From the Fair

Like I said in my last post, we took a trip up to the WV State Fair in Lewisburg, WV for Tristan's 3rd birthday. It was our 1st time up there, but it won't be our last. Thought I would share some (finally uploaded!) photos from there with you.
First, the animals. By the way, it is wise to visit the animals first for two reasons: 1)Riding the rides is thrilling and draining, best to save for last, and most importantly 2)Seeing the animals first gives you plenty of time to walk off the poo you step in. (FYI - Saying "watch out Shannon" only seems to make him step in poo more often!)


~This is a Flemish Giant Rabbit. A minimum show weight for does is 14lbs and it's not unheard of for these rabbits to weigh up to 28lbs!! WOW!!


~This is an Angora Bunny. If we had visited the animals last, it would've gone home with us. I know I am not one for lots of grooming, so it is wise we didn't buy it, but I just can't help myself. They remind me of that *POOF* look you see in the comics when something has really been shocked or badly blown dry. :D


~Shannon getting to milk a cow. Look closely and you'll see the stream of milk. We've been drinking raw milk for a while now, but getting to milk the cow was still pretty cool. He also got to ride a live pony. Tristan declined to do either.


~I couldn't resist - they were just too damn cute!

Next was the Garden Area, which was unbelievably cool. Seriously, I took notes and am rethinking our gardens for next year after walking through here. Here are just a couple photos:


~How can you not smile?? Made using a plant called "Golden Pearls"


~Under the arbor they set up this sandbox for kids. This whole area of the garden was geared towards kids actually. When the kids dug in the sand they found little creepy crawly animals (as well as frogs and snakes) - toys they were allowed to take home. I also have to point out the lizard stepping stones!! Those were awesome!


~Along with a "Pizza Garden" that they had set up, they had this caterpillar made out of vines. I can't remember what the vines were, but I would really like to try and build one of these for the kids next year. That and a sunflower castle. And a "Pizza Garden".

Finally, some rides. I won't show you too many photos here, as this blog is already long enough. Just the "big" ones.


~"Choo Choo Charlie" - this is Tristan's first carnival ride EVER. And the only one he rode the whole we were there. We were happy that he was happy.



~"The Wild Mouse" - Shannon & Justin went on this. It is Shannon's first REAL roller coaster ride, and I think was the biggest roller coaster at the fair. He wasn't scared in the least!! Neither was Justin, in case any of you were worried.

Time to Go.
We arrived at the fair a little before 11am and left about 3pm. Walking around for 4 hours in the sun makes for a LONG day. Tristan was out cold in less than 5 minutes after we got in the car.


~This photo is taken on the bridge that crosses over the road. You can see the fair in the background. I think you can kinda see the wear and tear on everyone here.

And, of course ...


~We did put on sunscreen, but Justin still got a little pink.

We only spent 4 hours (+ driving time) in West Virginia, but my husband still came home a redneck! Go figure!! A cool fact though, we did happen to spot some locally brewed beer, Mountaineer Brewing Company's Nut Brown Ale, at a gas station we happened to stop at on the way back home. A very nice take-home gift!

If you want to see more photos from our trip to the WV State Fair you can check them out at my flickr account - http://www.flickr.com/photos/funkymamataney/sets/72157622025040397/

Late Summer Reflections

~One of the sunflowers from our front yard~

It's been a while since I've posted. I haven't meant to go silent, those who know me will attest to that being a seemingly impossible thing actually. But, it's been almost a month since I've written anything.
This has been a strange year. I'm seeing the seasons in new lights. Seasons aren't measured by calendar dates anymore, but by the animals we find inside our house. Fall & Winter we had mice. Spring brought the spider crickets. Then Summer arrived and so did the flies ~ and the spiders followed into mid-summer. It is now late summer, and here are the crickets. I can hear them singing to me even now, through the open kitchen window. They are more prolific out front, where there are no hungry chickens gobbling them up.
Kids who attend public school started back this week around here. It seems odd. Too early. Still August. Still Summer. I am glad we are homeschooling. We sent in our first NOI. Lots of anxiety went into that, so it was a grand laugh when we got the letter back from the school board, only to see that they had goofed it all up (names). We're fine and good to go. We're unschooling right now - mainly just letting the kids be kids and learn as they go. We read, Shannon has a pen pal he writes letters to, we explore the world around us. Hands-on learning, letting them have their time to be children, in every aspect that means.
The "chicken issue" is still very much alive. This is probably a prime reason for my silence - not wanting to say things until I've properly sorted them all out in my own head. I have a small meeting with the Mayor and Councilwoman Garst this week. It's been a time of high stress, lots of emotions. I'm trying to remained focused though those though, and even though there are things I want to right now (I think the backspace button on this keyboard is getting worn out!), I will wait until ..... until after the meeting? Until after I can attempt to put all of that in perspective? I'm not sure. So, just Until.

The house falls silent for a moment, and the chirping of the crickets fills the air again. A signal for a change of direction here.
Tristan turned 3 this past Friday. For his birthday Justin took the day off and we drove up to the West Virginia State Fair. Our first time there. We spent four hours walking around, seeing all the animals, milking a cow, riding a pony, watching a very impressive juggler, seeing the exhibits, and finally riding a couple rides. It was a long and hot day, but very fun. The way fairs are meant to be I suppose.
We've decided that instead of giving the boys toys or something like that for their birthdays, we're instead going to take small trips. I think this will make for better memories.
We did still have a party for him on Saturday though. Quite a success too, since the weather was nice and we had the kiddie pool set-up along with a slip & slide. Everyone played outdoors, the adults watching from the front porch, some of the parents helping the younger kids manage their way down the slip & slide. The kids seemed to have a lot of fun, and that was the point. Tristan got his homemade carrot cake that I had told him I would make for him. He's been inquiring about it every few days for the past month or so.

I will post the harvest tallies for July & August at the end of this month. It has been an amazing month so far, seeing things come in, and actually taking the time to weigh them out to see HOW MUCH is coming in. Impressive. Amazing how prolific little plots can be.

3 Dead Chickens

~From the porch at Bright Farm~

We went up to the farm this weekend to pick up 3 chickens. 3 dead chickens, since most people hear me say that and assume I mean live ones. The farm is in Floyd, so up the winding roads we go, over Twelve O'Clock Knob with it's rock cliffs on one side and dizzying drop-offs on another. Then up Bent Mountain. One year I noted how there were always butterflies fluttering about as I'm zooming up the mountain (or down), and now I can't help but feel that the trek up Bent Mountain is one spent going around the mountain and trying to dodge butterflies.
The farm is 700 acres, though we've hardly seen it all. A lot of it is wooded, naturally so, which means many people would find it unkempt and unattractive. I like seeing the fields. Not open and prairie-like, but mountainous. Last year there were hogs in one field, very little grass, lots of dirt - on Saturday, it grew tall with wild grasses and flowers, full of life anew.
We picked up our chickens, freshly culled and plucked. Shannon and Tristan ran around with a little girl whose mother was helping out that day. They threw sticks for the lab who greets everyone with a stick in his mouth.
There is something really fantastic about eating food that was just killed that day. That has never seen the inside of a fridge or freezer. I feel the same way whether it is chickens, eggs, vegetables, fruit or fish. I've yet to have the pleasure of other animals. There is just some victorious feeling that comes over you, as if you beat the fridge!
We bbq'd the chicken, even making homemade bbq sauce (Sticky Fingers watch out!!). Served it with a zucchini (fresh from our garden, thank you) casserole. Delightful!
I think about books I've read, along with other articles, that talk about various foods and their purported aphrodisiac qualities. I think the true aphrodisiac is in eating REAL food, and in taking the time to eat it, to notice the flavors and textures, how they feel in your mouth, how the smells waft into your nose and make you dizzy, ravenous, calm, speechless - all the things love does.

Economic & Food Queries

~Tristan, showing me a still-green Cherokee Chocolate tomato in the garden. These are moments where the dollar savings means little and the moment means everything~

While I was doing my bi-monthly grocery shopping the other day and was taken back a couple of times. Like when I noticed that the size of the box of diapers had dropped by 20 diapers, but the price remained the same. (Ok - we LOVE cloth diapers, but had to change back to disposable because we were having a bad time with rashes). Or, when I was buying the box of organic cotton diaper wipes and noticed that the price had gone up buy almost $2 a box!! Things that I used to be able to find for well under a buck are now $1.25. I used to be able to score canned organic veggies at Walmart for about 88 cents a can, now they're $1.38 or so. Whole-grain pasta, which used to be about $1.18 was on CLOSE-OUT for $1.22!!!!
We try to grow as much as we can, and buy other stuff locally, but we still have to go to the store. With two little, but growing-like-weeds, boys to feed it seems like we constantly need more food too.
Justin and I were talking about the costs. I was telling him how I wasn't sure how much longer we could keep affording the raises in food costs. He said maybe we ought to buy the cheaper stuff. UGH -- knife in my heart!!!! I said that food prices couldn't possibly just keep going up, but he doubts they will go back down.
And that got me to thinking. Thinking about the end of the Depression and after WWII. When boom times were back. When people began to be able to afford "the good life" again.
For a moment, I felt hope. Then I realized something - the baby boomer generation was also the beginning of the "throw-away living" movement. When factory farms, industrial farms, CORPORATE food became the new way. This is what is killing us, quite literally, now. I quit feeling hope. Something more like dispair filled me.

When this blog was originally rolling about in my mind, I was going to go on about this some more. But something else happened today. We went outside. We worked in the garden. I got photos of the boys, nearly hidden in between rows of tomatoes that are taller than they are. We treated our chickens to a dish of old buttermilk that they downed in record-time and the peach pits (with juicy peach bits still on them) that would've otherwise gone into the compost, found out Ann Bancroft definitely knows her name (we think LadyBird does too), and were treated to 5 eggs. That's a lot for 6 hens who are, we think, beginning their first molt.
I saw the garden full of still-green tomatoes, and found out to my delight that there are cherry tomatoes finally coming out on the plants out front. I saw peppers on the pepper plants and beans .. well, on the bean plants.
When Justin's father asked Shannon to show him the garden, Shannon started talking about all the different "gardens" we have on all sides of the house: what they were producing, what was still growing, what seeds we were collecting, and so on.
I did the math, and if we had bought the 583 eggs our biddies have given us (as of the end of June), we would've spent about $145!!! I saw bowls quickly filling up as the boys and I gathered seeds from cosmos, calendula, and marigolds and I knew we wouldn't need to worry about seeds for next year.
I AM still worried about the future, about costs of food, but I am once-again filled with hope. Not hope in the stores, but hope in our own backyard. On our own urban homestead. I think that is the answer. Not cheap food that will only make us sick, damage the environment, and go against what we believe in; but homegrown, local food that will boost our health, enrich the environment, teach our children (and possibly others), and enrich our lives.

An opportunity

~Shannon holding Ann Bancroft, our Dark Brahma hen~

When we made the decision to get chickens, more specifically hens, it wasn't without thought. In fact, an entire year's worth of thought, research, reading, learning, and more research went into it. We saw it as an opportunity. An opportunity to help produce more of our own food, to be more connected with the Earth, to teach our children about nature, where food comes from, and some nice biology lessons too. We saw it as an opportunity to take another step along our path of self-reliance and self-sustainability. We saw it as an opportunity to perhaps help show others that might not know about keeping chickens that you can do so without ruining the neighborhood. That it can bring neighbors together.
Unfortunately, as happens sometimes, it didn't bring all our neighbors together. As you know, one neighbor out-right hates us for not living the way she thinks we ought to: cooped up inside the house with windows always down, never venturing into the yard except to pick up a stray stick, and with landscaping that isn't over a couple inches high unless it is a tree. If she wants to (or anyone for that matter) live that way - go for it we say, but it isn't for us.
So now, today, we got our official letter from the City about the chickens since "technically" their illegal. We, of course, are going to try and convince City Council to ammend Zoning regulations to allow residents to keep a small, well-kept, backyard flock of hens.
Despite the instinctive reaction to run into my room, throw myself onto the bed, and cry into my pillow (or to go next door and just kick some butt), I'm going to see this as an opportunity.
An opportunity to learn more how the City works, to be involved in our community, to try and affect change. An opportunity to show our children all of those things, and to allow them to be part of it. To hear your 5 1/2 year old and your 3 year old say "Please don't let them take our chickens" breaks your heart. I might as well be shooting Old Yeller. So, it's an opportunity to show them that when there is something you really believe in, you do everything you can to support it.
It is an opportunity for us to become more involved in our community, and that community doesn't end with City lines, it is world-wide. That is inspiring.

What The Cluck - it begins again ..

~Justin wearing one of the new chicken t-shirts~


~A close-up of the back of the shirt~

No sooner had we gotten our first batch of t-shirts in (don't they look great?), but we got a courtesy phone call. There have been more complaints, this time not only about our chickens, but about someone else's in Salem. I do think they have a rooster, but still. The City feels compelled to act since, after all, they're technically illegal to have. I say technically because of the discrepancy between City Code and Zoning, which has had animal control officers (aka - Law Enforcement!!!) telling people that they could have them for 20+ years now! When all this came up last year, the City acknowledged the conflict between Code & Zoning and went to the City Attorney who determined that Zoning trumps Code. Regardless of what law enforcement has been telling people.
As of today, we haven't gotten our official letter yet, but I've been told it will be here soon. We will have 90 days to comply (I do believe that is 60 days longer than last time). We have no intention of giving up our chickens. During this time is when we will have a chance to try and go before City Council. If they agree to hear me, then we will have a chance to try and convince them to allow Salem residents to keep a small, backyard flock of urban hens.
So, what's going on till then?? Well, lots of stuff. First off, I'm trying to be like a duck on the water -- calm on the surface and kicking like all hell underneath.
Second: Good ole grassroots activism. We've got a group on Facebook now: http://www.facebook.com/tos.php?api_key=ca55612231318500789c068e036619e8&next=http%3A%2F%2Fapps.facebook.com%2Frealpolls%2Fvote%2Fforce%2Fngqkfwtz4%2F15&v=1.0&canvas#/group.php?gid=98217238610 - We've got our petition: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/salemchickens/index.html - And, we've started a website: http://bluenymphbiddies.weebly.com
I apologize for these not being direct links, but lately blogspot has not been making the links active, so I've had to revert to just putting the address in here and hoping you'll take the extra step to cut & paste.
What else besides the link-stuff?? Well, I'll tell you:
*We've recently had a realtor come out and look at the chickens. No, we aren't buying them a house, and we aren't selling their coop. He came out to see the chickens & determined (which he actually did BEFORE he saw them, but he wanted to see them & we like visitors!) that NO, chickens in and of themselves do NOT drop propery values of the neighbors/neighborhood. They have no impact on it at all. The only impact they could possibly have is on a personal level, just as anything else could affect a potential homebuyer on a personal level. But property values, nope! -- We've asked him to right a letter for us to that effect, and are also talking to more realtors for the same.
*We're working to contact professors who specialize in chickens to help us dispel some common "hen myths." You know, those ones about noise, smell, attracting rodents and pests, and holding up any stores that might be nearby. We're asking them for letters as well.
*With the Facebook group & website, we're working on building information that helps people understand just what backyard, urban chickens ARE. Most people don't know and can't begin to fathom. This will include facts, pictures (I just got a great shot of Shannon holding "Ann Bancroft," our Dark Brahma hen), and links to sites on the internet. There are MANY, MANY wonderful sites, and we want to support them.
*Selling more shirts - we're going to keep selling the shirts too! They're awesome shirts, even if you don't live in Salem, VA. Proceeds will go to helping us throughout this campaign and, if we sell enough, building a nice privacy fence between our neighbor and us!

So, check out the website, buy a shirt, let me know what you think in general. Got ideas, know how to help, we're all ears! Got some great chicken photos you're willing to share, we'd love to see them and let other people see them too.

And, finally, we got a new email address for this whole mess: bluenymphbiddies@gmail.com

Spread the word, drop us a line, and, PLEASE, help us save our chickens!

Camping

I love camping! Oh, how I really love camping. Justin and I took a two-day camping trip up to Arcadia, in the Jefferson National Forest in VA. It is really a great place to go camping.
We camp from our tents, with no electricty or water hook-ups. This past camping trip we camped at a spot on top of the mountain. It was really wonderful as it was very secluded and quiet. The first night I couldn't help but be amazed at the constant sounds of wildlife in the woods. There were whippoorwills like crazy as well as woodpeckers and owls that were hooting up a storm. We could hear deer in the woods as well, something I always here, if not see, when we're camping up there.
This year we've been able to take the kids on a two-day camping trip as well. We spend the days (with kids or without) fishing and creek-wading, playing ball & frisbee, reading, and wandering about.
I've realized that, like so many aspects in our lives & culture, there is a lot of common-knowledge that has been lost within the span of the last generation or two when it comes to camping. Neither Justin nor I grew up camping. I don't think I tent-camped until I was almost in college, if not already there.
When I began tent-camping the food I brought along was junk food. And booze. Mainly booze. Sometimes no food. A tent, a backpack of warm clothes, a lighter, boots, a sleeping bag and pillow, my dog (when applicable), and booze. Yea, that sounds familiar. Oh yea, and tp - always a must there when you're a chick!!!
While there isn't anything wrong with hot dogs and chips (and booze) while camping, now I'm looking for something a little better. I'm looking for real food. We try to eat as little crap-food as possible day-to-day and would like to keep that when we go camping.
One new thing that we've gotten just this year: an air mattress. I was reluctant to get this, but after having two kids, I just can't sleep on the ground anymore. The first night on it was definitely worth some sort of "crunchy-guilt" I was having over not roughing it enough. And, as much as I love camping, I don't sleep well. I wake up at the crack of dawn, even after a lot of drinking and/or sleeping pills. The air mattress and any extra sleep is now welcome!
We also have really devoted a lot more time and thought to food and eating. It really isn't that much harder and doesn't take a lot more effort. We're able to eat locally and organically, and feel happily fullfilled.
Like I stated above, "roughing it in the woods" is something new to a lot of people and how to do it while being healthy and not abandoning all your at-home ideals can be even trickier. To help with this, I've begun a section called "Camping & Cooking" on my kitchen blog - www.mamataneyskitchen.blogspot.com. To make it even easier, I've included a direct link on this page for it. The first recipe is for "Bacon Hash" a wonderful morning food, whether you've been drinking the night before or not. Check it out and let me know what you think. I look forward to your feedback!