New Friends

This Mama has been hiding behind some nesting boxes on the North end of the main garden for a few weeks. We have been working hard to keep the stray cat away from her, though she must be doing quite well at it herself

Tonight as I was feeding, I noticed a broken eggshell and was a bit concerne about te cat.  But I could still see the Mama underneath in her hiding area in the shadows.  As eveing feeding time was finishing up, she brougt her babies out.  I guess it was a good thing Charlie had had to mix in some mash feed... 

I counted four or five of the little traditionally colored Phoenix babies.  I called Charlie and the kids on their way to football practice.  The children had really been hoping for babies from the incubator by now, but mother nature always seems to work her own charm and remind us that we are not in charge!

Poultry Pranksters

This week Charlie has been trying to help me out by letting me come home and get ready for the big Shannon Slumber Party show coming up this weekend.  He picks the kids up from school, and does homework with them and he and Bailey watch WYatt's football practice.  Because I am home, I feed for everyone else.

The goats have been better behaved than usual.  Normally they try everything in the book when Bailey is gone at feeding time, and the bucks are even learning, too.

Today I got done with feeding and collecting egg, and was walking across the back porch to check the last couple hiding spots.  The phoenix chickens hung out under the tree to watch me.  Jalympics wasn't in her summer nesting spot, and I pick up the two green eggs in her place.  I heard chicken cackling behind me.

"No ladies, I didn't fall for it."  Two Americaunas waddled toward me.  "Jalympics the Rhode Island Red has yet to leave me one green Americauna egg, let alone two."  The two of them seemed to chat among themselves then led me to where Jal was sitting with her own egg.

"Nice try, girls."  THey seem rathr proud of their little prank, even if I didn't fall for it.  They didn't even ask for their eggs back.  Goofy hens.

Natural Soap Challenge

Hello Everyone

I have been making handmade, all natural artisanal soap for several years now.  I began because  I wanted to learn, and got more heavily into it because of our elder child's allergies.  I know my skin was getting better and healthier with the care of these better ingredients and nutrients, but subtle changes were easy to ignore.

Over time, Charlie has gotten used to the fancier bars in the shower, and he rather likes the orange creamsicle bar I make, and even the peach cinnamon and holiday mulling spice bars, but lavender is about as feminine as I go in our shower.  I like the coffee soap for sloughing off dead shin and the vanilla and goats milk soaps, as well as the many other seasonal scents I work with.

This past April, when we were packing for Pima County Fair, there was an old bar of store bought soap in the container.  Holding to the example of not being wasteful, I left it there and we took it to fair.  As the fair went on, through the dust and muck and gunk, Bailey and I noticed how our skin felt crackly and I began to break out.  I thought about the soap, but thought I might be oversimplifying things, and thought we would see when we returned home.

On the days I rotated home for farm and work during fair, my skin was noticeable better.  When we returned home and all climbed ino our regular shower, Bailey and I noticed her skin felt better and the hives were less.

This is all anecdotal.  In other words, this is not at all scientific, but our skin markedly improved, however coincidentally, on the homemade soaps.  This led me to the question, "What would other people who use regular soap say if they tried my soap for two weeks?"

So there we have it.  If you are interested in trying our soap for two weeks (though a bar will last you much, longer) it is on me.  What I ask in return, is that you comment on this blog post as to your HONEST opinion and experience with trying the soap.  Interested?  Comment here, email me, or message me through facebook as to what scent you would like, and whether you have any special requests (shea butter, no nut oils, etc)  I make many kinds, and have batches starting tomorrow too, if I am out of the scent you are looking for.  Also let me know the best way to contact you to get the bar to you.  You are perfectly welcome to try your kind and your child, sibling, etc. try a different kind.  I am just really interested in your feedback!

Thanks to all, and I look forward to seeing you feedback!

The Power of Human Energy

This morning was the second in  a series of three farming workshops I have been attending at the Marana Heritage Farm.  Thanks so much to Cie'Na and her group for hosting them!  Last week was mostly introduction and touring an some best practices discusison for getting larger scale production to market.  This week we started to get work done.

We began our day with more introductions and a discussion of our connection to food, with our morning stretch and a cool activity I plan to share with our 4H group.  Then we got to learn more soil preparation, along with larger scale seed starting and transplantation of cuttings.

We separated into two groups, one beginning on a tiller, the other beginning with hand tilling and irrigation.  The flat irrigation was neat to learn for larger scale work, and I am gla to know these systems are all prety much the same, with minor to major tweaks for different production scale and water pressure.

But our group was away from the tiller first, and we rolled back some sheeting used to solarize away a bermuda grass problem, and learned tilling with the pitchfork and wide fork.  The tilling has been running behind schedule around here, because I thought I had to have o time to do it all while I had a tiller rented.  But the pitchfork can do it all, and provide a nice workout while I am at it.  I didn't realize how easy it was to use water to enable the pitchfork to get deep enough in our Arizona soil, so I am SO excited to move forward without worrying about tiller rental, and with human power rather than burning more fossil fuel!

The wide forks are essentailly extra wide pitchforks you have to use two hands and both feet to drive into the ground.  Bailey doesn't know it yet, but there is a welding project in that one for her so I can ramp up production and add the second garden back in next season!  Yup, tilling by human power- better for the environment, and very doable!

Visitation

Today, the small leg bands arrived. After chores and dinner, Wyatt went to begin catching the outside chicks while I worked in the greenhouse. They proved to be quite tough to catch.

Before I know it, Wyatt was coming toward me with a tiny baby in one hand. I reminded him they were tiny, and we should focus on the larger chicks first. I leaned over to inspect the little baby, maybe 2 days old. She must be from the doe barn Mama, but one eye was closed. I asked why her eye was closed, and Wyatt said she had gotten into the big pen, where a Buff Orpington had gone after her.

I sent Wyatt in to dip her beak in water, and see if she could adjust with the others in the trough. A few moments later, as I was trading watering cans, he returned, baby in hand.

“Did she drink?”

“She gulped it down.”

“Then why didn’t you let her recover in the trough?”

“They were ganging up on her.” He sat down and cuddled the little baby and talked to her softly. Anybody that saw this sweet, protective side of Wyatt would never guess he was such a tough lineman.

I sent him back in to reinstall the divider and put one or both of the little babies who came in injured the other night with her, out of the way of the bigger chicks. On my way through the house, I checked in on the injured baby. By that time, any friends who had been with her had switch over to where the bigger chicks were.

Each time I passed by the trough, I looked in. One, both, or none of the other little ones have popped in, moving back and forth from across the divider. There is just enough space for the little one to join the others if she wants, and for the larger ones to get used to her. Maybe the chance at visitation and familiarity will let them all settle in. I have to keep trusting them, but protecting the little one.

Oh, we did finally catch some of the older chicks- the ones from fair. But when we put the first leg band on, and went to take her photo for the project, the leg band fell right off. Oops, time to reorder.

These are the three littlest this mornng in the trough.  The one who came in last night is on the right.  Silly Doyle is on the lef, and the one we were so worried about over the weekend is in the center.

A little update, she was holding her own last night as I was up late finishing grading. This morning she is a little slower than the rest, but getting along fine in the trough. Looks like this might even work out.

Trusting in Love and Friendship for Healing

It has been a tough year around our farm. The vet knows us well- ugh, and as fun and rewarding as county fair was, the intense workload left us exhausted. When we left for the fair, we already 15 baby chickens, six even went along with their Mama as a display during 4H week.

When we returned from fair, Grandma was still with us, looking after auntie’s doctor appointments, and Daddy left town the day after we went home. When the children, Grandma and I came home from town on Monday afternoon, we began unloading the car and dividing the chores. As I unloaded my arms inside, Wyatt came running to me to say, “Mama, didn’t you notice?”

As any Mama living in a state of perpetual exhaustion knows- nope, I had no clue what I had missed on my way in the door. Wyatt led me back out to a Mama with several babies sitting at the base of the Ocotillo just off the front porch steps. We all marveled at yet another bunch of babies, as my mind tallied that the baby count was now into the twenties. Wyatt set about food and water, and egg collection for the evening, as Bailey headed out to the goaties and I unloaded the car.

I wandered out to do the walk around, and noticed a couple of the babies had been separated from the Mama, falling into a tire. By the time I found the other Mama who had gone to fair, I had collected four babies. Over the course of the next hour, we continually gave the babies back to their Mama. We even tried to readjust two with the Mama from fair, who had taken over a different baby who had been abandoned. These new babies must have been too little to keep up, this hadn’t worked either.

Wyatt then set about to find the Mama again, who had hatched her babies in a nest situated under the smallest step to the front porch. He crawled under the deck, and found more lost babies. After another hour, we realized it wasn’t working. Wyatt left the two remaining eggs to the Mama, and we gathered the other babies in a trough with bedding and grabbed the warming lights and headed for the house.

The following day (Tuesday), the remaining babies would hatch. They, too, seemed to be too much for the Mama and joined the babies in the house. Boy was Daddy going to be happy to have them greet him after the TDY!

Fast forward a couple weeks. Saturday afternoon, some new babies were discovered who had hatched in a corner behind the doe barn. When Bailey found them, two were hung up. She called in Wyatt, as the hens don’t tolerate anyone else touching their babies. I was in the house working as the injured babies came in, shivering and scared. I found a notebook to section off an end of the trough. Between hand holding and feeding, they seemed to perk up, but whenever we put them down, one seemed to hide in a corner and only sleep. The other would cuddle it, then shove aside and sneak around the divider to the larger poults on the other side.

I was so worried the little ones would get hurt. I kept separating them, the older babies are already escaping their trough, sleeping on the edge, and running between bouts of stretching their young wings. But the one Wyatt called Doyle wanted to play, and the little one seemed lonely. And then the older chicks began to pile up on their side of the divider, beak to beak with the struggling chick.

Finally, I gave up and removed the divider while I was working on dinner. I was there, and could stop things if I needed to. Little Doyle got up and ran to her new friends. And the smaller one perked up.

Then an older chick spread her wings, and gathered the two new hatchlings with her to eat, then take a nap near the lights. She and a friend kept looking after the tiny ones. As evening drew on, the weak one began to run and hop like Doyle. Wyatt sat and held each of the babies in turn, with the two tiny one and their friend together.

I took a chance and let them stay together over night.

This morning, more of the older ones had snuck out, were playing under the trough. Remington took me to gather them before demanding breakfast, pointing them out and giving me that “Good grief, Mama” look, before gathering the other dogs to meet by their bowls. The tiny babies were holding their own- both of them.

I hadn’t been too sure about any of it, but I did trust the instincts of the older chicks- and it was right. They love one another like little siblings, the siblings they are. The friends they are. Score one for letting trust and love lead the way.

A little reminder about Communication

We are on our way home from Oracle, and the Triangle Y YMCA Camp. This month, in Arizona, is the Month of the Military Child. Today was a partnership event where the youth do fun activities aimed at building teamwork, leadership and cooperation, and the whole family saw demonstrations and went through a room with available resources.


We learned about ACT and SAT prep available from Military One Source. We learned about some short camps coming up locally, and listened to the Army military youth of the year talk about volunteerism and staying positive and on goal. The afternoon LRC (leadership reaction course) was for the kids, but we parents were invited to follow along. It was proctored by the drug and gang task force members of the local military. There were seven different stations, including the carpet walk across the hot lava with the goblin stealing the carpets, a BDU relay, a challenge of using wood planks to get youth across an imaginary pond of water between concrete pylons, and more. Each task was designed to highlight a leadership skill or quality, an when they broke each skill down afterward to what worked and what didn’t, they related the youth back to the adaptations of life when their military family member deploys or returns.

There was one challenge with plastic pieces and a marble. The man in charge asked for a leader, and by now Wyatt knew to volunteer fast. They were to create an aqueduct of sorts to get the marble from the start area to the bucket several feet away. The man in charge said there needed to me more people (the group ours were in had two sets of two siblings), and had the mothers join in. I later found out why. We took several tries, though had a hard time communicating what changes needed to be made in order to improve our outcomes. Had we had one more try, I think we could have adjusted enough to complete the task. In the after breakdown, the man in charge asked what skill they were supposed to be working on- the kids figured out about communication pretty quickly.

The man in charge set about to remind the youth about how important communication is among the family members when hey family member leaves or returns. He had them talk about the roles they take on when their father is gone, and how they have to communicate with both their parents as well as their siblings before, during and after deployment. Then he set about to very pointedly remind the moms he had recruited that it is also our duty to lead by example in the communication structure and not leave out our husbands when they return or make them feel less a part of the family structure. It was VERY pointed. Kind of hit home, too.

As we all climbed the steps up to the main area where the youth would build a puzzle from the pieces collected as reward for completing tasks, I mentioned it to Charlie, and how pointed it was. He said he hoped I learned it. It was odd to hear from this man I didn’t know. I often read about how military wives feel frustrated and alone, and are tired of having to be strong, smile, and never have a day off. I often wonder why, if we all go through the same feelings, we are still in this place. It was kind of funny to hear that so many of the husbands all feel left out when they come home, too.

Just food for thought that led me to this blog piece. Hope you remember to take the time to communicate with and appreciate those around you.