For my sister . . .

I have an amazing little sister.  I actually have four amazing little sisters, but only one can wield power tools like nobody's business and can boast that she broke her foot building a teepee out of tree trunks.  It is this particular sister whose spirit I channelled a couple of days ago when I set out to add a floor to the hen house. 

I love projects.  As with cooking and even cleaning, I love the feeling of accomplishing something tangible with my own hands, of seeing concrete results.  But I have never had a ton of confidence in my carpentry skills.  What I do have is an intense drive to fix problems.  And every time it rained, we had a problem.  Water was seeping into the playhouse that Doug had originally thought would be a great shelter for the dogs (the dogs thought otherwise) and had ended up sitting unused in the corner or our yard (the kids were afraid of the spiders) until I decided that we needed backyard chickens.  That playhouse now holds two roosts, a laying box, feeder, and water dispenser and is attached to the largest chicken run our tiny backyard can afford.  But the morning after every one of these beautiful, sky-opening summer storms we've been having, I've had to relieve the floor of the coop of wet, poopy wood shavings.  The water didn't seem to be coming in through the windows or door, but seeping in from underneath.  So one hot sunny day, the kids and I went to Lowe's early in the morning and set about to add a raised floor.

McLean hammered in a couple of nails before deciding that a more effective use of his time would be to chronicle the chickens' antics with my camera while they explored the yard.  I now have sixty-some-odd pictures of Blade Beak and Star Baby on my phone, but I guess that's preferable to his usual subjects: my hand on my hip (to show people how I look when I'm mad), his sister's booty (probably because she loves to shake it so much), and his own penis (taken, I'm sure, for no other reason than to test my reaction time when I am flipping through pics with my grandmother).  Chloe, on the other hand, hammered away happily with me the entire time, hitting every nail, the walls, roosts, nesting box, and, just to make sure I was paying attention, me.

In the end, we somehow managed to secure a smooth wooden floor that has (so far!) kept our sweet chicks' bedding dry.  This one's for you, Tina :)   

Neighbors

City living definitely has its advantages, but inconspicuous living is not one of them.  Our lot is situated in such a way that it manages to abut five other properties: one of our street's original houses, built around 1900 and now rented by four or five college kids; a 1950s brick duplex inhabited on the closest side by a retired minister and his wife; a beautiful but often vacant stone church; an empty lot; and a 1920s bungalow almost identical to ours from which our dear, sweet neighbor Mrs. H departed this world just weeks ago. 
When the kids and I were out in the front watering or weeding the raised beds, Mrs. H used to come out onto her front porch and call across the narrow distance, commenting on our gardening or swearing the children's acrobatics were going to give her a heart attack.  I'd have McLean bring her fresh veggies or bread we'd baked, and, of course, he'd have to jump down the stairs on his return trip, scaring the poor woman once again.  Thankfully, McLean and Chloe's antics did not lead Mrs. H to an early grave. Having lived a full life, she died in her home, surrounded in love by her children and grandchildren.  But, of course, we miss her.  And I thought I'd have no one to share my harvest with this summer until yesterday when Mr. J poked his head over the back fence.
"Looks like you're growin some good stuff to eat back here."
This was the first time our preacher-neighbor had ever addressed me beyond asking to speak to my husband.  Flattered, I pointed out the different plants and chatted about the chickens until he said again, "Yeah, looks good enough to eat."

"Would you like some?" I asked.  "We have more than we can use."  And so I started filling ziploc bags with lettuce and spinach and cucumbers while we chatted neighborly over the fence for the first time in over five years.  But I did save the season's first red tomato for myself.      

 

Granola

Without any warning, my children simultaneously decided that they like cold cereal for breakfast.  While I should feel excited that I might no longer feel obliged to make the pancakes, eggs, or oatmeal that they usually request on a busy morning, my enthusiasm is curbed by the thought of them starting their day with a bowl full of sugary, processed carbohydrates.  So this weekend they both enthusiastically assisted me in making granola, helping to fill the kitchen with slow-roasted sweetness and assuring me that they would love it.  So far, I've fed two child-sized bowls' worth of soggy granola to the dogs.  It tastes good to me, and Doug seems to be enjoying it, so maybe we'll try again tomorrow morning . . . 

My recipe is a modified version of Deborah Madison's from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone:

6 cups oats
1 cup chopped nuts (we used pecans)
1/2 cup wheat germ
1/2 cup flax seed
1 T. vanilla
pinch of salt
1/4 cup oil
3/4 cup honey (I've also used maple syrup or a combination of the two)

Mix well and spread on a cookie sheet and bake at 300 F for 30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes.

After completely cooled, add 1 cup dried fruit (since McLean detests most dried fruit, we used dried coconut). 

Store in an airtight container.

*************************************************************************************

Any other granola recipe suggestions?  I'd love the one from Whole Foods for the Whole Family, Mom or Keely :)

Spring, 2012

For the past five years, I've been working from home as an adjunct English instructor at Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College so that I could spend as much time as possible with my little ones, McLean (now five) and Chloe (who will be three in September).  Just recently, I've been given the amazing opportunity to teach full-time at the University of North Carolina at Asheville, my alma mater.  As I began piecing together plans for my syllabi, I decided to ask my students to create a blog to record their reading responses and chronicle their semester's journey.  Having never tried one myself, I thought I'd better give it a go . . .

I've never thought I had a green thumb.  In fact, when my husband Doug and I first moved in together, I told him that if he wanted house plants (which he did) he'd have to be solely responsible for them since I seemed to kill everything I'd ever planted.  He used to spend every weekend landscaping, planting, watering . . .  But that was before children.  Now weekends often feel scheduled down to the minute and his gardening dreams are often unrealized.  At first I wasn't particularly bothered.  He was able to keep the front of our minuscule city lot looking neat, and the backyard was already evolving into a promising play space.  But as my babies began wanting more than mama's milk and I became more and more conscious about the foods they were putting into their growing bodies, I started viewing my fraction of an acre differently.  I now saw every square inch of dirt as fertile soil, every slope unsuitable for play as possible farmland. 

I started small, planting an herb garden on the top of the stone wall encompassing two sides of our backyard.  Right outside the kitchen door, they were easily accessible for cooking and (astonishingly!) flourished from my first attempt.   I became braver with each passing season, asking Doug to build a couple of raised beds in the front yard, planting berry bushes on the front slope, adding a planter to the end of the back deck. 

I've definitely had some disastrous seasons, and I'm still far from feeling confident in my gardening skills, but I'm learning all the time and beginning to see and taste some sweet results.  Right now, our raspberries seem to be at the end of their peak and our blackberries are just starting to darken; my spinach seems to be about done, but the lettuces show no signs of slowing down; the strawberry plants that my kids snack on every time they go out back to play appear to be enjoying their longest season yet; and the veggies in the raised beds are beginning to flower.

A couple of weeks ago, the children and I harvested fifty heads of garlic (now tied and hanging in the basement) and my husband planted sweet potatoes in their place.

Our newest and most exciting adventure, however, was yesterday's addition of two young chickens, named Blade Beak and Star Baby thanks to McLean and Chloe.  They already seem at home in their hen house and chicken run, and have started letting McLean pick them up and cart them around (it was difficult to get him out of the coop this morning).  Hopefully, once the dogs realize that they're not their next meal and we figure out how to clip their wings, we'll be able to let them roam around the back yard while we play and work.  I realize that my family is a far cry from being self-sufficient, but the journey continues to be so empowering . . .