THE LORD GIVITH . . .

You know the rest. But first:

Yes! Friday afternoon, on our return from Portland, we heard Goldie singing the “I laid an egg” song. First time! This chicken is she who has the charming voice of a rooster with a sore throat, but still. I’ve learned to trust this song, and there they were. Two eggs! One crushed, but one lovely specimen. Of course, they might have been courtesy of Grace, but that song? On Saturday we found another, and are hopeful that the long pause in production is over.

Mitch came over on Saturday to help Larry with the tangle of downed trees by the barn. He’s a wizard with the power saw, and the boys spent the morning lumber-jacking. Results:

More firewood and several huge burn/chip piles of branches. They left three stragglers standing because of the red breasted sap sucker Mitch id’ed working the trees.

And now we come to the second phrase in the title’s quote: He taketh away. I, having spent the morning doing inside chores, opened the door to the storage space in the garage, and found the pipes for the tankless water-heater happily dripping. The floor flooded, along with the stash of exotic alcohol (what is Manzilla La Gitana and why do we have it?) Costco supplies of paper towels, and etc.

I immediately turn this sort of emergency over to whatever men may be on hand, and in this case, there were two of them available. They did what they could, turned off the system, helped move all of the sopping etcetera out into the main body of the garage, thereby blocking access to refrigerator and freezer, of course, and went off to move the bee hives, or whatever else they had been doing. Sigh. It’s Saturday. The plumber’s shop is closed. They will put us on the list for Monday morning. Can I call this an emergency? Yeah, no. We will just do without hot water for a day or so. Didn’t we just have a water emergency a couple of months ago? We’re fine.

Backing up, we had spent a couple of days in our apartment in Portland, and I was able to spend time with Chicks at a happy hour and movie. Our designer had scheduled a crew to hang our “art” which had been in storage, and it was fun to revisit the old favorites. Not all of our collection will work in this new space, so we’ve brought a few things back to the farm to enjoy here. And now I’m back to where the Lord givith:

For some month I’ve been unable to find a book that I loved. Didn’t like Colleen Hoover’s It Ends With Us, Kristin Hannah’s The Women, Jilly Cooper’s 915 page epic Riders (actually read all of that one as it’s so famous). Anyway, there, in Portland, was a cardboard box of my books from grad school in North Carolina. My books! Andrea Barrett, Rick Bass, John Barth, Charles Baxter! Barrett and Baxter were both on the faculty of my school, and all were examples of great writing to study. OMG. I’ll be good for months. Years. Yes, of course, I will have read them earlier. No worries.

Now I’m back up to the present. The weather is lovely, the daphne is blooming and that lovely scent fills the room with clippings. The daffodils are in bloom. I have a massive week-whacking chore waiting in the chicken’s run, but can’t do that without the man here to start my f-ing machine. The power cord of which is built for longer, stronger arms than mine, so oh well. Where is he? you may ask?

He has driven the truck, which happily started this morning, off to the recycling stations around town, to Wilco for more chicken feed, to Safeway for sundries, and should be home in time to take me out to lunch at his golf club. Some of the things you can’t/don’t want to do when you have no hot water: take a shower. Wash your hair. Run the dishwasher. Yes, I can still cook, but am laughing at how many times I turn the handle for water and nothing appears. Have to turn the cold water faucet, dummy.

I can still iron, though. Make a cup of coffee the old-fashioned way and sit on my porch swing enjoying the peaceful, quiet morning.

Is officially underway. Yes, I know it’s already the 17th, and the days are getting longer. It’s cold! We have a fire going. We have no heat from the furnace, because the generator stops at providing lights, keeping the freezers cold, and energizing a few outlets. No stove, no microwave. Every few minutes another sheet of ice crashes down from the roof with a sonic boom, but we just look at one another, then back to the page of our book.

Here’s what that looked like earlier, before the temperature reached the present evening’s 40’s:

Now the house must be surrounded by these piles of ice. The little camelia outside our bedroom window has been crushed under the assault, and you just wouldn’t want to be standing around outside admiring the stars while this is going on.

Backing up: On Monday, when it became clear that we wouldn’t be going anywhere, Larry decided to try running the ATV down to the barn to collect the firewood we’d be needing. Ooops. The tough little all-wheel couldn’t make it up the hill closest to the gate, and slid into the fence. Larry had to hike back up with the news that we’d better ration the wood. The power was out much of Monday, but life seemed kind-of fun. Pioneering. Snow bound. Then overnight the power was miraculously restored.

But last night, at 10-ish or so, while I was still up reading my new fave, Jodi Picoult, everything went black again. Larry was already sawing logs, metaphorically, because wait for it. I’m not evolved enough to realize that my phone would work as well as a candle to see me into bed, so I groped blindly for a match, and tucked myself in.

No power this morning, no power all day. I made a cup of coffee by boiling water in the Instant Pot, and the toaster works fine for bagels. We are getting a bit low on essentials, like milk, cream, eggs (no, the chickens are on strike) and so on. This afternoon we thought we’d see if we could get out to the grocery. Tested the SUV on the driveway, and the ice seems to have melted enough to let the big SUV travel just down this far:

Across the road. Yep. Guess we weren’t going to the grocery store. We backed up, put on our hats and gloves and boots, picked up our walking sticks and hiked down the road to where the ATV lay ditch-wise. Larry coaxed it onto its feet and we made it to the barn where we could pick up the chain saw. Back up the road, we stopped and Larry sawed logs for real (haha.) A path wide enough to squeeze by. At least we could see that there were tracks on Llewellyn, so are encouraged that tomorrow we think we can at least get some food, even it we can’t cook it.

Side bar: Here’s how you cook when you have only an Instant Pot and a toaster. Take something out of the freezer, dump it into the pot, press saute, and go have a glass of wine or something NA if you’re me. Okay fine for nights 1 and 2. How much do you even have already prepared in the freezer, anyway? So this evening, night 3, I found some sort of braised mystery meat, but we’d need something on the side, like potato or rice or polenta, and you can only cook one thing at a time. Maybe you’d like to keep all of it warm at the same time? No can do. My uninspired choice was to boil some potatoes first and thereby make potato salad. Tragically, we’re also out of ice cream and the Christmas cookies are gone. Whimper. Okay, we’re fine.

The booming continues as I write, and we wonder just how much ice has accumulated up top. We’ve just heard a coyote cry, and realize this must be hard for all creatures down here on the Wood. We hear the geese flying, and the creeks are full and rushing so life surely goes on. Tomorrow will be better!

First, let me show you how the project is progressing:

This was about 90%. If the rain held back, Allen and Chance would be able to start unfurling the sod the following week. As I’ll show you in a minute, it did, and they did.

Meanwhile, does anyone know how to keep Meyer lemons over the winter? The tree will have to spend the time in the greenhouse, as it has for the past years. Not sure how old this little beauty is, but we had it in the condo in Portland, and down here since, but it’s doing a fine job:

Of course I Googled the subject and learned lots of ways to “preserve” them. As in salt. In jelly. In Lemon Curd. But can they just go in the refrigerator and last several months? I guess I’ll find out.

And here’s the way our new lawn looks with actual grass on it:

The wall around the tree will have a stone facing and top, but it’s getting there.

So that’s what Allen and Chance have been doing. What about us?

A wedding at the neighbor’s home, which was gorgeous. Their son Everett married Katie. Out doors, just a little rain to bring its blessings, lights in every tree, great food (Vegan wedding cake — who knew that was legal?) and we met some new people from the neighborhood, whom we hope to see again.

Back and forth to Portland, it seems. We attended a Celebration of Life for an old friend from Tigard school days, and work, in Larry’s case. Jenny came down for the gathering, as Steve and Maxine’s daughter Jill had been one of her high school buddies. It was so sweet to see the other girls — women — who had been part of the circle. All grown up and married and moms of their own teenagers.

We learned, also, of the loss of another friend of those days, Renee Edwards. She and her family had lived next door to us since we first built our house on 133rd. So many stories of those times! Most of them funny and almost all of them true.

Yesterday we drove to Portland in the morning to attend a procedure at the Endodontist’s office. Me. Root canal. Not fun! But we remarked that soon (!) we’ll be able to break our trips up and down I-5 with a stopover at the new condo at Park View.

It’s 5 o’clock now, and getting dark. Sigh. Larry is outside somewhere raking the few last oak leaves, but the oven is turned on and soon we’ll be having dinner by fireplace light. And then, on to Altadena next week for Thanksgiving with the assembled family.

So what is for dinner? I just completed an inventory of the garage freezer. I have to make room for this year’s garden, and this will require discipline in the kitchen. While in Portland yesterday, we stopped at a favorite grocery, Zupans, and bought half a boneless ham. Been disappointed in the product labeled “ham” from groceries lately, and trusted that Zupans would be better. ( I remember ham! It used to be salty and dark and certainly not sliced and packed in water.) So we chopped it up Zupan’s ham and squeezed it into the above-mentioned freezer, with exception of the chunk for tonight. Which will go nicely, I think, with some Rumbledethumps (look it up) and zucchini. Fingers crossed.

What’s going on over there? An annex to the chicken coop? A pen for goats? A wall to keep the house from sliding down into the wetlands? I’ll get to the answer in a minute.

But no solar eclipse here this morning. A thick fog obscures everything beyond the first trees around the house. Nonetheless, a good reminder that the heavens go on turning, despite evidence here on the ground.

And, our family gathering this past week: Mary and Matt arrived in Portland from White Plains on the evening of the 2nd, drove to Corvallis on the 3rd. Martha also came over on that day, and the Eagleson girls were reunited. It’s strange to find yourself with women who look like you, but don’t. We remember things differently, but always laugh anyway. What Dad said that time, how old Grandmother was, Mom’s recipe.

The farm for a couple of days, the beach for a couple, and on to Black Butte. Here’s a shot at Black Butte — gorgeous weather:

I’m the sister in the middle. The way I remember things is always the correct way, of course, and you’ll just have to believe me. Martha is an inveterate photographer, and thus has evidence in her phone dating back decades, it seems. I don’t have any photos of the three of us, but if you check with Martha?

Right. So, what is going on here at the Wood?:

These are just the frames, of course, and concrete will be poured next Tuesday. I think these look pretty gorgeous as is, and am way impressed with the carpenter skills of Allen and Chance. But what they’re accomplishing is, in fact, a wall, which will be visible only from below. The curves will be stone benches around the maple trees, and the land, which does indeed slope toward the wetland, will be filled with the excavated dirt and replanted with grass. The idea is to reduce the amount of grass immediately around the house to a manageable degree, letting the rest rejoin the pastures. Mowing, watering thus greatly reduced.

Here are Allen and Chance. I should say that it has been raining during most of the time they’ve been here, but this was a sunny moment:

Why are we even doing this? Yeah, I know. It started with the thought that we could plant trees in the large patch between the driveway and the coop, thereby eliminating one patch of “lawn” to be tended. I mean, of the sort and size that would need to be professionally selected and installed. This means help from Bill Peterson, our “landscape” guy. But he’s really a landscape architect and he had a few other ideas for us to consider. Hahaha. We simply couldn’t resist.

Larry is out picking the rest of the apples for the year, the Braeburns, I think. They will join the others waiting in the shed refrigerator to be prepped for the freezer. He just finished washing and cutting one up for lunch. Said it wasn’t going to be easy, as they’re pretty worm-afflicted.

We’d get to work this afternoon, but are planning to attend the wedding of Katie and Everett, neighborhood “kids” at the Stuart-Barnses home across the way. So far, it looks like the festivities will be free of the rain that’s on tap, but so far hanging back. A wedding day to remember: the annular eclipse! I wonder if they planned it this way.

Ah. The Oregon/Washington game is about to start. Okay. Apples maybe tomorrow. But I have forgotten to describe our trip to have a look at the apartment being built at the Terwilliger Building’s Parkview. This was the first opportunity for a walk-through with our designers and the craftsman who will be building cabinets and etc. Larry took photos, but there’s not much be to seen except bare walls and this shot of the view we’ll have:

We will be able to “move in” in January, although we won’t exactly be moving in. What we will have is a place to stay overnight in Portland, and security for the future when/if one or both of us need more help than can be provided at the farm.

All for now. I believe this is my 98th blog post. Starting from 2014! Time. Marches. Almost 10 years, or will be if I wait until January to post number 100. I hope you’ll be with me!

Last day of September, ’23, and the sun has come back after a week’s rain. Maybe we’ll have our Indian Summer. Can we say that? Looked it up. Nope. “It’s disrespectful, and should be called Second Summer.” I think I disagree. It’s a beautiful time of year and perhaps may cause us to take a moment and think of the people who were here first.

On our return from England, we got ourselves facing the right direction and were lucky to have David for a couple of days all to ourselves after the golf function, and then a visit from Amy. In town for a reunion with her UO buddies for the Saturday football game, she stayed with us for two nights. Okay, yes, I am bragging, but our two granddaughters are pretty amazing. Amy, a little older than Alli, is establishing a career in New York City, working, at the moment for a fashion design company called White + Warren. They sell beautiful (yes, expensive) sweaters, and Amy is an assistant buyer and is in marketing. Yeah, I don’t know exactly what that means, but check out their website!

Today, because there’s a moment of sunshine, Larry has taken the opportunity to mow the field in front of the house. The threat of wild fire has prevented field mowing until now. After an hour or so of crawling around the barn floor greasing the brush hog, he’s glad to be back in the saddle just driving the thing. He’s carefully circling the young, two-foot high, oak trees which we hope will provide another generation of Oregon White Oak on this landscape.

In other farm news, here are the two new members of the flock family. We were able to persuade neighbors Tracy and Lyn to release a couple of birds from their several dozen. They, now named Goldilocks and Snow White, for obvious reasons, must be wondering why they were kidnapped from Paradise and sentenced to live under the reign of Miss Bossy Pants, ie, Grace:

I’ve been mostly in the kitchen, standing at the counter peeling, chopping, slicing, freezing. These are the peppers I brine to make pickled peppers, one of our favorites.

Tracy, she of the chickens, also lent me her steamer/juicer. Quite a contraption, but super easy to use. The question is, what to do with the first 6 pints of juice? It’s naturally sweet, tastes nice, but I am about out of storage space or I could keep going for days with this year’s grape crop. Someone suggested gummy bears, minus CBD of course, but seriously. Absent grandkidlets, who’s going to find that a special treat worth the work?

But now it’s my turn to get outside. Deadhead the dahlias, sweep the gravel off the side walks, pick apples? Yes. Or, wait. Maybe sit in the sunshine and read? I’m liking Mad Honey, by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Boylan. Good idea. I’m on it.

Larry’s in for a moment. It’s not so easy as it looks, he says. Now he just has to weed whack around those new trees and then he’ll be ready to watch more of the Ryder Cup this evening. No, late breaking news: he’ll do the rest of the field tomorrow and get started now cooking some ribs that have to over-night in the refrig. What a guy!

I’ll be in touch.

Been a morning already . . . starting last night when we discovered that we had no water into the house. I can hear you, Vik, “call Maintenance!” No, what you do in this circumstance, after surveying the complex RO water complex in the shed, is find a couple of buckets, hop in the ATV and head to the pump house down by the barn where there’s a faucet. This allows for manual flushing of toilets, albeit nothing else. It was a lovely, starry night, though. There’s that.

Anyway, we were out getting coffee this early morning (yes, Starbucks was open) when Jake, Pump Guy, returned Larry’s phone call from the evening before. Seems there’s a lever that activates automatic shut-off when pressure level is too low. This sometimes happens when there’s been no water activity in the house for a week, or so . . .

Every single time, when, on returning home from a trip, our plane touches down, I breathe, and claim NEVER AGAIN! Of course, there’s always an Again, as was the case here, when we traveled to London. So, how was it?

Must admit, it was pretty wonderful. Yes, exhausting, nerve wracking, but. The first surprise was the appearance of Jan, our exchange student from back in the day. (Pronounced “yawn” but that noun in no way applies to our Jan.) He’d “hopped over” from Dusseldorf where he lives with his family, to wish Larry a happy birthday. Wow. Really sweet. He’s a lovely man, taking time for us before a quick trip to India on business.

Next morning, we made the trip to Alli’s new student apartment in West Hampstead. The place was busy with student move-in, and we could check out Alli’s new people. She had hauled a year’s living across, which now needed to be settled into her new space. On the eighth floor. And the elevator was out of order. I know. Good to be young, right?

Here’s Alli at home, and also a shot of Jan:

We spent the next days with Jenny and Alli, putting thousands of steps on our Apple watches, and then the girls left for Paris, and Jan’s parents, Ursel and Epi arrived to pick up the slack.

OMG. The Schefflers are urban folk, unlike us, simple country people, and we saw London in all its crazy, people-intense, noise, history, richness. The Germans wanted to travel everywhere by underground, but I was firm in my psycho dislike of that MO. Instead, we got tix on a Hop-on, Hop-of bus, and that was actually great fun. Included in the program was a boat trip up the Thames. I don’t have photos of this part of the trip, but will just tell you that we saw As You Like It, performed at Shakespeare’s Globe theater. Pretty memorable, especially when we needed to get an Uber for a ride home and Ursel discovered that her phone was out of juice, that Larry’s was inoperable, and there was not a single taxi to be seen for us to hail. I didn’t have an app, but somehow my own sweet phone was able to connect us to a ride and we didn’t need to walk the 6 miles back to the hotel.

All things coming to an end, we left for home on Thursday. A nine-plus hour flight and we touched down in Seattle (NEVER AGAIN I said). And looked out at a thousand-plus mass of people trying to thread through 3 or 4 Pass Control stations. BTW, did you know there’s an app for pass control? Larry made a stab at working it, got the error message, but the sympathy of the line control person was somehow engaged and we were shunted over to a station and then through and out into the evening light.

Ah. A five-hour trip down I-5 and we’re there. Except, no. Got stalled in a one-lane construction zone, which took an hour and a half to thread.

Home, fell into bed, and woke up on London time. Stumbled through the day unloading, laundry, surveying the plants which had died from lack of water in the hot spell, and found . . . little tension in the plot line here . . . that one of our remaining chickens was missing. Feathers strewn about, with Gracie wandering about sadly clucking. I’m not sure her clucking was from unhappiness, but still. So, Trouble and Sorrow aptly named.

We’ve checked the web for replacement chickens, but it was Saturday and nothing was open. We’ll have to find some replacements, maybe on Monday. Then to bed again, hoping for a full night’s sleep. Ooops. No water.

As we speak, Larry is out searching for baskets into which to load our crop of lovely apples, now dropping from the trees. We also have a crop of prunes, pears, and plums, so the next few days are mandated for me. Which is okay, because Larry and the boys of the family are off for a golf excursion at Bandon Dunes, leaving me at home in perfect quiet to process not just the fruit, but the last week of London. And travel. Honestly, really, Never Again?

She’s the one who kept trying to escape? The little Speckled Sussex whose wings we’d had to clip? Yes, that one. Yesterday she flew the coop for good. This had been some days coming, and we had determined that we wouldn’t take her in to the vet, as one of the possible explanations for her torpor was that she had simply gone broody. Wanting to hatch her little family.

But no, she was definitely dead yesterday morning, and then came the hard part. Influenced by a book we’d been reading, Wilding, The Return of Nature to a British Farm, we wondered what would the most natural, reasonable way to deal with a deceased chicken? (NO! We couldn’t fry her for dinner.) We could put the body out into the pasture land and wait for an eagle, or more probably, a turkey vulture, to dispose of her remains. Wait. We don’t know cause of death. Maybe some sort of avian flu? Can’t risk spreading some unknown bird virus throughout the valley.

Just put her in a plastic bag and add her to the garbage pick-up on Thursday? No, don’t want to add plastic to the landfill. So a brown paper bag became her shroud and she’s on her way to her final resting place.

It does look a little thin out there in coop with just the two-bird flock, and when we return from England, we’ll see about a replacement.

Today we’re shrouded ourselves in the smoke from a couple of fires, the Lookout east of Eugene the most probable cause. This is along the Mackenzie River on the highway to Black Butte. With temperatures in the 100s the last couple of days, it has felt inevitable. So being outside isn’t an option, and what farm chores remain will just have to wait.

Okay, it isn’t all bad news! Last week, all our cows were moved to their winter pastures or barns. I think I mentioned the moo-ing last post, which had become a little challenging, and we’re glad they’re off to greener pastures. Not a euphemism! Really!

And we were treated to a bagpipe concert down in the oak grove behind the barn. Neighbor Terri had met a gentleman, newly moved to Philomath from Oahu, and somehow she had taken him with her when she walked her dogs over on the west pasture. He thought the grove would be a perfect place to play the pipes, and Terri set it up.

A bagpipe concert is a little hard to describe. You can’t really be sure what song you may be hearing, although Danny Boy did come through. But this Dan was dressed in his clan kilt, looked the part for sure, and we sat on our lawn chairs, drank lemonade, and enjoyed the somewhat rare event.

Peter, Andrew and Charlie flew into town for a short trip to Black Butte. We played golf, and learned that Andrew has a highly developed style of putting ambidextrously. This was good for alot of laughs. How does he do that? Good food, good stories, good to see them.

Larry got his first bee sting this morning. We had not realized how complex this bee keeping is, including the massive amounts of sugar water to be boiled and provided to our darlings. There are two types of bees, the Carnolian and the Italian. No we can’t tell them apart on the fly, but they each have their own hive, their own queen.

Our trip to England? This is mostly a celebration of Larry’s birthday, and the excuse for the event is Alli’s move to a years studying in London. Also an opportunity to meet with our great friends, Ursel and Epi, who will join us for a couple of days. Jenny has been busy making reservations for lunches, dinners, shopping, walks, etc. It’s nice to have a tour director as we feel a little overwhelmed with the transition from farm to, gasp, London. What would we wear? What shoes? How hot will it be over there?

Ah, it’s lunch time. I’ve been watching the clock, and now it’s legal. Larry has just made a new batch of his amazing bread. Wish you were here!

Surprise! Another post already? Right. It’s been an interesting couple of days.

Starting with my morning walk down the road yesterday. Just over the last rise before the gate, there was a calf looking at me. From my side of the fence. Hmm. How’d that happen? It’s momma was mooing furiously at both of us, though I’m not sure this was the actual mother or simply a busy-body from the whole herd.

Okay so I have no idea what to do here. No idea how he got out, and the fence is electric so I’m not about to attempt any return heroics.

I know what you’re thinking. First one of their chickens, now a calf? Yes, but to continue. The concern is amplified because our driveway gate has been stuck open the last few days, and thus Little Calf can get himself down onto Llewellyn and on into the great world.

Of course, I have my phone and immediately call up home to Larry with the news, and he calls Ryan, Cow Guy equally immediately. Who is, fortunately, still at home a couple of miles away, and soon on his way to us. Larry gets the ATV and heads down to help with the rescue.

Naturally, Ryan knows how to herd a wayward calf, and the baby is soon reunited with his mother and the other 50 or so in the herd. Sidebar: the herd, which has been 11 pairs, has been expanded to some much larger number. They have access to all the pastures, so we have no idea how many animals are sharing the 100 acres with us just now.

Ryan has a device which can tell him where the break in the circuit, which enabled the calf to simply slip through the fence, was located. Turns out the problem was up here by the house at an opening we use to get down to the bees. Problem solved, and Ryan was on his way.

And now the story becomes about the bees. But not our bees. A great swarm was blocking the way into our barn. Thousands, Larry says. Seems that in dismantling the hive apparatus, he’d found that some number of frames still had honey in them. They were boxed and left in the barn to await the time when they’d go up to join the hive up under the oak tree. But those marauding thousands had found this easy source of energy and were robbing the honey. That’s what it’s called. You honestly would not attempt to enter the barn or get within 10 feet of it. (Btw, I had to look up how to spell marauding — now you don’t have to.)

Fortunately, there’s a man at the neighborhood garden shop that could give advice, and the shop was open on Sunday. Larry had to suit up, plunge in, lift the trays out of the frames and shake the non-local bees off. Apparently this wasn’t too impossible, and seems to have worked. At least, we now have custody of our barn again.

Later that afternoon, Larry decided to pick berries and bring them in:

Found an onion, as well, you’ll notice. These raspberries joined a supply already in the kitchen and out in the freezer. I found a site on line promising recipes for 50 things to make with raspberries, starting with custard-filled chocolate eclairs. Well yes, that would use few berries, plus 4 eggs and a cup of chocolate chips. Delicious, I sure, but it seemed the only realistic thing to do here on Planet Earth was make jam:

Done. First batch. I’ll see what the site has to offer for the second thing to make with raspberries. Maybe tomorrow.

We’d decided we’d go out to lunch today, trying out The Brass Monkey, which had been closed the first time we’d attempted to learn a bit about our city and what it has to offer. It’s down on 1st, and wow, lunch time on Monday? Packed.

Here it is:

It was fun, good sandwiches, but didn’t feel like our place to settle in. Will keep looking. In a long conversation while waiting for our lunch, we had the thought that, in this post-pandemic, peculiar gender-confusing/confused era, no-one knows who he/she/they is, or is supposed to be. Thus has to invent himself (forgive un-sensitive use of pronoun) from scratch. Actually from birth on. Nobody to tell you you’re one thing or another. Up to you. Hence the girl with her face tatooed (maybe a girl)(person with a vagina?) Is this a good thing? Is everyone up to inventing himself? A tough job.

This is just for fun. You get to guess. How much money is in this mixed-nut jar? It weighs 10+ pounds. We stopped at the bank to get coin sleeves, and have begun the job of stacking the coins in the little paper envelopes. This will take a while.

I’ll let you know next time.

But first, a little P.S. Those picturesque hay bales from last time?

Ooops:

But yes, summer is here. First job today was to clean house after the little family of sparrows who chose to build a nest and raise their children on the roll of screening tucked under the eaves of the north porch. We watched them fledge and learn to fly. We counted four in the nest, but six eventually flew away, and we felt quite proud of them. Except, um, the mess?

Second on the list was to cull the developing apples from the 5 trees in the orchard. This should give you the idea:

I think I’m showing you the honey crisps, but the wheelbarrow is holding the excess from 3 trees that we had energy to thin this morning. It feels completely wrong to be picking those beauties, but the trees are too young to support a huge crop. Plus, I mean, I’m going to have to peel, core, slice and freeze the ones we can’t eat out of hand. Unless you want to come and pick some for your family? Which, yes, do, come on down. We’ll let you know when they’re ripe.

Okay, big mistake. I should have started this post by telling you about our triumph, dept. of chickens. So you know about this one Speckled Sussex who had become a little escape artist.

We thought we had 3 options. Off with her head, but neither of us could be the hatchet man. Take her to the vet and risk mortification at the spectacle of two cute old people bringing in their pet chicken for a clip and trim. Or, 3, put an ad in the Neighborhood News for a peripatetic chicken who only occasionally lays an egg. If you’re wondering why we couldn’t just let her be out, it’s because she doesn’t seem to be able to get herself back in at night. That would be cruel.

So, boot up You Tube. You can learn anything there, including how to clip your chicken’s wings. Here’s how that worked. We got her into a corner by handing out dried worms. Larry picked her up and, following the guidelines, spread out her wing. I clipped the flight feathers with my sewing scissors (the only sharp-enough ones we could find), and after flapping about in Larry’s unexpecting arms, she set about her business of unearthing bugs, unaware, we assume, that she’s no longer free to wander. (Where was my phone when I needed the camera?) Btw, one need clip only one wing; chickens can’t fly lopsided.

So far, three days later, she’s still confined to quarters. Excellent!

But I was discussing today’s chores. We had enlisted Mitch to build us some planter boxes for the north porch. He did, but the painter, his brother-in-law, never showed up (this happens in the country some times), so Larry undertook to finish the job.

Now this evening, he’s been at work filling the boxes with wood chips to be a base for the geraniums and etc. which we’d purchased earlier.

And the almost finished product:

They need a few more chips to raise the flowers, but that’s tomorrow’s job. Pretty, huh? Thanks, Mitch! And Larry!! Next year, Larry suggests an herb garden as well as flowers. Darn fine idea. Right?

Finale: Larry is out mowing the orchard, while I write this blog. Guess I got the long end of that stick . . . wait. Which end is the good end? The long one, right? Anyway, while he’ll be exhausted and will shower and fall into bed by 8 o’clock, I’ll just be a little weary. That’s what I get, weary. Not exhausted. And tomorrow is Sunday. The day of rest.

Sleep tight!

You can’t stay inside on a day like this! Highest pollen count in decades for Corvallis? Grass seed? Yes, but, my allergies?

I thought I’d left my hay fever behind when we moved from Minnesota and its ragweed. And then came the great wave of hazelnut (filbert, to some of you) planting in our valley. Corvallis, the Grass Seed capital of the world now has a second claim to allergy-generation fame.

But instead of sneezing and coughing, I get hives. Yes. Red, blotchy, itchy hives. I call my beloved Dr. Jen, and she suggests something called Zyrtec. Comes with all kinds of warnings, but hey. If it works? It doesn’t.

I see a product advertized. Allegra Hives. Yes! Specifically for hives. It doesn’t work. Not to feel too sorry for myself, but have you ever itched so fiercely that you can’t even try to sleep? All night? You can try Eucerin, but over your entire body? What would that do to the sheets?

I call Dr. Jen again and she recommends Xyzal. (A ridiculous name — how would you even pronounce it to the pharmacist when you call?) “24 HR ALLERGY” Take it, Dr. Jen says, with Pepcid AC. Today, I’m holding my breath because the hives, while still there, DON’T ITCH. I went outside in celebration, into the wind, the pollen be damned.

Okay, that behind us, let’s get on with the blog. Ryan, cow guy, has been busy. The west-most pasture had been planted in early spring to fescue, but to lie fallow this year. I like that word: fallow.

Then last week, came the thresher crawling over the field. I don’t have a photo of this stage, so use your imagination. Because next came the rake to gather the grass into windrows. Another word I like. Windrows. And this time, I have a photo:

And finally:

The bales will be stacked, then loaded onto a truck, and stored in one of Ryan’s barns. Next year, the plan is to plant sweet peas in this field, a legume meant to fix nitrogen, but which look and smell gorgeous as a bonus.

How are the bees doing? It’s a little hard to tell, but Allen came over to assist in settling the creatures into their new habitat. Here’s what that looked like:

We think they’re doing well. Apparently they have to be fed at first, before they set out to gather nectar and — pollen! For energy, the nectar, and for protein, the pollen. Who knew we’d have so much free protein for them?

Allen brought his family with him, and here are his two little girls making friends with the chickens:

It’s true that the chickens haven’t managed to enjoy the swing Larry made for them, but little girls know what to do with one:

We’re just back from a Nature Conservancy trip to visit Sycan Marsh, and learn about the fire management programs they’re implementing there. Their before and after photos are compelling, and the personnel are passionate and smart. The marsh is a mile-high meadow, and, speaking of words, I asked one of the staff the definition of another of my favorites, “fen.” What’s a fen?

Although both bogs and fens are similar types of wetlands as they are both considered peatlands, what sets them apart from each other is the source of their water supply. Fens typically are fed by a steady source of ground water whereas bogs are usually enclosed depressions filled by rain water.

Larry is standing at the sink, preparing to create one of his specialities for dinner, Szechuan Sweet and Sour spare ribs, when he says Hey! Look out the window!

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Not sure why this photo came up super-sized, but it seems an appropriate ending to this afternoon’s blog. Wish you were coming for dinner — it’ll be delicious!