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Supergirls

11 Wednesday Jan 2017

Posted by wystansimons in chickens, Winter Garden

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chickens saved my marriage

 

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Yogurt snacks for my Barred Rock

Good January Morning! Garden Update: The parsley is all that’s left, but it’s still going!  Through snow, thru ice, thru frigid nights!  Tough stuff.

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Our parsley – January 11, 2017

What a great symbol for human growth and survival, right? OR for a relationship! And speaking of relationships, gardens, and chickens, today I am re-posting something irresistible – from another chicken lover and writer Lori Odhner.  She always has funny and warm things to say about relationships, marriages, families – and chickens! In this case, all together. Find Lori’s daily postings at her facebook address for Caring for Marriage.

So — Can Chickens Save Your Relationship?

Araucana Chicken, 8 days old, in front of a white background, studio shot

Photo of Super Girl borrowed from Google Images

More than Eggs
There was a popular post on a chicken page that I added to. Someone asked what we had learned by having flocks. Most of the comments had to do with how much we enjoy them, and their endearing personalities. But one woman changed the tone when she said that chickens saved her marriage.

“Before I had chickens I didn’t know how blessed my life really was. My husband and I were on the verge of divorce. We had nothing in common. We didn’t do anything together. We fought over everything. There was no connection. We realized we needed something to do together. A hobby. A reason to connect. With our love of animals we chose to start a small chicken farm. Instead of wasting energy fighting with each other we spend our energy on taking care of our birds. We laugh over the silly things they do. We have learned so much about them. We work hard sun up to sun down together. We do the chores together. We sit and talk for hours on what we can change to make them happy. We talk. We talk to each other again. We have connected all over again. It has truly been a miracle. We cry when one dies we laugh when one does something funny. He laughs. I laugh again. Before chickens he was my room mate. Now we are husband and wife again. My birds saved my marriage.”

I sent her a private message. asking if I could tell her story, and she went on to tell me about her husband’s relationship with their birds.

“They like to roost on his lawn mower and four wheeler haha poor guy! I’m pretty sure they do it because they know it irritates him !! But if you ever get the chance to see a grown man stand there and lecture a bird it’s a sight ! Then the bird jumps on his shoulder and they walk around the yard together buddies once again. Makes the most aggregating days worth it.”

I was moved to hear her story. Then I reread it, and noticed that she had learned that her life was blessed before having birds. But she didn’t realize it. Many of us welcome a fresh day with a couple of eggs. It sounds like chickens gave her and her husband a fresh start to their relationship.
Love,

Lori
Lori Odhner
Caring for Marriage
photo by Joy A Feerrarimg_5678

How Does Your Muscle Grow?

27 Tuesday Dec 2016

Posted by wystansimons in Winter Garden

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permaculture, sustainable living, winter gardening

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At least the chickens can still find something to eat out there…

So friends, ’tis true, your garden beds are bare. But there is something that we gardeners can still be growing — even in this dark and dreary, un-gardenable season. You don’t even have to go outside to do it.

Yes, I thought, as I huffed through a plank (yes one plank) this morning, this is the best thing I can do right now to insure a good harvest next season! PLANKS! Eww, sick, I know. But the solid truth is that gardening can be really hard on my bod. During the off season I do a lot more sitting,get soggy in the middle, and have a lot more back, neck, and shoulder pain than in the summer.

Unlike some of you athletic people, I was not endowed with a hearty frame. In fact, I’m pretty proud of what this scrawny ectomorph-ic structure has been able to do. Much as I have always hated to see myself as frail, I was a sickly kid. I spent years eating foods that irritate me, being chronically sick, and carrying Kleenex around in all seasons. I could blame my scoliosis (an S shaped spine) for what I cant do  –  and it is the major reason why the life a real farmer is not for me. But what I do in the garden is great for strengthening me. When I am outside again, hoisting boards, shoveling dirt, and balancing wheelbarrows for a portion of every day, I do better – PROVIDED I have strengthened my supportive muscles.  At 53, I am careful about what movements I make (not bending at the waist, not lifting stuff), but it doesn’t stop me much. I believe in creative solutions.

Isn’t it tragic though how muscle tissue melts away sans regular use?  Sob.  Gone with summer’s golden brown tan. So, I am going to advocate – to myself and you – to grow your muscles this winter season. YOU are part of your permaculture! Yes – don’t fuss now – I am planning on a winter of daily yoga and strengthening!!

There was a time when Edward laughed at me if I had tried to get him to do yoga stretching. I could see how tight his muscles were, but time for stretching was outside his frame of reference. “Yoga, yogurt, and tofu” all belonged in the same phrase to him, signalling what was goofy and not part of his world. But no more. (Although we do not eat tofu)  When Edward developed an incredibly painful, mystery back condition two years ago, stretching out with Rodney Yee every morning was about the only thing that helped.  The pain in his back was healed six months ago, by an excellent acupuncturist in DC.  But AM Yoga with Rodney Yee  is still part of his morning ritual before the dog walk. To enjoy making your garden grow, you need to be relatively strong, and relatively flexible. Flexible in lots of ways…

So, here I go – three months to enjoy my seed catalogs – and do my planks! (Ok,ok, I know… turning off the computer – leaving for the gym….)

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The most muscle in winter garden -last Parsley struggles on

CEOs Grow their Own?

13 Tuesday Dec 2016

Posted by wystansimons in Winter Garden

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gardening, growing your own, organic growing, permaculture

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Salad greens picked this December morning – not that big  a deal for a full-time grower, but we aren’t that. Edward and I struggle to fit gardening into our schedules. He is a CEO and I am a writer, when I am not everything else including landlord, which is my contribution to the cash flow.  We are suburban Marylanders with chickens. I love the idea of calling myself an “urban farmer,” but it isn’t really true (only in the most romantic sense – and the fact that I would consider farming romantic is a dead giveaway). We are growers though, and proud of it.

And those greens, small a harvest as they are, are pretty impressive considering the bed isn’t even tarped up in plastic sheeting, but just sitting out. Oh yes, of course I was going to make a mini greenhouse over the top of those plants! On the south side there – it’s the perfect spot! I can just see in my mind’s eye how to do it. But we haven’t made the time. Still, a bountiful parsley and some tiny kale plants grow, in this semi sheltered garden, with the house between them and the north wind. (That reminds me, I should move the fig over on this side…hmmm)  It just shows what’s possible, if you set out to grow some of your own.

Why would I? you ask. Are you nuts?

Yes I am generally considered to be nuts, but the answer is “It’s yummy.” Our eggs, our peppers, green beans, lettuce – everything grown this way tastes so good. Better than the beautiful, organically grown stuff in my favorite health market. And miles better than the cardboard-y stuff you can get at a big grocery store. There just is no comparison, flavor-wise.

It’s a lifestyle. Edward and I agree that moving soil, planting and growing things, observing how things grow, and getting our life into the rhythm of eating from the garden (that means picking in the morning, not harvesting beans right when you need to be making supper! ack!) is part of us. We love being connected to those earth cycles of growth and decay and regrowth.

Mostly. Let’s be real – there are times when you slave over planting and neglect to prepare the soil as the plant likes it, and watch the blueberry bushes die. Or you plant all the beans and forget to put strings on the bean tower (one of our favorite mistakes) or, worse, you don’t fence the garden and the ever watchful bunny bites through the bean stalk for reasons known only to itself, killing the whole vine. Or you plant a lovely flowering shrub, but forget to water that lovely shrub, and tune back in at the end of August to find a shriveled dead thing in it’s place.  Growing food has joys and sorrows, like anything else.

But the point of this blog is that YOU, the ordinary person, can contribute in a significant way to your food supply without being a hippie  and even if you have no desire to retire to the country and generate your own power or wash your clothes in a stream.  My point is that, in spite of a recurring fantasy about being a farmer, I LOVE suburban life. I love going to the movies, and theater, and having access to the metro (when it’s working).

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Not my life… Photo from Nourishing Days, by Shannon Stronger

I recently got a posting from the blog of Shannon Stronger a Mennonite farmer (check it out Nourishing Days). Now I love reading this lady. She is charming, and inspiring, and honest, loves to ferment foods and has messy kitchen. What could be better? But I could let her passion overwhelm me. I could never keep up with her gardens, or her canning. And I believe that many “ordinary American suburbanites” think that this is what growing your own has to look like – either this, or Martha Stewart the glamour goddess of domestic engineering!  And that just isn’t true. You don’t have to be a totally put together god-dess nor a totally off the grid and self-sustaining to GROW YOUR OWN guru.

It is possible that “you do you” and you do growing food – at least if that firre is in your belly. Of course ya gotta wanna. But you don’t gotta be a goddess, of any description.

Let me add that I admire Martha and Shannon equally.  They both are fighting for the same thing, in the end. They are preserving wonderful knowledge that parents and grandparents used to teach and now mostly no longer know how to teach. I do not resent that. I love what they do. I am grateful. And I am no goddess – just lucky enough to still have some parsley on the south side of my house.

 

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