The Local Garden Shop Has a Cat Named Basil…

Tags

garden, herbs

And my garden also finally has a plant (or three) named basil! Yes, folks, it took me until almost the end of May, but I finally got around to acquiring our herbs for the summer. It’s totally ridiculous and a little embarrassing how long it has taken me to get herbs this year, given how much I love them.

Seriously, the inner workings of this household are greased with pesto, infused vodka, fresh herb simple syrups, and dried herbs to last me the whole winter. Or at least the kitchen parts are, I suppose.

To be fair, I was busy shoveling compost and dirt piles into our newest raised bed that Chris built over the weekend and planting 25 pepper plants and 8 squash plants this weekend. It has been a struggle finding space for any other plants. But anyway…

Just to keep track, this year we have the following herbs in the ground now:

• Sweet basil
• Purple basil
• Grapefruit mint
• Pineapple sage
• Curry
• Bee balm
• Chives
• Greek oregano
• German thyme
• Lemon balm

And I Thought My Bike Upgrades Were an Awesome Early Birthday Present!

Tags

eggs, enagement, life, space-farm continuum

Hey, guess what, everybody? No, really, guess! You’ll never guess…

Are you ready for this? Brace yourselves… as of last night at roughly 6:03 pm (not that I was really thinking about the time or anything), CHRIS AND I ARE ENGAGED!!!

Here’s the abridged story: yesterday, Chris got home from work, and I was drinking a beer in honor of my birthday eve. Normal night, right? He went outside, and I saw he was checking out his hop trellis. I also realized I forgot to get the chicken eggs.

I charged out the back door in my wellies, and he called out, “There’s a really strange egg in there.” I was thinking he meant there was some horribly misshapen, nasty thing in the nesting box, and he left it there for me to check it out. Instead, I saw this:

It didn’t hit me what was going on. So I opened it:

And there was a ring! I think the conversation that ensued went something like this: “This is a ring.” “Yes.” “Are you asking me to marry you?” “Yes.” And then we hugged and kissed a lot, and I forgot to say yes for a while, and I was all smiley and kind of shaky. And then I was like, “You didn’t really ask me!” And he asked, and THEN I remembered to say yes.

So, hey, we’re totally engaged! Then we called our respective parents, ordered a fancy pizza, drank fancy beer, and generally had an awesome night.

We’re going to go get it resized this morning, because I want to wear it now! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

THE END!

Merry Birthday Eve to All, and to All a Good Night!

Tags

birthday, garden, landscaping, lettuce, weekend

Hey, y’all, it’s my birthday eve! My MO for birthdays is to get the heck out of town. Most of the drive for that is because I *hate* my birthday. I hate the planning, the party, the fear that NO ONE WILL SHOW, etc. Even if by “party,” I mean, “meeting people for drinks.” I’d just rather avoid the entire situation and all the uncomfortable, unwanted attention by hopping on a plane to Barcelona or jumping in a car bound for the whiskey distilleries of Kentucky.

So like I said: I normally loathe my birthday, but this year I’m weirdly excited about it. My co-worker asked me if I had anything fun planned, and when I listed out my plan (which I am very excited about and think sounds like the MOST fun), I realized how super-lame it might sound to others.

The Most Epic Birthday Plan of All Plans:

• Morning bike ride with Chris down a new-to-us trail
• Build a garden bed and plant my peppers, squash, and last tomato plants
• Hopefully drink a delicious bevvie in the sunshine somewhere
• Prezzies? Maybe I’ll get prezzies!
• And maybe go see the new Star Trek movie. Or not! You know why? Because it’s MY BIRTHDAY, and I DO WHAT I WANT!

Whatever. This weekend, I march to the beat of my own lame birthday drum.

I got my early birthday present from Chris a few days ago (because, really, you can’t take my bike away from me for very long): bike upgrades out the yin-yang, as well as a much-needed tune-up. It feels like I’m riding a new bike, and I love it.

“Hey, girl, get out of the way so I can take a closer look at that SEXY BIKE, will ya?”

In other news, the garden continues to grow. We have a bit of a lettuce problem…

And a slug problem…

And sweet potatoes that need to get in the ground… Remember that time I worried that they wouldn’t sprout? Yeah…

And front landscaping that I hope will turn into an edible wonderland of chard, beets, kale, and cabbage.

Merry Birthday Eve to me! 33 was mostly pretty darn charmed, all things considered. 34 will be another good year, I think.

Babies on the Brain…

Tags

babies, Birdie, family, opossum, rabbit, trips

And in the yard and in the house and on the fence and on and on and on…

My co-worker today told me that, during the 17-year cicada cycle, there is a huge growth in baby animal populations. I don’t have any better explanation for the insane number of baby animals we have found in the yard lately, so I’m going with it.

First, we discovered the cutest baby bunnies I HAVE EVER SEEN (turned out to be at least five) hiding out in our garlic beds. This little muffin and its siblings were about the size of tennis balls (in other words, TIIIIINY).

Then, as Chris was leaving for work this morning, he discovered this magical, mythical beast just hanging out, covered in babies, on our fence.

I mean, like, SERIOUSLY?! Are you KIDDING ME?!!!

As long as we’re on the subject of babies, I would be totally remiss if I didn’t mention two of my favorite wee babes, who we got to see this past weekend: my beautiful nephews.

Zachary, age one.

Ben, age almost-four.

And finally, there’s MY baby, Birdie, who has injured herself yet again. It breaks my heart. She managed to rip a nail completely in half in a dishwasher-related freakout last night, leading to a restless night that culminated in me dragging a blanket and pillow out to the rug in the living room at 5:00 this morning and petting her until she stopped whining and fell asleep beside me. My poor, sweet girl.

NO CHEW! NO CHEW!

Little Red, Big World…

Tags

Birdie, chickens, Little Red, video

Chickens running is definitely up there on the list of simple things that can make me ridiculously happy no matter what the weather, my personal circumstances, or what bad news I might have received.

Thus begins my NEW EPIC VIDEO QUEST – the quest to get what I believe is the epitome of the chicken run, the Little Red run, captured on video. I’m not sure how well I succeeded tonight, but the chickens do come when called more reliably than Birdie does.

Speaking of Little Red, she laid a mutant egg today:

While I was out playing with the chickens, Birdie, feeling left out and alone in the house, attempted to guess my password so she could have a YouTube chicken video marathon of her own.

(She didn’t guess it).

Hens are Supposed to be Quiet, Right?

Tags

Boo, chickens, eggs, Leghorn

Our hens are pretty quiet overall, but our leghorn makes a tremendous amount of noise after laying an egg. It’s loud enough that we can hear it from inside the house. I’m not sure if this is a breed or individual characteristic. Are any of your hens noisier than others?

I finally managed to capture her on video. So here’s Boo, singing loudly after laying.  Switch to 720p HD for best quality.

Pics or It Didn’t Happen…

Tags

chickens, garden, hops, space-farm continuum, weekend

The current state of affairs around these parts:

I planted some more tomatoes – post-planting garden hands.

Lettuce cam!

What 97 growing garlic cloves look like (I know… I counted).

Overwintered strawberries.

Finishing up the hop trellis.

Birdie and the birds.

My littlest Little Red.

Glad for overcast skies and cool temperatures: flannel shirt weather.

Free Kindle Book on Amazon Today – Backyard Chickens for Beginners

Tags

Amazon, books, chickens, Kindle

Amazon is offering a free e-booklet on backyard chickens today. If you don’t have  a Kindle you can read it via the Kindle Cloud Reader.

Backyard Chickens for Beginners: Getting the Best Chickens, Choosing Coops, Feeding and Care, and Beating City Chicken Laws (36-page Booklet) by R. J. Ruppenthal

Backyard Chickens for Beginners: Getting the Best Chickens, Choosing Coops, Feeding and Care, and Beating City Chicken Laws (36-page Booklet)

Rotational Grazing, Space-Farm Style…

Tags

Birdie, chickens, how we do, Joel Salatin, poop, rotational grazing, space-farm continuum

Here on our little postage stamp of land, we practice our own version of rotational grazing. It goes something like this:

• First, you let the chickens loose. They eat lots of weedy grass and worms and hay and, sometimes, the perennials just starting  to come back from a long winter.
• The chickens poop. Everywhere. Seriously, I keep walking into the backyard barefoot, and I don’t know what my problem is. Landmines, I tell you. LANDMINES.
• Then, you let Birdie the dog loose. Birdie eats the taller grasses, as well as the poops. We call them “lawn snacks.” Then Birdie poops.
• And… repeat the above process.

Eat your heart out, Joel Salatin!

It’s May! … and Everything’s Coming Up Christie

Tags

family, friends, Growing Places Indy, hops, trips, visits

I am in love with this month, and it’s still only the first day. Why, you ask? Here’s a small sampling of what we’ve got going on in the next 30 days:

• My nephew Zachary’s first birthday on 5/4 and my brother’s birthday the next day.

The goober last summer, only about 8 weeks old.

Brian and Sarah at this teahouse we hiked to up in the mountains years ago, somewhere in Alberta.

• My birthday on May 18, oh yeah!

• A fantastic homebrewing festival this weekend, Big Brew 2013 at Great Fermentations just down the street from our house, featuring classes on cheesemaking and wild yeast cultures/sour beers, followed up by a cookout at a friend’s house (I’m bringing deviled eggs, of course!).
• A tour of Fruit Loop Acres, which is a truly awesome urban endeavor by two pretty awesome people, from what I hear, this Sunday.
• Mother’s Day and a visit to my parents’ place up near Chicago, including a huge family picnic and my brother, sis-in-law, and two nephews visiting from Colorado.

Me and Ben, my almost 4-year-old nephew, who I think is pretty much the coolest.

Me and my amazing, beautiful, wonderful, ridiculously caring mom at Deception Pass in Washington a few years back.

• A visit from three fantastic women to little old Indianapolis - Sarah from San Francisco, Carrie from North Carolina, and Nikki from Toronto are all going to be IN MY HOUSE AT THE SAME TIME! I *almost* literally cannot wait and feel way too lucky. We will eat ice cream at BRICS and brunch at Three Sisters and go to the Indy 500 parade and hit up 100 Acres and the IMA and watch bad television and hang out with the chickens in the backyard and cuddle Birdie and and and… I just can’t wait.

Two of my three girls, on an adventure in 2011 to Asbury Park, NJ, to see Jeff Mangum play his first show in a long while. Best weekend ever.

• AAAAAND… the start of my apprenticeship with Growing Places Indy on 5/28!

The last couple of months have been rough ones. This month, though… this month is going to be the greatest one ever. Sometimes (okay, most of the time), I really love my life.

P.S. Also… Chris is currently prepping our hop trellis. That’s right… We’re also planting our HOPS this month! I’m telling you, “m” is for May and magic.