A quiet moment of journals and cats

As I type, the wind and rain beat against the house. I don't know when I will post this but it is Sunday April 26th. Moxie's pure on my writing table and the burble of the cats water fountain waterer ground me against the spring gale outside. I was writing in my journal but Moxie has decided to help. So I decided to work on this instead.

Whe came over earlier and I took a break already.

Then we reached a compromise.

Then I got to the bottom of the page and she shifted her position  and she just restocked her legs underneath her so it's going to be a while but her purr is so soothing and we are all enjoying the quiet moment. 

I love Tutu, I really do. Maxwell however cant cope with her and so I do most of my writing in bed before going to sleep or in the family room while Andrew watches tv or reads himself. The writing table (a story in itself) is bare of all of the things I usually keep on it as the guest room is being maintained to be quarantine ready.

I had already taken some pictures before Moxie's idea to insert herself literally into my journaling. 

The journal on the left I got at Winterfair in 2019 about an amazing artist in Kentucky and I'll include a link. Handmade and sumptuous with thick cream paper inward saving it. Then right before Andrew and I went to Napa Valley last fall (and boy doesn't that seem like a lifetime ago) I got to the end of my previous journal and I didn't want a bulky one to take on the plane because let me tell you I dont put my journal in the suitcase. My journal rides with me. Plus I can get a lot of writing done on the plane.

So this journal whoops here comes tutu 

That's a live action shot folks.

So I guess I'll be picking up this blog and my journal later.

Where was I? Now I'm on the back patio area at our table with Tutu lounging in a light jacket in the grass. About a half dozen red winged blackbirds just danced through on a territory skirmish and now it's quiet again. I have the sheets drying on the line and am going to wrap this up before lunch and then working in the herb garden. Anyway, the handmade leather journal with the tree on it lasted me about 8 months, a record I think in how long it took me to get through a journal. Partially because it is probably slightly less pages than the average, but also, because after the New Year I made a commitment to writing in my journal every day, no matter how short an entry. The blue journal is my choice as last week I finished the brown journal. For once, I think in my life, I was genuinely unsure of which journal to go to next. I have a batch of journals in waiting so to speak, gathered here and there. Whenever I see a journal I like I try to pick it up so I have a wide range of choice. Some journal-ers have a beloved cover, and just replace with refills. I am not one of those people. For me a journal captures a moment of time in my life, an era, and each era is represented in pat physically by the journal I gravitated to at the time. I do have a style of journal that I like so much that i have more than one in the mix, but so far I've never wanted to use them back to back, I vary between lined and unlined, soft and hard cover, leather and some other material, solid colors or prints, plain leather and engraved leather, I have examples of them all. I think my rare confusion over which journal would be my next one is a sign of the times. I didn't want to commit to to thick of a journal (completely irrational) and I didn't want one of my floral prints or pastel journals (too happy maybe?) A friend acted as an artistic consultant over google hangouts to help me choose from three finalists. We agreed on this blue journal, I think my second most expensive one. I remember coveting it for months at Barnes and Nobel and finally breaking down and getting it, saving it for...something. When? This moment? It has thick cream pages, lines, and a cream ribbon marker. The writing at the back clinched it. I mean if there was ever a time for me to use this kind of paper I guess it's now? I'm no memoir writer and I don't expect anyone to read these journals. I wonder idly at times, that some poor person after I die or become to ill to write, will have to do something with all of these books. Maybe I should have relatives burn them in a bonfire in my honor? Maybe someone will just throw them out in bafflement and sadness when I am in a place beyond caring about it? It's so abstract to me now. I'm certainly not going to stop journaling to save some unknown person in the future a passing hassle. I'm not Queen Elizabeth who journals everyday. These books aren't for posterity or for aliens to read to learn about our life here (unless they are in the market for completely mundane average joe life.) So I'm about 20 pages unto this journal. It took a while to find the right pen (different journals require different pen styles and colors) right now I'm sticking with the trusty uniball pilot plain old blue. I've been known to use pink, green, sky blue but never black or red. Well, I'm sure this is more than anyone God help them, every wanted to know about my journaling. I hope you enjoyed the pet pictures! Oh the red one? I just started that one for these little poems I've been coming up with in my head. I've not written poetry since high school, but lately these short haiku-ish lines have been coming to mind. I've been sending them to a friend and writing them in my journal but thought maybe I should have a separate gathering place for them. Until next time, J.

Of Hens and Bread

Last week I had a slight scare with one of the hens. I came down to the pen a little before dusk as usual to take care of them and when I opened the door several hens where pecking at this clear mucus in the mud. I couldn't for the life of me figure out what it was but I thought I better discourage it anyway. Then I noticed my favorite hen. The prettiest one with the orange creamsicle feathers was hunched up ominously. This posse is never a good sign with a chicken. The other bad sign is when they are sitting down during the day in the pen, or yard if turned loose rather than moving around. Listing to the side like a leaning ship often accompanies that pose and means the hens days may be down to hours. I felt my heart sink. Not only is this hen beautiful, but sweet. She often comes up to me for a pet and let's me pick her up. She is almost always the first to roost when I let the hens out right before dark so they can get a little range safely. I let them out for ten or fifteen minutes and stay with them the whole time. I decided not to let the hens out and took care of them. I tossed some chicken treat around to keep them occupied as I watched the hen slowly waddle around a small area staying hunched up and not the slightest bit interested in the chicken treat. I felt a little hopeless about it and worried that an egg had broken inside her but decided to wait around and few minutes and see if anything changed and boy did it. One of the hens noticed some subtle signal I had missed and immediately began hovering around pretty hen's backside. Then began following pretty hen with her head close to the ground and was quickly rewarded by a soft shelled, translucent egg dropping from pretty hen's bottom. This "catching hen" immediately tore into the egg remnants as it plopped on the ground and splattered and the other hens quickly descended on the egg. Pretty hen slowly walked away. I quickly scuffed the broken egg yoke and white amidst the gravel to break up the contents to keep the hens from eating it. Then I chased the original hovering hen around the pen as she was trailing the noodle like egg shell from her beak. I realized what I had first seen upon entering the pen was egg white. By the time I got the shell away from the hen, pretty hen was now standing pretty normally. The good news was she did not have a broken egg inside her but the bad news was that she had laid at least two soft shelled eggs and the hens knew they were edible. This is still all kinds of bad. I've written about this before on the blog but I'll refresh new readers briefly. If chickens ever find out that the eggs they lay are edible, you are done. They can't unlearn it. When one hen learns it she teachers the others, or more like models to the others. Hens are greedy curious little beasts and they are always, always checking out what everyone else is eating. They can tell when one hen has gotten hold of a particular goodie and follow her to get some of their own. When I was chasing the hen to get the soft egg shell out of her beak, two other hens were also chasing her to get the same thing. This is one of the many reasons why it's important to collect eggs every day especially if you have a lot of hens. The eggs pile up and it's easier for a hen to step on an egg, break it open with her toe and then it's hmmmm what's this...? Once the learn their egg is food, they eat their own eggs and each other's eggs. It can't be unlearned or conditioned out. Then you have chickens and no eggs. It's called getting peckish. I have had a peckish hen in the past as I noticed the remains of the egg in the nest box. Then Dad and I try to separate the hens to try to ascertain the peckish hen before it spreads throughout the flock. Now all the chickens knew eggs were food...BUT my only saving grace was the eggs were IN THE PEN when pretty hen laid them. I hadn't seen any evidence of broken eggs in the nest box so the soft shell was a recent development. Chickens are so smart...and so dumb. As long as the egg wasn't discovered in the nest box they might not make the connection. I called Dad, desperate. We had to get pretty hen out of the pen in isolation as soon as possible. I went up to the house to get a face mask since I wouldn't be able to social distance from Dad to do this. He came down and brought a cat carrier. I gave the hens more chicken treat to keep them out from underfoot and then Bless her, pretty hen roosted first as she always does making it so much easier to snatch her and bundle her off to the infirmary. I got oyster shell the next day to supplement everyone's feed. Oyster shell is a calcium source to help them keep their egg shells hard. I didn't think they needed it because their food is supplemented with extra calcium and the girls are so young. But to be fair, they have been laying all winter. Dad monitored pretty hen for a few days. No more soft shell eggs and she came back a couple nights later. The flock accepted her back just fine. But this did get me thinking. I have 6 young and healthy hens...but mishaps happen. Eggs break in bodies, sometimes they just get sick. It is hard to find full grown young laying hens in the best of times but now with eggs out at the store sometimes or 4 dollars a dozen...and the hens turning one year old this spring got me thinking that maybe we should have an egg insurance policy around here... In other news, on last Thursday I decided to try something new, making bread from scratch. No bread machine, or even the Kitchen Aide dough hook. I used this recipe given to me from a friend. It makes two loaves and is delicious. I don't have any pictures besides the finished product because I used this activity to make a video for the kids at the library. I hate spending my time on cooking that may not work out, which is why pie dough and roll out cookies intimidate me. I want results for my time! I can see where after getting used to making bread, a person can time it like second nature and do things in between the times that require action. I mean, I did that too, but I still felt like bread making was the centerpiece of the day. I could see after practice though getting into a rhythm of knowing just how much time could be devoted to certain chores in between time. I did have to bake the loaves separately because the difference between a glass and metal pan requires a significant temperature change for the oven. I would like to try this recipe again with the Kitchen aide dough hook to see if it saves some time. This bread was delicious. Probably the 2/3 cup of sugar, har har. Anyway readers, if I can make this, you can too. I'm serious. Wow this has been a text heavy blog. I better throw in some pet pictures, but before I do, let me share one more thing for those who like supporting local artists. If you like coloring books for adults, or are thinking now is the time to explore this hobby, let me recommend a truly unique book by a central Ohio artist. Maria is a dear friend and is a quintuple threat when it comes to art. She paints, she draws, the makes jewelry and she crochets. She's also my green thumb friend who despairs in how I lack a lot of common sense when it comes to plants. But she still gives me plants anyway. I do feel a twinge about suggesting buying a non essential item from Amazon but I think this is the only way you can get the book if you want to try it. You can also find sample pages at the link. And now an encore presentation of Tutu.

Of Gardening and Books

It pains me to say I had this post almost completely drafted last week and I lost it at the last. I have enough content for two more posts and I aim to keep them about the same length so again, sign up for the email on the right. Some people it works for, some it doesn't. I don't know what to tell you. I can't even figure out how to see how many people have signed up for email delivery. Again though this is really for family and friends I'm not trying to become the next lifestyle guru. Well lets start with gardens. I've been meaning to ask my Mom if this past week's brief snow makes number 3 after the forsythia has bloomed. This is the only garden picture I have for this week. The rest are from the week before Easter. I was wedding in the lavender and had really gotten into a groove when I noticed this weed growing in the clear spot between two sections of a large plant, almost like a clearing in the forest. It reminded me of a queen anne's looking weed that grows in high summer and doesn't bloom like a Queen Anne's plant and I idly noted in the back of my mind that it was the wrong time of year for that kind of weed. And I yanked it out anyway and it came out with a satisfying tug that indicated I had ripped the whole thing out and then to my horror, I realized that what I held in my hand was a baby evergreen tree of some kind. It was actually pretty ingenious that the tree landed here and this seedling actually had lots of cover from the worst weather from the lavender itself. I panicked and potted it. I'll decide later in the fall, where to plant the little guy if he survives. My green thumb friend reminded me that outdoor plants like to stay outdoors so he's living on the back deck, and not on the bathtub rim with my experimental houseplant project. I have brought him into the garage on the nights it gets down to the twenties. Isn't he adorable? Let's hope he makes it. Speaking of the lavender, the babies continue to green up nicely. And I'm focusing my weeding right now on the part where I will plant babies in May. I weeded for another hour and a half today when it was warmest. I wanted to weed longer but I have to clean the chicken coop later so I thought I'd quit while I was ahead. Also the weeds were getting tougher to bring out of the ground. But it isn't the weeds that have changed in strength, but my arms or lack thereof. I also wanted to show these pictures of a single orchard tree, taken just 24 hours apart. What a difference one day makes when it is spring. As for books, I have three books I have finished recently that are all keepers. However I did put three books in the library donation box that I decided I wasn't even going to read so I'm staying on target for halving (or more) of my personal library of only books I think I might actually read. Published in the early eighties, the majority of the essays and articles written in this collection were written by women naturalists long dead. Some were born in the mid to late 1800s. A few at the time of publication were still alive but in their 70s or 80s. The language ranges from flowery to plucky and even includes (the only fictional excerpt) an entry from Indiana's own Gene Stratton-Porter. What struck me was the vast majority of the writers were either spinsters, or married in their mid to late thirties. I think only one writer had more than two kids. Many of them got at least some college. Towards the end of the book, some of the essays focus on real gritty outdoors experiences with wildlife photographing husbands o biologist types. The women often play the role of helper. One lady got stranded on a cold, rainy, isolated island with her husband who had just broken his arm and they were staying in a tiny cabin with a tin roof that was far from air tight. She had to go in the dark the same way he had come to rescue the camera he left when he fell then retreated. Then she had to risk her neck again to signal to the lighthouse keeper to send a rescue ship. This was all mind you, for a nature documentary for Disney. I read this, while enjoying a hot bath and thought to myself "better you than me lady!" These next two books are by Stephen Bodio who is still much alive in New Mexico. There isn't much in the way of contact information on his website and I keep saying I'm going to reach out to one of his publishers about just sending him a note of appreciation. I had read his book Eagle Dreams, about the Golden Eagles of Mongolian falconry (as seen on 60 minutes) and I liked that book well enough but now I'm thinking I need to go back and re read that. Of these two I like A Rage for Falcons the best. If you were ever interested in learning the basics of training, the history, and the different kind of raptors involved in falconry this is an excellent book. Stephen's writing is really among the best I think I've come across. Smooth, powerful, descriptive, artistic without being cloyingly romantic, this is a very readable and enjoyable book. I love his descriptions of both raptors in general and ones he's known personally. I think I would read a whole book written by him just describing all the animals he's ever known. Well this is all for this post really. I have more content as I said. I'll end here with an image of the gorgeous black raspberry pie Andrew made for Easter last week. So I had two black raspberry pies in a week. Our orchard cherries were more of a supplement. and Moxie to wrap it up.

Happy Easter

I went from thinking a few days ago that I had hardly any content for the blog. Then yesterday I realized I had a ton of pictures. As I write Moxie keeps me company.

She has such a loud purer. I'm worried she might be nursing a giant hairball as she is hungry all the time but only eats a little bit at a time. She also has a penchant for chewing and sometimes eating plastic.

Her weight is the same and so are her behaviors so I'll monitor and only take her to the vet if Andrew and I think its absolutely necessary.

Yesterday Andrew made his delicious home made double rise sheet pan pizza with some of the tomatoes we worked on a few weeks ago. This is the stuff dreams are made of.

I may try to make this an Easter eve tradition.

I made Easter baskets for Andrew and I this year something I try to do other years with varying success. I got Tutu a box of biscuits but Andrew reminder me she has her own stocking for Christmas so shes going to need her own basket. Luckily I have plenty of baskets around this house.

Mine is the red and green woven basket from my own childhood Easters. I got a new apron. Because I love aprons.

I just dont get those waist only aprons. I have this lovely vintage cherry apron that I never wear because what's the point? 

I have mentioned in past blog posts how much I love Easter. The message of all things new new. The pastel colors, bunnies, chicks, flowers I just love it all. There is less pressure than Christmas and in think Easter dinner is open to a lot more interpretation. It's just Andrew and I for Easter this year...and this is the first time in maybe three or four years he hasn't been at the station. We splurged and got very fancy steaks instead of hamr and are having roast vegetables and...cherry pie with cherries from our own orchard.

But not enough to make a pie so we will be mixing black raspberries in to ah, fill it out. 

And this will be my second black raspberry treat this week. Mom made a pie earlier in the week and gave us half.

Yes, that's a rare vintage atomic style harkerware plate I'm holding. I love my vintage dishes for desserts.

In other kitchen news I continue the freezer clean out campaign and not just with the frozen orchard cherries. Last night in also dug out some frozen red raspberries...I cant even remember where they came from since bbn I usually dont like them. I also found a bag of gooseberries from Andrew's...Bush? Is it a gooseberry bush? Anyway I cooked both down with some sugar for our waffles this morning.

The gooseberries smell like steamed grass to me. To each their own.

This is a huge post already and I haven't even gotten to exciting garden projects so I'll be doing another post soon.  I'll end with this project I started yesterday. I turned it into a video for work but it's also something I've wanted to try for a long time. It is fabric painting like my Grandma Perdue used to do. She did paintings and my baby blanket is her work too. I have several of her pillowcases Including this one.

wow. Someone really has to be the star of the show. Let's try again.

I think grandma did some stenciling and free hand.  I'm trying with some embroidery patterns my friend Janet gave me. 

Those tiny dots are mo joke. But later I got tired and or the brush got too thick with paint. 

Definitely more interpretive. 

I will wrap up for now. I hope you are safe and well and Happy Easter.

april 3

I thought for sure I would have a lot of pictures from this past week but as I look back in my gallery not so much. I have been taking lots of video content for the kids through library social media channels. I'm not sure if my read alouds are improving but last night a took a single perfect take of what was fairly elaborate. I'm excited to see it when ita posted butbhwre is a picture I took of the set up as it wrapped.

You can bet I'm leveraging the farm and all my a little animals.

I've been napping in the afternoons with Maxwell on days andrew is home and napping with tutu. I realized his bed was a little austere so I've tried to up my cat nest game.

I'm continuing to slowly read books from my library...a commitment I started at the new year. I seem to keep one out of three which is a nice ratio. This one is a keeper.

I read her book my country year or maybe it was a country year. Anyway she was an amazing tough woman with a very interesting story. She does recently and even how she did that was interesting. Look her up. She wrote and lived beautifully and a real tough cookie. There are many wonderful passages but I think the afterward was my favorite.

My big house project was tackling organizing my antique Hoosier cabinet mom gave me sever years ago. I remember when she bought it at a farm auction when I was in grade school and she took off seven layers of paint tha TV summer. I didnt take a before picture. The hoosier cabinet holds tried herbs about 75 percent grown and tried from the herb garden and some things purchased. The Hoosier cabinet tends to be a catch all for related hobbies and craft projects as well as vintage kitchen wear for said hobbies and crafts. I didnt take a before picture but here is a work in progress one.

I am probably 75 percent through in this picture. Some jars could be consolidated...others I had to be honest about they herbs being old or I'm never going to use and those got composted.

Et voila 

I had massive amounts of the staple ingredients for my treasured lavender almond oatmeal facial rub. So on another day I made a huge amount.

This is what I started with.

After I food processed the almonds and oats into finer pieces I started with lavender and threw in some chamomile.

I wish I could translate through words to you the heady deep smell of the lavender from the oil being released.

And it's really about releasing the oil to mingle with the oats and a kml mond because the shape of the lavender buds are very aerodynamic and even after several minutes of processing most of them retain most of their original shape.

here are all the ingredients ready to be combined.

and the finished product.

It's not a scrub. There is neither salt nor sugar. This is excellent to rub on your face, roll rather on you skin once you dampen a handful of it. I use it most exclusively in the summer after a long day of sun block and sweat. I recommend using it over the kitchen sinker where there a garbage disposal or strainer. Its worth the effort. This mix will remove sunscreen sweat and dirt along with dead skin cells without being rough on your skin. Oatmeal and lavender are especially soothing.

I'm looking forward to sharing with friends when I see you again. This mix made with love is waiting for you.