Chicken Intervention

I want chickens really, really badly.  I have wanted them for years, but as with the goats, I've been waiting for the right time.  Last year, I decided that this year would be the year for chickens.  We've gotten the goats through their baby stage and are in a really good routine with them.  We're still learning, but I feel pretty comfortable caring for goats.

The amazing thing is that I ever talked Brian into chickens in the first place.  When I first started talking about chickens--probably about 10 years ago--he was a firm 'no' on the chickens.  The smell and the possibility of attracting rodents (the only thing my fireman husband is really afraid of!) were his biggest concerns.  But he loves to build things, so I appealed to his building nature by talking about the sort of chicken coop we could build.  And somehow I talked him into the chickens.  As I've said before I think I am more persuasive than I realize.

The Chicken Plan was in place.  We would get the baby chicks from Bay Hay & Feed after our Spring Break camping trip.  Bay Hay & Feed offered a chicken class called Chicken 101 that I signed Brian and I up for.  He actually agreed to go with me and took a lot of teasing from his friends about going to "chicken school".  Brian was paying more attention to our instructor's chicken shirt than to what he was actually saying, but I learned a lot at chicken school.  We left the store with me looking longingly at the baby chickens, really excited for when we would bring ours home.

And then something happened.  I was out to dinner with three of my best friends and I was telling them of the crazy week I was having.  Actually the crazy month I was having.  The combination of working as a gardener in the spring time, my oldest daughter being on a water polo team with a very grueling schedule, Brian's shift work--I could go on.  But what my friends were hearing from me was that I was really tired and overdone.  So one of them asked me if I was still getting chickens.  I answered that of course we were getting chickens.  That is the Plan.  I was sooo excited about the chickens.  The idea of walking outside and collecting a few fresh eggs for breakfast really appeals to me. 

Now these friends of mine care about me and were seeing something that I wasn't.  And they announced that they were doing a Chicken Intervention.  We laughed pretty hard about it, but I still said no, I was going with my Plan.  But they weren't done with their Intervention.  They gently asked me if perhaps I could postpone the chickens, or at least think about it.  This was all in good humor, but as the days passed after our dinner together, I realized that they were making good sense.  I was really tired--I did have a lot on my plate.  Maybe the Chicken Plan should be put off for a while.

Since these friends of mine know me so well, they were surprised that I actually heard what they said, and even more shocked that I ended up agreeing with them.  They know how tenacious I can be when I have a Plan.  And the truth is, I'm glad that I've put the Chicken Plan on hold.  Three weeks have gone by since the planned date of bringing home baby chicks, and realistically looking at my busy life, it has been a good thing that I didn't add something else to care for.

I still really, really want chickens.  I have this weird love of growing my own food--not that I'm hugely successful with that endeavor.  But I love collecting my own fresh vegetables and fruit.  During the summer months the most satisfying day for me is one where I have made a meal out of food that we've grown.  It is some ancient pull in me that I can't quite explain.  So I know that eventually we will get our baby chicks and build a coop.  This Spring just wasn't the right time yet.  The right time will come, and in the meantime I am grateful for friends who know me, and love me enough to hold a Chicken Intervention.

An Introduction to the Goats

Meet the goats!  From left to right are Lily, Silver, Blackberry and Sweet Pea.  They all came to the fence in the hopes I would feed them a treat--and of course I acquiesced and gave them each a nibble of grain. I went in their yard to take some pictures and Lily tried to eat the camera while Silver nibbled on my jacket string!  Those two are sister and brother and we got them together when they were only a couple of weeks old. We bottle fed them until they were over two months old so they really are our "babies".  We're pretty sure that they think we may still keep a bottle for them in our pocket!

Lily, Silver and Blackberry are Nigerian Dwarf goats, Sweet Pea is an African Pygmy.  They all four have very unique personalities and as their goat yard and barn are right out our kitchen window, we all spend a lot of time watching their funny antics.  Goats are really playful creatures and ours spend a good part of each day head-butting each other and jumping on and off their toys.  (A toy for them is any structure they can leap onto--they love being up high!)  When the sun comes out they are amazingly good at basking in it.  They absolutely hate the rain and will hide in their barn during the rainy days--which are many during the winter months.  Frequently on those long days we will see all four little heads peeking out the door like little kids wishing the rain would stop.

Our goats are our pets.  I have two friends from Mexico who laughed and laughed when they heard I had pet goats.  They couldn't believe I would pay to feed them and not get any meat or milk in return.  And I can see their point--it is a little crazy.  Many of our friends have asked us why we have goats and the only real answer is that I just fell in love with them at the fair many years ago.  When Brian and I were newly married and enjoying the Puyallup Fair together, we came across a herd of African Pygmy goats that were for sale and I was smitten!  I tucked away a wish for goats right then and waited until we had the space and time for them.

As our girls were getting older I started talking about wanting goats and soon had everyone excited about the idea.  As it turns out I'm pretty good at talking my husband into things!!  So two years ago we spent our time together as a family clearing some space for a goat yard and building a goat barn.  It was an amazing family project.  The girls hammered, sawed and painted and by the end of Spring we had a cute little red barn and fenced goat yard.  And the goats have been really fun pets.  They aren't good for much else anyway.  Sweet pea is so unusually small that she can't even be bred, and Silver and Blackberry are wethered--which means they have lost their "boy parts" as Grace would say.  Lily could be bred and then milked but that is more of a commitment than any of us want at this point.  And truthfully I'm not that fond of goat's milk.  So, here we are with pet farm animals and our life is more amusing because of them.

 

Western Bleeding Heart

The bleeding hearts were a seriously fun surprise the first spring I lived here.  That was fifteen years ago and I had never seen them before.  Or perhaps I had just never noticed them before.  But when their gray-green lacey foliage first unfolded and then sent up stocks of little pink hearts, I was smitten! 

At first we had just a few patches along our gravel road, but they have spread easily and now are all along the road and over the wooded parts of our garden.  I finally looked them up in my garden book to find some more information on them.  They are officially called the Western Bleeding Heart (Dicentra formosa).  And it does indeed look like they are special.  I read one account that says they only grow wild in a few areas of the world--our wooded Pacific coastal area being one of them.  All I know is that I am grateful to them for rambling through our garden in a more beautiful way than I ever could have planned. 

Blue garden

April brings the blue phase of our garden.  Mostly this is because I have let the forget-me-nots do what they do best and seed themselves wherever they like.  The flowers are so small that it is easy to think of them as a mass of blue hugging the edges of the garden beds.  But when I look closely at each individual flower, they are so sweet that I am beginning to understand their name!  Each flower has a vivid yellow and white star shaped center surrounded with five perfectly blue petals.  Amazing!

I used to transplant the little seedlings into neat borders around my garden beds in early Spring.  But times have changed.  I now have a job and three busy daughters, so the forget-me-nots have gotten the run of the place.  It's the same with the Welsh poppies.  I was so pleased when the wind (or possibly the birds) brought my garden it's first yellow poppy--now they are everywhere.  The white flowers of feverfew will be everywhere in another month or so and already the purple flowers of the money plant (which my girls loved when they were little) are mingling with the rhododendrons.  Any bare patch of soil is fair game.  The dandelions have their share of garden space too even though I do weed them out--when I actually get to weeding.

But the forget-me-nots are my favorite.  Our first plant was brought to the garden by Emily.  She was about three and she and my neighbor girl wandered back and forth between our two gardens.  She loved to pick flowers and one day brought an entire plant--roots dripping with soil where it just been yanked from the earth.  She was so pleased to bring me flowers and wanted to plant them.  Luckily our neighbor didn't mind the plant theft at all.  And that one little plant has lived over and over in our garden. 

Earth Day

What a great Earth Day celebration today!  The sun came out for most of the day and though it wasn't warm, it wasn't too bad either.  Every year at Wilkes Elementary school--the school my youngest attends as a third grader and my older two "graduated" from--we plant sunflower seeds on Earth Day.  It started about six years ago as an idea dreamed up by a few teachers to make the chain link fence that separates the parking lot from the play ground a little more attractive.  The planting strip measures about 18 inches wide and is probably around 150 feet long--perfect for a row of sunflowers.

I started helping with Earth Day in a small way, and enjoyed the celebration so much I decided to help plan the event.  It is such a sweet tradition and probably my favorite day in the Wilkes school year.  The energy of the day is really fun!  This week we worked together weeding the planting area and adding some compost.  And then on Friday, all seventeen classes of kids ranging in age from kindergarten through fourth grade, took turns planting sunflower seeds.  We talk about how pretty the sunflowers are when they bloom and how tall they will get.  And then we talk about what the seeds will need to grow big and strong.  And the kids love to raise their hands and share what they know.  They know that the seeds need sunlight and water and soil.  And then we talk about how important compost is and how cool it is that the seeds we are planting today came from the sunflowers of last year.  The sunflowers just keep reinventing themselves!  And just for fun we talked about how the seeds will need some love and good wishes whispered to them.  The kindergarteners accept this responsibility all too happily and I know I will see some of them talking to their seeds over the next few weeks. 

The first couple of years that we did this school wide project the kids needed some instructions.  Today, I spent only a few minutes giving them their instructions and it was mostly in the form of asking them if they remember the steps--how deep to plant the seed, the importance of compost, etc.  What has been really striking is not just that they know what to do now, but how comfortable they are with the process.  Where they used to be tentative, they now jump right in planting their seed and scooping up huge handfuls of compost.  They used to worry if they were doing it "right."  I didn't hear many of those concerns today and that made me so happy!  The kids are feeling some ownership of this process which is exactly what this is all about. 

Such a simple thing to plant a seed.  And planting a seed is exactly what is going on.  The seeds of liking to get their hands in the soil and grow things are planted, the seeds of confidance in nature are planted, the seeds of stewardship to our earth are planted.  So, such a simple thing to plant a seed and yet the results are as tall as the sunflowers at the end of summer.

As the school day was winding down, all of the kids and teachers and parents came to watch the Earth Day parade.  It's a very simple parade with the kids banging drums and carrying giant paper mache creations of the earth (used year to year).  Then they all sing the Garden Song, cheer for Earth Day and thank everyone who helped.  It's a simple, pure, non-commercial holiday.  And I stand with my mommy friends and feel so blessed to be a part of something so simple.

Spinning Goat Waste into Garden Gold

My goat project has finally come full circle.  I have two huge piles of composted manure, thanks to countless barn cleanings, and today I took several wheel barrows full of goat compost up to my vegetable beds.  Since I don't have a composting system, I spent some time digging to the center of my heaps to get to the finished compost.  It's always a bit of a science experiment digging through a compost heap.  And I am amazed every time how it happens!  When we clean our goats' barn, it smells so bad we are gasping for air as we shovel out the mixture of goat poo, timothy hay and wood shavings.  But today, I found dark, crumbly, earthy (even good!) smelling compost. 

As I was taking my compost up to the garden beds, I was daydreaming about the huge, sweet tomatoes that will no doubt grow in the newly rich soil.  In my fantasy the beds are brimming with beans, basil, brocolli and spinach.  The racoons haven't raided yet, nor have I had a leaf hopper infestation.  Nothing has eaten my garden and it is such a nice day dream.  Spring is always so full of hope. 

What I realized today was that it has taken two years of owning goats, and countless barn cleanings to get to this point where I am finally getting the compost I was after in the first place!  And the two years of goat ownership have not been easy or cheap.  I would say that this goat manure project is similar to the idea of the $40 tomato.  It would be much easier and less expensive to go buy some manure.  Except for the fact that I love my little goats.  In fact I have come to love them so much that I have forgotten the reason we got them in the first place.  And that is why I would say the whole "project" (as my husband refers to it) came full circle today.  I have become so involved in the animals as our pets that I had forgotten this little benefit.   All four goats, Sweet Pea, Blackberry, Silver and Lily watched me go back and forth today, talking to me like they do.  I thanked them for the garden gold they are giving me and also made sure to tell them that it never really was all about the compost.