Category: chicky-wicky

Snowstorm chitchat (plus images).

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Today I bought blood oranges. Like the ones below painted by Emily Proud, an artist I discovered through another artist, Lisa Congdon. I don’t know either of them personally but maybe someday they’ll come over to the farm and eat citrus with me.

 

bloodoranges_EmilyProud_72dpi

 

I bought them in preparation for The Storm. I also bought bacon, of course. And, as usual, kale. Also milk. And a knobby three-knuckle piece of fresh ginger.

Meanwhile, down at the coop, the chickens are all, “Where is the grass? Why can’t I have it? Why aren’t babies coming out of these eggs I’m sitting on? I’m cold!” They’re huddled on their roosts underneath their red-bulbed headlamps as I write this. If I make a ruckus the rooster Claude will crow & crow until he lets me know that he heard me do it. Having a rooster really gets one thinking about the term “cocky.” That dude walks around like he’s the king of something awesome. Because he is, I guess.

 

wickies roosting

 

 

Best Hannukah present ever (poemthing; photos)!

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OUR CHICKENS LAID THEIR FIRST EGGS

 

There needs to be something MORE

than capital letters to convey my joy. I swear

I feel like my best friend just had a child.

I feel like I just won golden admittance

to Charlie’s Chocolate Factory. Our little

chickies, getting sexy, making chickies!

For breakfast tomorrow: eggs on toast

and sauteed shiitakes, all of which

we’ve grown ourselves, oh heavens.

 

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(that’s a Brazilian bean soup in the process on the stove)

 

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Life at Littleleaf (photos of a new home).

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We’ve named our homestead Littleleaf, come visit. Raspberries grow through the chilly autumn nights.

 

 

 

We bought chickens from a man named Dan; we haven’t named them yet. I visit them every day and hold each one for a couple of minutes. They don’t love me yet, but soon.

 

 

 

Last Sunday, we celebrated. We bought our first farm animals, and before that, we planted the greenhouse full of food. I harvested all the cherry tomatoes, which are still coming.

 

 

 

Homestead in the background, man in the foreground.

 

 

 

The day was warm. We inspected tools in the barn. Well, Misha did.

 

 

 

The sun sets earlier every day. The trees are the color of our chickens.

 

***

 

All photos by Misha. See more.

Things that are small & grown in Imperial Beach (the series continues).

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Sometimes a day involves burying dead chickens and stripping lemon verbena for tea. Sometimes that day also brings the tiniest of tiny carrots into your life. For me, that day was Wednesday. I was harvesting carrots for lunch with Misha and pulled out a handful, including the tiniest of tinies!

 

 

Here’s a shot of the smallest four, which I brought home (the others were eaten in a salad).

 

 

Then, on Thursday, I planted melons and lettuce and stacked onions for drying. And found a small onion for this project.

 

 

Then, while looking through photos, I found this one that Misha took last summer, where my face is big and shiny and strange looking. But look what I’m holding!

 

 

Onions & tomatoes come from Suzie’s Farm; the carrots are from Wild Willow.

 

Stay tuned for more tiny tinies!!

 

 

Monday night flight (video, photograph, poem).

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Sometimes my life is hip(ster)/I love you Heather/I’ll (we’ll) miss you Heather

And off we go to the east…

 

August 1, 2011

 

We eat cheese we drink

rosé, eat salad (eat olives),

finish off some soup, sort

through plums & nectarines,

flip the laundry, pack jars

for presents and the house

is hot as fired bread. There’s

a pile of my paper booklets

standing in an fruitcrate

on the shelf and everyone

will get one. And anyone

who wants will know I’m

home. And friends we farm

or farmed with might miss

our little yard. I’ve packed

my new red shoes and we’ll

eat peaches on the plane.

The neighbor with the high

white socks will grumble

at our incorrectly-plated car,

the banana plant will grow

another, stronger leaf and

the chickens left last night.

The house is vacuumed,

mopped, and marveled at;

we’ll be flying through the night.

Tuesday Update.

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Misha shaved all his hair off and we got a new chicken. Her name is Vicky. Vicky Christina Chicky-Wicky. V’Nilla and Vicky: the sideporch chicky-sissies. Is that a good name for a movie or for nothing at all?

In other news, I held two baby goats this week and they melted into my arms like butter. I also finished “Bossypants,” (by Tina Fet duh), sewed Misha’s robe, and watched the spectators of the pride parade like a granny, in a plastic chair on the corner of the sidewalk, with my other granny friends. (“Look at that lady! SO much purple! AND HER BUTT IS OUT! YEAH!!!”) Afterwards we made hot sauce. On Sunday, at the farmer’s market, I wore a mustache for three hours. I highly recommend this experience. So many jokes.

 

And last night I found this poem again. Swoon.

To the Harbormaster by Frank O’Hara

I wanted to be sure to reach you;
though my ship was on the way it got caught
in some moorings. I am always tying up
and then deciding to depart. In storms and
at sunset, with the metallic coils of the tide
around my fathomless arms, I am unable
to understand the forms of my vanity
or I am hard alee with my Polish rudder
in my hand and the sun sinking. To
you I offer my hull and the tattered cordage
of my will. The terrible channels where
the wind drives me against the brown lips
of the reeds are not all behind me. Yet
I trust the sanity of my vessel; and
if it sinks, it may well be in answer
to the reasoning of the eternal voices,
the waves which have kept me from reaching you.