Chick Flicks are the New BH&G

Warning: I am participating in a Hen House Hop and I'm about to tell a story of a crazy old women and the things that fascinate her. If you like chickens, you might like the story.  If not, well, you still might like the story. Here goes...

When our four girls were young I would jokingly tell them that it was time to pick up the house -- just in case Better Homes and Gardens showed up to do a photo-shoot.  My camera-like eyes were always panning the layout to make pretty pictures in our home.  Last year on Mother's Day the girls, now adults, gave me a camera. For the first time in my life I was able to preserve some of the vignettes my eyes were seeing.

Little did I know that the real camera would have an appetite for chick flicks.

Four new girls moved into our backyard.  Their "home" fit nicely into a corner that had recently been renovated to be a wedding backdrop for daughter number three.

At first, the 5x5x8 coop gave them plenty of room to eat, sleep, perch and play.  But as they grew bigger I realized this would not be enough space.  I used an old folding baby playpen to let them have a romp outside the coop. They liked this so much, I decided to make it more permanent and the coop renovation process began.

The love of my life, My Prince, often brings me gifts from landscape-land.  He had recently brought me some flower stalks, cut from several Yucca plants. He knows me well! His gift was better than roses! I sprayed the 4- 6 foot stalks Rustoleum Eden Green and wired them to the playpen. Did I forget to mention that he was not very happy about the chickens coming to live with us?  My Prince wouldn't have anything to do with the birds and their "creepy feet," which left me constructing on my own. The result was a bit shanty-like.

Regardless of  the wabi sabi (beautifully imperfect) nature of my expanding coops and pens, my camera snapped vignettes to share with new friends on Facebook -- friends who understood me. My Chicken Peeps, as I call them, would encourage me to explore and develop this new fascination.

These friends were cheering me on when, one summery day, I went to the feed store and came home with two peeping pullets. Adding these new birds to the flock necessitated a temporary coop, so I "borrowed" what I call the ugly duckling, a rabbit hutch that daughter number one had found on Craig's List.  Of course, it needed a bit of a lift.

So out came the Eden Green paint and the leftover trim from our office renovation, as well as a few other things around the yard. (By the way, she said I can keep it now.)

Miraculously, I came upon some leftover deer fencing when emptying my mother's cabin shed last summer and knew just how it should be re-purposed. (Thanks Mom.)  The new coop went on the other side of a 30 foot span of tall Oleander shrubs, enabling me to create a long run between the two coops with bird netting above the run.  This way, I was able to make more room for the chickens, put up a temporary separation, keep our yard design, and do it myself. (My Prince was still maintaining his distance.)

Meanwhile, here and there, I had been dabbling in little decorative fix-ups. A Facebook friend showed me some curtains she had made for her nest boxes.

On my first attempt at curtains, I used some old kitchen towels and nails.  NOT very BH&G, I know!  I kept at it.  Girls like their privacy, after all!  The leftover gingham check worked well.

Hens also like herbs. When I added herbs to their nest, they started to lay eggs! And that got My Prince to reconsider, especially when my offerings were presented with a touch of class and a wee bit of humor.

Sometimes, okay often,  I had eggs on my mind while working. The camera documented these moments as well. Who wouldn't want to see how big an egg was by comparing it to laptop keys?

As the holidays approached and the temps cooled, my decorating sap began to flow again.  I had to do something to make the coop festive.  I decided to find a stack of kitchen calendars that I had been saving ..well...for just such a moment. One weekend I stooped in the coop, happily decoupaging the walls. The mirror? Oh, that was under my couch. It was warped but too pretty to toss, so up it went in the coop. (You can see I had a little fun photo-editing.) Hens like to look nice too!
That's Coconut, the big, bad bully of the flock, a Rhode Island Red. She eats first, perches first and chomps on her own feathers  -- a habit I am trying to stop by the way.

Meet Banana Chip and Miss Piggy, my sweetest birds; daily layers of the biggest eggs I've ever seen! Here they show their bloomers and their girth, while plucking my favorite blooms. Hey, knock it off!

Meet Happy Feet Peep (or is that Little Bo Peep? I can't tell, but they are both beauties.) Like typical twins, they are never far from each other.

They are Black Australorps, with soft and shining feathers and they like my camera as much as I do.

Here is Lucy Loudmouth, the Delaware that daughter number one bumped from her flock, fearing that Lucy's noisy rants would be unsettling to her neighborhood.  Lucy Loudmouth lays pretty pink eggs, but she is a babbler as she does it. Some girls just like to talk about their projects. Am I right?

Then, there is Dinah, the Red Star.  She is my curious hen. Dinah always has one eye on me and one eye on her mission.  She is a don't-mess-with-me kind of girl who doesn't need to be mean to take prime spots. She has charisma.

I think that she wants to be just like me when she grows up.  I don't have the heart to tell her she's never coming into my house! Though I doubt that would stop her from her dream of moving in.

Do you think these girls know where their food comes from? Or do they want to try on my golden sandals and dance around like little princesses?



Meet Poor Little Matilda, my newest bird.  PLM is a Barred Rock. She brings our flock to eight lovely girls and this is where I must stop adding because of space constraints. Adding a lone hen to a flock is not an easy task. Hens have an established clique, including who gets to sleep where, who gets to lay when; who gets to eat what. I imagine in a few weeks Poor Little Matilda will be allowed to have free access to crumble and treats, but for now she spends a fair amount of the day perching safely out of reach. In the meantime, PLM has an advocate.  It appears that somewhere along the way, My Prince decided that the chickens aren't so bad after all. PLM captured his tender heart.  Hearing her miserable little noises when the big girls picked on her, he began to come in to get me, saying,"Becky, they are picking on my chicken, make sure she is eating; make sure she is drinking."  HMMMMM.

And so concludes begins the story of this crazy old woman who found her nest empty, filled it with chicks, decorating every corner, making friends, and documenting along the way.

...No, BH&G  hasn't shown up to do the photo layout - - yet.  I may not even need them, now that I have my own spiffy little Cannon:)

Recently, I made a new entry for the coop and re-purposed the yucca stalks to be veggie stakes.  My Prince helped me pound his donated tree poles (painted Eden green) into the ground and even shared his air-powered stapler for the job. Now that the temperatures have topped one hundred, the shrubs and the open coop design show their true value.  

Thanks for stopping by. If you are a Hen Hopper, you may want to watch my recent video tour.Becky's Hen Pen 4-16-2012 If you are one of my Chicken Peeps (You know who you are.) you've seen it already. I'm on my way outside to add some bird netting to the deer fence to keep the squirrels and sparrows out of the pen.  Happy day to all!
You can follow this link to view other Hen Houses: Deborah Jean's Hen House Hop

Love,

Becky

Right Under My Nose All the TIME

Up to the shoulder inside a cow.

Last week my daughter wrote a book review that got me thinking. She tells a story about picking up a book several times, even purchasing a few copies over a period of months, only to read it at the right time and the right place. Which, by the way, was on a cattle ranch where she had to have her wedding ring cut off to save her finger.


Later in the week, while cleaning out some stuff in her house she found a document linking her husband to a toy store we used to frequent when the girls were little. I have a faint memory of a friendly, tall, dark, and handsome boy chatting with us.  But Rachel didn't meet John then, at least not in the way that led to their marriage.  She met him while shopping for a truck at a dealership where he worked as a salesman and where he is now General Manager.
After they met, Rachel learned that he lived right around the corner, which means she probably saw him many times as a girl riding her bike or gazing out her window.  I recall driving her to work one day; when we stopped at a traffic light, we both looked up into the driver's seat of a truck, where a handsome young man smiled back at us.  It turns out it was her prince -- the chatty toy store clerk had grown up! None of us knew it then.  All three of us still remember it now.

By the way, this is the ring that needed to come off to save Rachel's finger.

Rachel's story is amazingly similar to my own story of knowing Jim since kindergarten, never imagining that he was my prince.  More about that in a previous post. (My Husband, My Prince)

And her story is a lot like the one told by my grandparents,who were born (1899 and 1900) on different levels of the same house, who met and fell in love in their teens.  My grandfather used to reminisce about watching a beautiful girl walk down the sidewalk, a huge bow in her long brown hair, her coat and hair blowing in the wind.  Many years later, he learned who the girl was -- my grandmother.

I can tell a similar story.  I remember at about 12 years old I was standing outside a 5 & 10 cents store, wondering who I was going to marry.  Many years later, when I wed my prince, I realized that this store was right at the end of his street.  I would NOT be surprised if he was in the store while I was thinking this.

Why am I writing about these events?

Because Rachel's blog got me thinking and because they happen all the time!  Because time, although it seems 1-12, is not  exactly linear -- or even cyclical -- to our Creator.  It just appears that way to us in order to facilitate our life experience.  I am coming to understand more about time, now that I am old and gray on the outside.

My post didn't start as a philosophical rant. It started with thoughts of  my garden window.   Many years ago we built a much needed addition onto our home.  While designing the addition, I received input from my parents.  Bill suggested we add a bathroom.  At the time we had four young children at home, all girls.  He had raised all girls too... thus, the inside knowledge of the need for extra bathrooms!  (He was so right!)

Mom suggested a garden window. Her love of gardens and eye for beauty perceived it as useful as well as beautiful for us to have.  Then, Jim and I went to a home show and saw a garden window for the first time. YES!  I have always loved everything "garden," so I drew it into the plan.

Our three room addition was constructed by a man we met in the same 'serendipitous' way described above.  He is married to one of my dear friends who I met through another friend, who I met when looking for a home to buy. My grandmother's neighbor knew a couple who had just built a home in Tucson; and they introduced me to a friend who then introduced me to the wife of the man who installed the garden window. Cathy ended up being my daughter's preschool teacher, and her yet-unborn child would be one of my yet-unborn children's first and dearest friends.  Some would claim that these things are accidents.  I've learned otherwise.

Did I fail to mention that my father, "Bill" is really my stepfather?  Yes, he is the natural father of one of my close friends from high school.  I knew him for years before he met my mom?  And that reminds me of when I saw his daughter for the first time, combing her flaxen hair in the junior high girls bathroom.  I was admiring her straight hair.  Mine was frizzy.  And I was thinking Wendy was the prettiest girl I had ever seen.  It was months before we "met." -- and years before we became sisters.

I know I am losing some of you................ I promise I'll tell about the garden window now.

For all of its 20 years, this window has been a home to  ornamental houseplants. Recently, I've become interested in using spaces to produce more than "beauty."  Our landscaped yard now houses egg-bearing chickens and compost-bearing bins.  Our pots are full of yummy things to eat.  I'm also planning rain barrels, and worm factories.

The garden window will now get to fulfill its purpose on Earth. There is a train traveling backward toward sustenance, and our pretty, little 4x5 garden window and I are on it!

Can you see him?  I was taking a photo of the garden window to add to this post. My prince, the landscaper, was cutting about 6 feet off the top of our Oleander shrubs.

I can't wait to find out what else is right under my nose that will become a crucial and special part of life's experience!

Love,
Becky

Bone Broth, By Any Other Name...

Jim has been asking all week long what I'm doing ...and when will I be done? I've been telling him," It is an experiment."  And each morning, Libby has barked and wagged, expectantly, as I ladled the steaming essence of life onto her Blue Buffalo kibble from my simmering pot.

I've been making Bone Broth.

What is BONE BROTH?  Merely bones and veggies, water and a jalapeno, simmered for a long time! So long, that the nutrition is pulled out...so long, that the bones become soft enough to crush between your fingers.  So soft, that they can end up here:

Encouraged in my experiment by a fellow blogger, I've sipped the broth  for breakfast with a dollop of coconut oil, while rolling my eyes with delight!  

       

....BONE BROTH...

Our adult children would prefer another name for this new fascination of mine, I've suggested a few alternative titles: bone stock, bone soup...but bone is the objectionable word, I think.  Just as well -- it is the best name for something that used to be trash at my house.

I used to throw all sorts of things in the trash that I now see as treasure!

I found out that kitchen scraps don't go down the disposal...they now go here:  as treats for the flock of 7 chickens that nest and play behind a 30' span of our 15' tall Oleanders. 

 ( And , no...the Oleanders have not poisoned the birds...They didn't poison the kids, the dogs, cats, rabbits, ducks or the goat... either.)

I've learned in the past year --raising chickens, recycling, and composting -- how wasteful our modern society has become.  A "ton" (literally) of stuff that I used to throw away has been recycled.  If it doesn't go to the Hen Pen,  It goes into one of two compost bins, along with grass clippings, weeds, leaves, dryer lint, newspaper, chicken droppings.  And it gets turned into this: 

Thus, the essence of life continues to  be a blessing in places like this:

Kelly and I planted a veggie garden last year in her backyard that went crazy! We learned what to plant and what to plant less of, namely spaghetti squash!

I'm showing a small fraction of our squash. All from a few small seedlings!  Much of it was given away.  Some was fed to the hens.  

Hens, who gave us these.

After our eggs are boiled and peeled they go all sorts of places.  By now, I think you can guess at least three locations for the shells.  

Here is one of my favorite uses of the edible parts of our eggs.  

Now more of my story about bone broth. Last week I discovered another 2+2=__.

The eggs that I collected went right into the broth.  And after simmering 40 minutes, I ate them, rolling my eyes again with joyous delight...because they tasted like jalapeno and soup!  Guess where the jalapeno came from?  Yep...the garden.  This basket is full of bounty from our backyard...all produced by the very items in the basket...life!  

And that is what Bone Broth is!  A bowl of life!  

Try some. 

Next time you have a roast chicken, or ribs or steak ... plop it into your crock pot, add water and simmer  your brew for days and days...add herbs if you like, veggies in the freezer too long?...Plop them in...?  Sure!  Add water as the week progresses.  Spoon some broth onto your pet's food.    

Then strain.  If you don't have chickens, you will have to throw away the bones. So sad...  

But you will still be able to enjoy a cuppa...

BONE BROTH with a dollop of coconut oil! 

In fact, here is my breakfast!

YUM!

And here is a link to more from my teacher: (http://butterfliesandbumblebees.org)  Blessings upon you!