel very passionately about and that is the human rights issue of genital integrity. For some odd and sickly reason male genital mutilation is still seen as socially acceptable in many areas of our country, despite the fact that 80% of the world's male population has intact, uncut male genitalia. We are very far behind on that one. If anyone would like more info on that, http://www.nocirc.org/ is a great site, and they take donations of any size. I like to donate when I can to try and help educate other parents to protect their children.

I feel equally as passionate about female genital mutilation. I just saw this on http://www.mothering.com/ and thought I would post it here in case it might reach someone who didn't know about it before and would be willing to sign this petition to President Elect Obama. Each one of us can make a difference, every teeny act adds up to a lot over time. I don't usually advocate here, but this is just so very important to me.

Stop Female Genital CuttingSponsored by CARE
Female Genital Cutting (FGC) is
an invasive cultural practice that removes part or all of the external female genitalia. This act is dangerous, yet it is very common in Africa and parts of Asia and the Middle East. Up to 140 million girls and women worldwide are currently living with the consequences of FGC. There are an estimated three million girls in Africa at risk of undergoing female genital cutting every year. And there are more at risk worldwide. FGC causes serious psychological and health complications. The practice is often done under unsanitary conditions and without anesthesia. The average age of girls forced to undergo FGC is between 4 and 12. There are no health benefits of FGC. Help stop the practice of Female Genital Cutting. Tell President-elect Obama to fight for human rights, and stop FGC.
Sign the petition here: www.thepetitionsite.com/campaign/signatures/958269284/226

A Garden Post

It has been a while since I did a garden post, and while it is most likely not interesting to anyone but me I'm doing one! ha :) I've loved being able to look back and see what was going on in our garden in past posts, so this is more of a sketch of things for me to reference back to than anything else.
What does a California garden look like in December, anyway?

The berry zone. Nanaberry vines are all trimmed up and the new growth pinned up.

The teeny beds of rhubarb, dahlias, Italian sage and onions (yellow and red) in the big bed on the far right. The raised beds
The chicken forage crop

The chickens, all gathered up to see what kind of treat I have for them.
I like to think they refer to me as The Bearer of All Things Delicious

Cabbage (can't wait to make homemade sauerkraut!)

My current favorite bed of beet greans, carrots, hardneck garlic and cauliflower seedlings.

The glorious artichokes, oh how I wish I had planted more than one plant!

Close up of the cover crop. This is where the children's garden was last year.
The chickens are quite fond of the greens.

Same cover crop, planted in fairly fresh soil about a month after the spot above.

The herb bed is getting an overhaul (the entire front yard is really) so I pulled all my herbs out and they are being so patient with me just sitting there with their feet dangling in the air! They look like a big pile of garbage in this pic. They look much happier in person, I swear!

SNOW!

Yesterday morning, after an exceptionally cold storm passed over us, we noticed that a mountain we can see from our house called Fremont Peak was covered in snow! We drove up that afternoon to try out the new snow gear we bought for Colven and let's just say we had a LOT of fun in the snow! Colven just wanted to roll in it, he was so funny! We threw snowballs and ran around and right before we left it started to snow on us. So lovely! I can appreciate snow much more when I don't have to live in it! ha :) After seeing how much fun Colven had in it we have decided we absolutely MUST make it up to Tahoe this winter. I wonder how Colven would do on a pair of Big Feet kid skis?

What we have been up to, in pictures

Digging to China, Death, & Goodbye to Thunder

This morning Cyrus went out to give our dogs some treats and our female dog, Thunder, was dead. Just laying there dead. Thunder was Cyrus' baby of sorts. He got her as a wee little puppy and raised her, eventually we all moved in together and long before Cyrus and I thought about marriage and family Thunder had her own: 12 puppies! TWELVE. In our tiny Carmel house. It was really messy and stinky and lots of hard work to take care of those twelve puppies and .... a load of fun.

We were gone all day yesterday so she and her son, Cruise, spent the day "digging to China" as I call it. Their yard was covered in fresh holes. I pet her yesterday morning and she was just fine. Her usual, happy, spunky self. I'm not sure what could have changed in so little time. I think I may just decide that she dug herself to death, because that way she will have died doing something she loved. Her nose was still powdered with freshly dug dirt.

Those who know a bit of our recent family story know that we have been (albeit not aggressively, nor actively for that matter) trying to re-home them. They are fantastic guard dogs and companion dogs and have a ton of energy... and like to nip and snap and growl at our toddler and kill our chickens. Just unacceptable and scary. Safety outweighed all other things, even our love for them. It was a hard decision to make and Cyrus had found a new home with his best friend, Mark, for Thunder. But we waited until Cruise was gone first because it just wouldn't seem right to have Cruise here and not Thunder. We had been lagging on finding Cruise a new home. They just stayed in their big dog yard away from our son. That was just how it was for the time being.

We buried her this morning, laying sacred sage and toyon berries on her body before the first shovel of dirt covered her. And cried.

The whole process made me think about a child's view of death. We have talked about death so casually around Colven that it is just as much a part of life as life itself is. It just is. Bugs die, pets die, people die. I wonder what his concept of life is, what his concept of death is. I wish he had the words to communicate to me, but at 2.5 it is simple. Life. Death. I guess really, they are that simple. They just are. Natural. While Cyrus and I hugged and cried Colven just went off to find something else to do. Something exciting. I asked him if he understood that Thunder is dead. "Yes, she is up" he said, and opened his arms to the sky and down to the earth. I said yes, she is everywhere again, not held to her body. He said "ya."

Makes me think about how some people shelter their children from death. Imaging they "aren't ready" to learn about death. Who isn't? The child? Colven isn't afraid of it. It is normal, it is natural. It is really quite pure. As pure as birth! Makes me think about how our society can be very fearful of death, and how we tend to revere it. It is complex, it is unknown. Causes me to consider our cultural view of such things. Interesting to think about.