Local Politics MATTER!!!!!

All the news focuses on the presidential race
and the vice presidential Saturday Night Live fodder,
but they don't make decisions about our local schools
or whether to put a superwalmart next to your house
or whether we protect the local views, the air we breath,
the courts that we might actually go to
and face the judge.

I just spent an hour researching the local elections
prior to voting.

My conclusion...some of the people running for local office
ARE NUTCASES.
For heaven's sake, do some research about the local folks,
so that you can cast a vote for the school board candidate
who was a teacher for 36 years,
rather than the guy who is running
"to protect the rights of childless taxpayers."

Oy. I'm highly suspicious of the fellow who says we should
vote for him because he is "a genius."

Here's what you do.
Use the internet. Look up the local elections
under the Elections 08 section of
your local newspaper's website.

Or...Google the name of the candidate
with the name of the office.

Stuff will pop up.
Interviews,
endorsements,
bizarre testimonies.

Talk to a lawyer you know and trust
and ask who they endorse for judges.

Take the time.
While the president will certainly
impact our future,
so will these local folks
whom we may never see pictured
or quoted
or portrayed in a comedy skit.

But they will sit at a table somewhere
and vote on things
that will change the way
our own small future
rolls forward.

All God's Children Love Ice Cream

When God-daughter Julia was here in August,
we went out for ice cream.
Julia loves the ice cream.


Her little brother, Paul, also thought ice cream looked delightful.
In the picture above, he has just snatched the paper
off of his mother's ice cream cone.
She kept the cone, but both were a bit bemused
by the unsuccessful cone snatch.


In November Paul will be baptized, and I will again have the honor
of being one of the Godmamas.
More ice cream for everyone!

Nature Abhors an Empty Box

I just finished unpacking a box
that has lived under the bed since the year 2000.
It was not empty long.

Now it is a cat wash.

Kids Dig Chickens

And chickens dig chicken scratch snacks.

Late Entry...September 1st Harvest

Chickens and people both dig little tomatoes

All Grown Up

Lucy is scratching her back...it makes her look like her head was assembled backwards...but look at those pretty feathers on their backs!

And more incredible, edible eggs. Yum! Great cooked scrambled with a little red pepper from the garden.

Live From New York

I try to keep the politics off the blog
at least most of the time.

But this was just too good
to not share.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/13/tina-fey-as-sarah-palin-o_n_126249.html

It Happened on Labor Day

At first, the chicken master did not realize what she was seeing.
Then, realization occured.
An egg!
The pretty red chickens have realized their vocational call,
and produced a beautiful, small brown egg.
They pushed the wooden egg aside,
and laid the fruit of their labor
sweetly in the middle of the brood box nest.
My money is on Ethel, since she has the more mature appearance
(and because she lets us pet her, she's my favorite.)
But whomever produced, they are both being showered
with expressions of chicken love.
Grapes, cherry tomato treats, general praise and
chickenly affirmation.
Let the egg production commence!

My Favorite Thing

My favorite thing

I don't get too caught up
in the material things around me.
While I am fascinated with technology
I don't own an IPOD or a flat screen TV.
I don't have lots of channels
on the TV that I do have.

But I bought a piece of newer technology
this week
that is simply THE BOMB.

I bought an Amazon Kindle.

This light-weight device
downloads books electronically
and holds them lightly for easy reading.

With a computer and internet connection,
there are thousands of FREE BOOKS
at your fingertips.

The secret to free books
is that they are frequently old
and beyond their copywrite dates.

I've been reading "Around the World in 80 Days."
I've also downloaded the journals of Lewis and Clarke
and the journals of John Wesley Powell
from his epic journey through the Grand Canyon.

You can download, for free,
all the writings of Shakespeare,
and hold them lightly
in your ten ounce package.

Or, for a few bucks,
you can push a couple buttons on the Kindle
and zap a current best seller
instantaneously into your hand.

No fuss, no muss, no driving, no shipping.

No dead trees, no petroleum based transportation.

This is the most Harry Potterish
thing I've found...

It will deliver The Wall Street Journal
or the New York Times to you daily...
or you can just buy today's edition
and read in comfort with no ink stained fingers.

This thing rocks.

Did I mention the built in dictionary?
With two clicks I can look up unfamiliar words--
handy when your book was written in the 1800's.

Or the link to Wikipedia?

Or the free news links through the internet connection
that you can use almost anywhere
with no wires,
no computer,
just with the Kindle in your hands?

My friend Sparky is writing a book
and emailing me chapters.

I emailed the chapters to a free link
that then emailed them back to me in Kindle format...
so now her book is right there
with the Classics.

I also have the King James Bible...
the Amazon Kindle version with easy
referencing of book and chapter.

Less than four bucks.

So...perhaps I don't love my Kindle as much
as my chickens,
but I am mightily struck
with the way the world has changed
since Jules Verne's characters
traversed the globe in less than three months.

Fresh Tomato for Winter Soups

Office in the Woods

On our "hike" at the Cradle of Forestry
led us to the office of the man
who ran the old Forestry school.
I liked it a lot. One thing I've missed these past six years
is having an office.
At hospice I work primarily out of my car
and occasionally land in an available cubicle
back at headquarters.
But there is something about having
your own space.

Sometimes when I get to wondering
about looking for other work
and other jobs,
I think part of it is that longing
to have my own desk.

The Real Smokey Bear

We attended Smokey Bear's birthday party
last Saturday at the Cradle of Forestry
with goddaughter Julia and family.
Smokey is in his early sixties. Julia is now three and a half.
She wanted to know if this was "the real Smokey Bear."
We said yes.
She thought for a minute, and asked,
"Is it a person in a costume?"
We said yes.
She thought for a minute, and asked again,
"Is it the real Smokey Bear?"
Again, yes.
I could tell that there was cognitive dissonance,
but Julia decided she could live with
this confusing real fake bear....
as long as there was birthday cake.

Drought + Pests = Bountiful Harvest

These are the worst looking beans we've ever grown.
The summer has been EXTREMELY dry,
and those two right hand rows
were decimated by the groundhog.

Our tomato row looks scraggly and limp.

But today I harvested ten pounds of food:

Huge tomatoes, lovely green beans,

bright and tasty yellow pear tomatoes,

and lovely butterstick squash.

We've watered periodically

with rain water collected

in our rain barrels off the garage roof.

The beans and squash have produced steadily

for weeks now.

We've fed ourselves, and had lots to share.

A bad summer gardening

is still a bounty of really good, organic food.

Buddy Check

I was just watching the chickens
free range around the back yard.
They stick close together at all times.
If one strays a few feet away from the other
there comes a moment of realization
and one of the chickens will run
its awkward, funny chicken run
to return to the side of its companion.

It is almost as if they are attached
by an invisible elastic cord
that stretches out slowly
and suddenly snaps them back together.

There is some wing action involved
in the running.

Perhaps I'll capture this on video soon.

I'm reminded of my days
as a camp counselor and life guard.

Every little bit we would do a buddy check.
The swim buddies in the pool
would have to grab each other's hands
and hold it up in the air.

Got to keep track of your buddy.

TV for Cats

Walter and Daisy also love
Free Range Chickens.

Free Range Chickens

We still sleep in the coop at night...

But it sure does a chicken good to stretch her legs.....right, Ethel?

In each group picture, Lucy is to the left and Ethel is to the right.

In the Paper Last Sunday

http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200880705063

Here's a story from the front page of last Sunday's paper, entitled,
"City Residents Seek Relaxed Chicken Rules."

My chickens are so far no trouble at all. We'll move the little coop around the yard to keep the stink factor down. They are much more quiet than a dog--even this afternoon when the neighborhood cat came for a visit and Lucy reacted with repeated loud, "BA-CAHW!!"

Ethel disappeared under the nesting box, but Lucy sent out the alert.
The chicken master (also known as the Assistant Bee Keeper and the Number Two Carpenter) dumped a bucket of water over the cat's head to indicate clearly that visiting the chickens should not become a hobby. The cat seems none the worse for wear, and the BA-CAHW!ing seems to have stopped.

Chicken Pictures

Chicken Video

That's Lucy on the left, and Ethel up on the ramp.

I love them.

They are shy and curious and red and clucky.

They like to eat strawberries, bugs, and clover.

The Coop de Pop

The project is finished. This first picture shows the nesting box.

This is not a chicken. This is the number two carpenter putting in the chicken ramp.

See?

Ta Da! Tomorrow we add two Rhode Island Red chickens. I'm voting for "Lucy and Ethel" for the names. I like the name "Coop de Pop" because Pop was the number one carpenter, and because it sounds vaguely like a revolt in some chicken based culture.