Come on Spring

Posted on March 8, 2014 by crissiegel

Oh yes! Come on spring. This mornings walk was sans gloves, hat and multiple layers. Warm sun on my face and the discovery of the daffodils arriving! Andrew, in his toddler years, and I planted daffodils randomly across the hillside when we first started working on house and land 11 years ago. Being the first to find the daffodils coming up was a spring ritual when he was younger. We planted early and late blooming varieties, extending the daily hunt. Finding this bit of green life amidst the melting snow elicits warm memories of the past, happiness today, and excitement for what these daffodils signify – spring IS coming. Oh yes!

The Big Snow: Thoughts on plowing, shoveling and unanticipated hazards to small male dogs

Posted on February 15, 2014 by crissiegel

Mother nature sent her love this Valentines Day with a big snow. For me that meant considering how to move a mile of snow, 2 feet deep and 8 feet wide, when my snow plow motor has died, so that we can drive back and forth to the main road or we will be walking to get in and out. For my dog Blitz, a young lab-beagle mix with boundless energy, it meant porpoise-like leaping to negotiate the deep snow and painfully, testicles rubbed raw and red from getting through that snow all day. Ouch! My poor little man; this was a dog injury I never even considered. The perils of being a small, 19″ tall male dog in a 26″+ snow. Friends with small male dogs take heed; protect those cohones. Ironically, he was scheduled (for the third time – but that’s another story) to be neutered the day the big snow came in and his appointment was postponed.

snowblitz

Woke up this morning with aching muscles from ramming and shoveling the first 1/2 mile of the road and now we have a return of the gray-cloudy-snow bearing skies. Had to squint to see it , but yes, it’s snowing again. Thank goodness I have a big strong 14-year old and a new young family next door (that means 1/4 mile) with a big strong dad to help with the shoveling. Drive 20 feet, get stuck, shovel snow, drive, plow, get stuck, shovel again. Over and over for about a 1/2 mile. I’m feeling it today. Plowing is often such a Sisyphean task: plow snow-more snow falls, plow snow – wind blows it right back into drifts, plow snow – more snow falls, plow snow – snow drifts etc. etc. In fact, our first attempt at driving the other day, with plow on 4WD (made functional with some incredible McGyver-like work by Andrew using webbing and old carabiners from my former climbing life), and chains on all four wheels, we made it about 25 feet and that was that.

The next morning you couldn’t even see that 25 feet worth of tracks.

Yesterday, Valentines Day, was the bright sunny clear day I love after a new snow fall, and the first day to go out and see what could be done about digging out. I also took my camera and went for my normal morning walk, made much more challenging by over-the-knee drifts. With all the snow and the drifting from the previous night’s high winds, it was like seeing the trail a new. A whole new landscape that normally is so familiar.

There have been times when big snow not plowed would have caused me great stress. This time, I am much more relaxed, with the zen-like state of the Dude. The Dude abides! (OK, I just shared the joys of The Big Lebowski with Andrew recently so the Dude is on my mind). So what if we’re kind-of snowed in, we have plenty of food, coffee, wine, fresh eggs daily, power that won’t go out even if the grid goes down, satellite internet service, a small library’s worth of books, what more could we need? No problemo. Hakuna matata. Don’t worry, be happy. Andrew however, seemed to have taken on my former anxiety. He was wound-tight with worries about not getting out. My explanations that we really aren’t stuck, we can always WALK the mile to the main road, we have all we need, along with my Dude-like zen state just wasn’t cutting it for him.

Living on the homestead, a mile back on a private gravel road, puts a different spin on a big snow than my fellow city dwellers. Frankly, I’d rather be here, challenges and all, than trying to negotiate city streets with cars and drivers not suited to snow, but it does mean work. I’m not waiting for the snow plow to come through the neighborhood – I am the snow-plow operator. We don’t have 40 feet of driveway to shovel – we have 1 mile of gravel road, with several steep, switchback sections that are challenging enough to negotiate in fine weather. A friend wrote a funny facebook post in which he calculated the volume of snow he needed to remove from his driveway…920 cubic feet…and then the better idea of heading in for a hot toddy instead. Andrew quickly did his own calculations, determining that we had 84,480 cubic feet of snow between us and the main road. That hot toddy idea is looking mighty fine right now.

So, today we’ll go out and see if anything can be done about the last 1/2 mile of road, walk down (if we can’t drive down) and dig out my car which is always left by the main road when snow and ice hits, see if the paper guy has been able to deliver and find out if the Callaway VDOT guys have cleared the main road yet. I’ll go see if I can coax the chickens outside today; yesterday they were not having that – no, no, no we won’t go out in the snow. And, I’ll keep on enjoying the snow and practicing my new snow storm zen-like state. The Dude abides!

3999 Eggs!

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3,999. Holy eggs Batman! That was the egg tally just a few days ago. When I started my adventures with chickens a year and a half ago, I didn’t comprehend the volume of eggs that would pass through those chickens and my life. I remember the thrill of finding the first egg and I started keeping a tally at that point. Each egg was so amazing and even precious, handled like royalty. I have loads of pictures if you want to see them. It’s like having your first baby…you document it all. But then production, and reality, really kicked in and the 30 chickens I had at the start of this experiment were working – working hard. Bless their little chicken hearts those girls just layed eggs, day in and day out and soon my life was overflowing with eggs. Egg carton creep started happening in my refrigerator. First they took over the bottom shelf, and then the middle shelf was under attack, and soon my refrigerator was more of an egg storage unit than anything else. Sorry son, we don’t have room for other food; make yourself another egg burrito. Egg cartons and egg cleaning and tables covered with eggs as I sorted and packaged soon became the norm. Egg maven and chicken wrangler… the newest additions to my resume. Who knew? At times I was utterly overwhelmed. What on earth was I doing with 30 chickens and what will I do with the 10 dozen eggs on the table?

Over time, the predator population, which unfortunately included my own dogs once or twice, diminished my clearly over-the-top flock numbers to the much more sensible count of 8. That’s a lot of loss, but boy have I learned a few things….and eaten some great eggs. During the height of production I also kept quite a few other people in fresh eggs and that felt great. Can’t feed as many folks now, but it is so much more manageable. My original business partner, my son, abandoned ship very early in the process so it’s all me. While I still wax poetic about the cuteness of the chickens and fun of having them around, he has adopted a much different mindset. In our latest round of “what would you do if you won 10 million dollars in the lottery” he talked about how he was going to give money to this family member and that family member, but when it came to me I got a Sophie’s choice instead – “you get a half million dollars….but ONLY (his emphasis) if you get rid of the chickens”. What! How could he even suggest such heresy. I never did answer him. As most moms know, there are ways, and I would find a way to have my chickens and money too. Ha!

So, 3999 eggs. And to think I was feeling egg anxiety about the fairly brief molting and winter egg-free period we just experienced. No eggs for about a month and I was in a panic. When forced finally to the grocery store egg aisle, I just stood there looking at them for the longest time. People probably wondered if I needed help, and not of the physical kind. Could I do it – actually BUY eggs? For crying out loud, I had 8 chickens at home. But seeing that number the other day made me reconsider. Good lord those girls deserved a little rest. They’re back to laying, even on the negative and single digit days we’ve had so many of recently, hurrah. No more grocery store panic attacks. And I, in honor of the 3999th egg, made myself a most delicious and decadent batch of eggs benedict, poaching eggs laid that morning. It doesn’t get much better than that. Thank you chickens!

Snow Day

Posted on January 21, 2014 by crissiegel

Just back from a walk along the ridge with the dogs and we all have a light dusting of snow on our coats. The long awaited snow is here. While my son is gleeful about a snow day, too often the changes and challenges it brings rob me of the joy and excitement he experiences. Today I took a moment to appreciate. There is something so gentle and peacefully quiet about new falling snow. I stopped on my walk, felt the gentleness of snow flakes on my cold face and experienced the quiet, let the of flurry of schedule change and work thoughts just pass for a moment. I’ll need this moment of peace, quiet and solitude to prepare for the day of changes it brings; child is home from school now, several meetings and appointments that may or may not need to be postponed, a snow plow that isn’t working when I am the snowplow operator out here, and the desire to just stay home, take a longer walk in the snow, cozy up by the woodstove and drink warm tea instead.

Despite my grumbling about the cold, I do love and appreciate the many faces of winter in the woods. Quiet. It can be so quiet, no more so then when a light snow like today’s arrives, with only the occasional woodpecker breaking the silence as it taps for food. The quiet of winter provides the contrast for spring when mornings begin with lovely birdsong. I wait with such eager anticipation to hear that first wood thrush song which heralds that spring is here. The contrast is even more so with summer when the heat and humidity bring on a cacophony of tree insects, birds and frogs that make summer nights downright noisy. So today I will appreciate and enjoy the quiet, the gentle and the cold.

Here’s to the beauty of a snowy day in the woods.

It’s -6 degrees…..

Posted on January 7, 2014 by crissiegel

It’s -6 degrees outside and there is a frozen deer head on my deck. Sometimes in life you wake up and wonder…how on earth did I get here?!? My 20-something or 30-something self didn’t see mornings like this as part of my future. My 40-something self has at least learned to roll with the surprise. Now, I’m considering how to get out of my warm bed and house and warmly transport myself down to feed and take care of the chickens. I’m wondering if my diesel car, which doesn’t like starting in the low digits, will start this morning. Wondering what the hell I’m going to do with the plethora of deer parts, bones, feet, tails, heads that my dogs are so thrilled to bring home thanks to hunting season.

My little cabin was warm and cozy all night with the woodstove working away, but still the windows are edged with frost, on the INSIDE, and the cat has taken up residence UNDER the woodstove. I’m with the cat. I don’t want to leave the house, or even get out of bed, yet chickens and work are calling. Today, I know for certain I am not some tough Northerner who thumbs her nose at such temps. I am at the far northern edge of my range, and if I were a bird, I would’ve flown south a long time ago. I’m pretty damn tough at times, and don’t like to whine, but today I am going to whine; I really don’t like to be cold. There I said it. I am a cold wimp! This born in Texas and mostly California-raised girl is wimping out.

On a positive note, this may just be the first written post to the blog I created more than a year ago but never posted a damn thing to. A cold jump-start to one of this years goals – write for your blog. Maybe I’ll get this up and posted, maybe with a picture of the odd scene of a dead, mangled deer head right outside my window – if only I can remember my password. But for now, it’s time to put on about 18 layers of clothing and go check on those hens, bring in some more wood and see if the car will start. Stay warm people.