Frost visited us a week or so back finishing off the fair weather plants.  Broccoli continues to stand its ground (as well as refusing to bloom so we can harvest it)  I’ve planted some endive and lettuce, kale and planted one of my fig trees.  Leaves are being raked and added to next years garden site for mulch and I am browsing the ads for some good soil to add to that.  Rains and winds have turned the backyard and pastures into the soggy and littered grounds of fall.  The plants naturally adding mulch to their surrounding soil as the energy drains down the stalks and trunks to sleep under ground in it’s tangled web of root mass.

Cold rain falling through the autumn sun

The cooler weather means that we rise each morning to start a fire and stoke it through out the day to keep our noses from turning rosey in doors and our limbs pliable and warm.  The warmth from wood fire sinks through flesh and settles in your blood, so that we are warmed to the core.  So different than the superficial warmth of furnaces and central heat.  However, the air tends to be drier despite my best efforts to keep pots of water boiling atop the stove.  My nose has always been sensitive to the changing weather and elements and nose bleeds have been a part of my history as far back as I can remember.  The other evening while having friends over for knitting and wine, the dam burst and I looked like I’d been in a boxing match.  The metallic taste of blood filled my throat and I soon felt light headed as I squeezed the bridge of my nose over the sink.  And yes, I’ve tried ice and leaning my head back, sticking my head between my legs, pressing the artery above my 2 front teeth, hopping on one leg and patting my head (I doubt that would really work) and it usually just takes time.  But I didn’t want this bleed to take an hour to end, I had company to entertain.  So I sent Seth to my essential oil reference book and asked for a remedy.  Helichrysum on the bridge of my nose.  Within 5 minutes the bleeding slowed and stopped.

That will be my go to remedy from here on out!  If you’re interested in essential oils and using them in everyday remedies, leave me a comment and I can get more info to you.

Thor, Bertha and Dog

Hallows Eve has past as well, and with it the gatherings and costume wearing.  Seth and I (using things we had lying around) became vikings… or barbarians, or dirty hill people, or as one grocery store clerk asked, Occupy Portlanders.  I was happy to reveal my newest knit as part of my costume, the Woodland Hoodlet by Stephanie Dosen of Tiny Owl knits.  Her patterns are a delight to follow and never boring.  I made quick work of this one with super chunky wool and size 15 needles.  It was completed within 4 days!  I highly recommend it.

And lastly, for my update.  We have become a 1 car family.  My beloved volvo came down with water pump failure and we just couldn’t afford to fix her back up.  So off she went to a knew and loving home and I face the challenge (willfully!) to be a ‘more’ stay at home mom.  I am hopeful that we will be saving more money in gas, insurance, repairs and also…. spending on frivolous outings.  I have a tendency to buy coffee and goodies, clothes and household items almost every time I leave the home.  Not to mention chickens, plants and yarn.  Now I just need to get my online shopping habit under control, cause who DOESN’T love getting packages delivered right to their doorstep

So good bye faithful Gertrude.  Thanks for your service to our family!

Is it awful that I’m already wringing my hands with anticipating of our next vehicle purchase?  VW bus?  Old Land Cruiser? Truck?  BAD!  BAD! Lacey!  You’re saving money right now, remember!!??

Oh thats right.

And on that note, my efforts turn to the winter garden and putting up more hot wire to keep in that abominable white dog in our backyard whom I found yesterday eating roadkill across our busy street.  Ugh.

To those that inquired about chicken harvesting, here are my thoughts on the process.  It isn’t fun.  I hope I never enjoy taking the life of an animal.  I had a sick feeling in the depths of my stomach all night and could hardly force a smile during conversation.  I didn’t even like the chicken, he was a mean little snip that ripped the feathers out of my hens and seemed to enjoy the torment.

But it was still hard.  I will do it again, and probably again and again, each time feeling more natural, but probably never ‘good’.  In a twisted way, thats how I want it to be.  In the same way I want to know what it takes to seed, transplant, water, mulch and harvest broccoli and kale, I want to know all that goes into raising and butchering my chickens.  When I see the spread on my table, I want it to go beyond calories that sustain me.  I want it to be a cycle that I am deeply involved in.  My heart will swell with pride and my eyes will know the story behind everything in the meal.  I will feel the energy of my land nourishing me.

As a few have asked, they didn’t understand the need to snap the neck of the chicken after bleeding it (as per the video I linked a few posts down).  I don’t quite know *why* the woman does that step, and I agree with Bettina that if you were indeed using every part of the animal you would want to at least keep the head intact or set aside for cooking.  I wish I could get past the thought of having a chicken head in my stock pot, but I’m not there yet.  So for now I will also be removing the head of my chickens at butchering.  Whether I choose to snap it clean off at the beginning, I’m not sure, but I do see the appeal in removing the portion of the body that seems to contain most of the soul of a living creature.

The finished product of my first butchering still sits in the freezer.  I cant quite decide when and for what purpose I will use it.  Opi was a silkie chicken, which are not good eating.  As a matter of fact I think he weighed in at a whole 2 lbs, with purple skin and meat and claws on the ends of his wings like a prehistoric bird.  I’m not kidding you.  Silkies have dark purple skin and flesh and I was equally as surprised to discover the claw on the hinge of his wing.  What a weird bird.  And so he will sit in my freezer.  Perhaps to be added to another chicken carcass for stock in the near future.  But whatever the case, it wasn’t a waste as he was a good bird to practice the art of butchering and gutting, plucking and packing away.  Your death was not in vain, you scrappy bird.

When I was young, weekends with my family were often spent picking up wheelbarrows full of rocks and shoveling manure, building fence and cleaning water tubs for our horses.  My parents would turn up country music and open the garage wide to let the music blare from the tiny boom box on the work bench.  My dad would work till sweat poured down his back and forehead and my mother would have dirt smeared across her cheek.  They would smile, out of breath and so happy.

As a child, I didn’t always LOVE being forced to spend my weekend doing dirty chores, but I found alot of comfort in those days and I came to know productive weekends as our bonding time.  We laughed and sang heartily to Garth Brooks and Dolly Parton.  We ate homemade cookies and drank big glasses of milk on the back porch and played with the dog, took turns riding the horses and mended fences.  We would fall in to bed those nights exhausted and smelling like outside.

Since having my own family, I crave those days.  I love the feeling of busy-ness and light hearted banter as things are fixed and created, mended and built.

Seth’s childhood memories are of game nights and parks, gatherings of friends around a fire and group outings.  They spent many evenings gathered around the table laughing, talking and enjoying each others company. His desire is to bring those fond memories into our family rhythm.

I’m sure you see the conflict here.

Work and Play.

Productive and Relational.

Sweat and Conversation.

This has been a source of tug of war and newly it has become a see saw.  We are learning to push and pull less and instead, how to give and take more.

A little bit of you, a little bit of me.

He builds me shelves and chicken coops, I spend Sunday relaxing with the family.  He sweeps the chimney, I make his favorite meal and we build forts out of cushions to play ‘pirates’ with the boys.

Rigging up a chimney sweep with chain, my kettle bell and a sweep brush

I’m confident that our opposites can be a source of growth for the other.  I will learn to be more relational and relaxed, and he is learning the joy of dirty hands and sweaty shirts.

This weekend we butchered a chicken (I plucked and gutted it myself!!!), soap and soup were made, I cut a wine barrel to use as a planter, the chicken coop was cleaned and bedded with fresh straw, the fence was reinforced (we have a dog with long legs and a good high leap!), the chimney swept, and Calebs sweater was finished.

Rosemary, Lavender, Calendula, Oregon Grape Root and Evening Primrose Seed soap!

Planter ready for a fig tree

Thanks Opi for your nourishing (but very tiny) little chicken body!

Jump that, Freyja!

Cozy and clean. No mites and nasties in here!

Little man sweater for my sweet 5 year old

What a handsome lad

We also enjoyed the company of friends and family, and spent an afternoon getting pictures taken and playing pirates in the aformentioned fort.

However, I’m still getting used to taking photos of these sorts of events

And I wouldn’t say it was a little bit of me, and a little bit of Seth’s ideal,  I would say it was our ideal weekend.

Living on the land on our little Farmette, means that I do google searches like ‘ How to sweep your own chimney’, ‘How to grow and cure tobacco’, and today’s special leads me to having watched this video approximately 245,698 times.  Actually it’s only been like 4 times, but I feel a bit sadistic intently viewing the butchering of a chicken over and over again.

***If you’re sensitive to blood and the gentle ushering of death upon an animal, don’t watch!****

Gentle Chicken Harvesting

There’s a second video linked to the first, if you’re interested.  I really appreciate this approach to animal harvesting.  A transfer of energy but in a sensitive and humane way.

Cause that’s what we’re doing today.  Wish us luck.  As my dear friend noted, we live a very odd life.  Chimney sweeping, chicken killing, oh and we have family pictures on the farm today as well.  Like a day time original movie with really bad actors.

It’s a weird life but I really love it.

Sometimes a child’s science project can be more convincing than all the written reports in the world.

**Also, Vicki!  Yes!  That is a Berkey (in a pic a few posts back) and we LOVE ours!  No more fluoride, arsenic or other harsh metals in OUR water!**