Putting the Garden to Bed

The first picture above is of my garden after weeding out nearly all of the clover that seems to want to take over.  I left a patch of the clover when I took this photo so you can see how it grows like a carpet. This garden is located inside the foundation of our old barn, which had a dirt floor covered with straw bedding.  So the soil is beautiful, almost like potting soil.

I didn't plant a veg garden this past spring due to my husband's health, but we kept the weeds chopped down and sprayed... except this clover didn't want to give up.  It grows almost like a mat, with little hair like roots interspersed with a sort of tap root.  I'm not sure why it's so prolific, but it also grows in the field road where I walk each afternoon.

Don't take me too seriously when I speak of veg gardening, because I just do what I do.  You'll probably do just as well inventing your own procedures.  It seems that nearly anything will grow nearly anywhere and produce at least a little something edible.

After pulling out all of the weeds, I covered the garden with rotted straw for mulch, second photo.  It took about 5 bales of straw for this and only about an hour of time.  Fresh straw spreads more easily and is fluffier and looks nicer.  But fresh straw still has viable seeds in it from the harvest and next spring I would find a fine little crop of wheat growing under my mulch.

I'll soon go buy 8-10 bales of fresh straw and use them to insulate the foundation of the house or other areas outside I want to protect from freezing.  I'll remove them in the spring and stack them near the corner of the garden, and this time next year will use them for my mulch.  Hopefully the little seeds will have all sprouted or rotted by that time and not cause me any trouble with sprouting in the garden the following spring.

I can still pull some straw from these bales throughout the summer next year for mulching my flowerbeds or tomato plants or whatever.  I love to mound straw all around to hold in moisture and make weeding easier.  I hate weeding.

I'm going to rest my body this weekend.  I've been pushing myself pretty hard, but I'm almost done with fall chores.  Just a couple smaller projects that I'd like to complete within the next couple weeks, and they won't take long.

Blessings,

Katrinka

As a Hen Gathers Her Chickens

banty cochin hen

This isn't a photo of one of my chickens, I left my photos at my daughter's house and I've yet to fetch them home.  But I have plenty of pictures and our little black banty hens looked just like the lady above.

One of the things about living in the country and observing nature is that I see so many parallels between the way things happen out here and the way things happen in our own lives. 

Today I was reading in Matthew 23, and as always verse 37 stood out to me.  Especially this portion "... how often I wanted to gather your children, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing..."  So God wants to gather us under His wings and protect us.  Exactly what kind of picture does that bring to your mind?  Thanks to my country living status and experience with chickens of all kinds, I think I know a little bit of what Jesus is trying to show us here.

These little banty hens, like the one above, are fierce mothers.  It takes a broody breed of chicken to sit on a nest and hatch out chicks and then raise them up.  Not all chickens are broody, and you don't always want your chickens to get broody.  If you're raising a flock of chickens for egg laying you want your chickens to lay eggs, not raise babies.  We had lots of little banty hens and they pretty much had the run of the barn and would lay their nest of eggs wherever they pleased, as determined by their internal chicken wisdom as being the safest spot.

 Inside the barn were separate stalls made of old pallets set on edge at right angles and nailed into boxes for our goats to stay in at night.  The floor of the barn was 100+ years of straw over dirt (this is where we now have our veggie garden).  One spring one of these little hens decided the best place to have her nest was under one of these cross pallet walls of a stall.  She scratched and dug out a hollow and laid her eggs in there... a bunch of them.  Maybe 12-15 eggs.  And then she crawled under the pallet and plumped herself down on the nest.

When a hen goes broody and decides to set, she will only get off the nest maybe once or twice a day to quickly eat and drink and then returns.  With every cell of her being she is committed to sitting on that nest until the chickens hatch, which is typically about 3 weeks.  Sometimes a hen won't get off the nest and if you know of it you need to help her.  I once heard of a hen down in Texas sitting on eggs and she allowed herself to be overrun with fire ants because she wouldn't leave the nest.  ...  Just trying to paint the picture of devotion and dedication of the mother hen as referred to in scripture.

Back to my mother hen...  We had at that time, unfortunately, a very chicken-unfriendly dog named Rex, a bird dog/Australian shepherd mix.  What he did to my chickens was a crime, and why we allowed it and how we attempted to handle it may never be a story for this blog.  Anyway, Rex happened to discover this mother hen and her nest.  I came out early one morning to hear frantic barking coming from the barn.  I scrambled out there, to find the hen placidly sitting on her nest under the side portion of the pallet stall, while Rex had dug a trench all the way around her trying to get at her and her nest.  He howled and foamed at the mouth and panted and scratched and barked.  But the hen didn't move, appeared to not even see him.  She quietly kept her soft fluffy feathers in exactly the right place to cover all her eggs and keep them warm and protected. 

After these little eggs hatched, mother hen proudly trotted them out of the barn and began to show them how to eat by scratching and calling to them and they all tumbled after her... little fluffy balls with twigs for legs.  Some of the chicks were black and some red and some yellow, and some were larger, because she hatched out a few egg laying chicks for us, too, not just her own little black banty babies.

Mother and babies had been out and about for around a week when I witnessed an amazing event.  It was one of those moments when you know you were just meant to be at that place at that time, because there would never be a witness to such an event if you were to try to make something like this happen.

I was out wandering around in front of the house one afternoon and noticed the black banty hen with her babies outside near the corner of the barn.  Suddenly I saw the mother's little head cock toward the sky.  She lifted her wings and made the noise that only a mother hen can make, and all her fluffy babies shot toward her like little individual feathery rockets.  At that point, I saw nothing of any concern.  But as I stood there I caught a dark shadow out of the corner of my eye, and became aware of a hawk plummeting toward the earth.  Aiming right for mama and chicks.  

(This hawk wasn't only a threat to the babies, because hawks can kill and damage full grown chickens, especially of the smaller breeds as the banty.)

Instead of scrambling back to the barn with her babies, mother hen flew up and met the hawk in the sky.  There was a terrific squawking and a few feathers floated down, and the hawk changed direction and shot back up into the air and over the top of the barn.  Mama hen plunked to the ground and gathered her babies and continued scratching for food.  The whole scene maybe took about 10 seconds.  But I was there to see it.

I immediately thought of this scripture and tears filled my eyes.  Even now, I get goose bumps when I think of this example of God's offered love and protection that He allowed me to witness.  Sometimes when we read stories in the Bible or hear various verses over and over again, they lose their freshness.  Or in this case, the real life example from nature is lost on those who don't understand the significance of how protective a mother hen is with her chicks... what she will do to provide for them and defend them... how she will give her own life for them.  She was willing to die in their place to provide life for her chicks... just as Jesus knew He would do for us when he spoke these words in Matthew.

Maybe the next time I feel alone and unprotected, I can remember that I am not.   Maybe you can remember that, too.

Blessings,

Katrinka

Hope and a Future

I had the opportunity last week to host a visiting missionary for a meal, so I took him to a little Mexican restaurant for lunch.  He's from Ghana and he and his family have sacrificed much to become missionaries over here in the United States, pastoring a church of people from all nationalities and backgrounds.  He has tremendous drive and sense of purpose.

I envied him so much, because since my husband died this past summer, I've had a struggle with having a sense of purpose.  As his caregiver, for years I knew exactly what I was going to do when I got up each morning.  And even though my life was very hidden and my world was small, I never felt insignificant.

I'm plenty busy with work around the homestead.  I'm looking into volunteer work and possibly employment next year.  I love my kids and grandkids and the time I spend with them.  I have wonderful friends and church folks in my life.  I'm especially comforted when I think of the joy Randy is experiencing in heaven.  God has blessed me with all of this and is also resolving some health concerns I've had.  I hope I'm not ungrateful.

But life as a caregiver was a very intense, focused life.  I had something (someone) to pour myself into, and now much of what I do around here alone seems kind of self-serving and aimless.  I used to be so driven to keep this place up, it consumed me at times, and now I feel I could just walk out the door and leave it all behind.  Without the people I love here with me, it's only so much wood, stone, and glass.  I don't think that change in perspective is all bad, but it leaves me wondering "What comes next?"

Sometimes I wonder if I haven't already done the greatest thing I'll ever do in my whole life.

I don't have an answer to this dilemma yet.  I'm still in the process.  I would prefer to rush out ahead and shake things up and make things happen.    But I'm learning each day to rest and wait.  Sometimes it's real agony for me, and other times there's an inexpressible sweetness in the waiting... waiting for my next adventure to unfold...  So this blog post will have to end with 'To Be Continued'.  We'll all have to wait for the next installment together.

Blessings,

Katrinka

P.S.  For those of you who might be a caregiver to an Alzheimer's sufferer, I encourage you to visit www.alz.org and especially the message boards.  This was very helpful to me.  I also couldn't have managed caring for my husband without friends, family, and a high-quality caregiver agency.  If any of you would like to discuss anything  with me about caregiving, please email me at rcdkatrink@gmail.com.  I'd be glad to communicate with anyone needing encouragement in this area.

Country Dining

When you say you're going to dinner, what time of day do most of your friends think you'll be eating?

When you call someone on the phone and he tells you he's eating supper, what time of day is it?

And what about lunch, brunch, and tea?

Hmmm....

Yesterday I enjoyed a wonderful birthday meal with an old friend and a new friend.  My old 91-year-old friend had found a new 31-year-old friend and they wanted me to fit in with their group, which I did nicely.  I not only fit in because we all enjoy the same things, I fit in numerically, because I'm 61.

31 ... 61 ... 91 ...  And we're all country women, we all enjoy living a successful country life, and we can all learn from each other.  It was a great meal and a great visit!  But I almost missed it.

The 31-year-old is new to country living; only been out here about 3 years.  And when she set up the meeting she said she would bring the main course for dinner.  To country folks, especially older generation country folks, dinner is served as the noon time meal.  

When the men come in from the fields and the work day is done (more or less), the family eats supper.

Since I had plans for the evening yesterday (the annual Sunday school bonfire, which is always a great time), I was thrilled that we would be having our birthday meal at noon time, so I could make both events.  

However, on Thursday my old friend called and said there had been a misunderstanding.  Our new friend had intended us to have an evening meal together, not a noon meal.  Could I make the evening meal?  I reminded her that I had a bonfire to attend, but they should have a great time without me, and maybe I could stop by on my way to or from the inferno?

My country women friends were so gracious, though, and re-planned the whole thing so we could have dinner (some might say lunch) together and it was terrific!  Our new friend made lasagna, brought a birthday cake, and two bottles of wine to enjoy with the pasta.  

I like her style!  Wine with pasta is always a treat, whether it's for dinner, lunch, supper, or somewhere in between.  And she's a refreshing, energetic young woman who brings a spark to our group.  And, just when I think I'm finally beginning to look my age, she tells me I have beautiful skin and she can't believe I'm 61!

I think we're all going to get along just fine ... especially now that we all know when we're going to eat.

Blessings,

Katrinka

Lock Your Doors?

One thing about being a widow is that now I live all alone.  I've been all alone a couple other times in my life, but nothing quite as isolating as now, with country living.

The thing that leaves me kinda sad about being a widow alone out here in the country is that now I can do anything I want to any time I want to, and nobody knows and nobody cares.

On the other hand, one of the nice things about being a widow alone out in the country is that now I can do anything I want to any time I want to, and nobody knows and nobody cares.

One day a couple weeks ago I decided to get up early and go through some boxes in the attic.  I worked up there for 2 or 3 hours sorting and packing things up to take to the thrift store in town, and then hauled some boxes out to my truck.

I was dusty and hot and decided to jump in the shower before dressing for town.  I was just to the point in my shower where I was totally committed... you know, sudsy all over, including my hair.  Suddenly I heard "Boom!  Boom!  Boom!" on the front door.  I froze in place.

I quickly assessed my situation.  The shower curtain is mostly clear plastic with large greenish blobs, so I could see out into the bathroom as far as my feeble eyes could focus.  I had laid out 2 bath towels, but no clothing... my clothes were out in the next room, beyond the bathroom door which was standing wide open.  That room is connected to the front room (where the front door is) by an open doorway.

"Oh God, oh God, oh God!" I muttered.  God understood this to actually be a prayer that went something like "Oh, please, God, tell me that I locked the front door before climbing into the shower!"

You've heard it said that God always answers prayer, but that the answer isn't always what we ask for.  I really understood this concept when, while I was frantically rinsing myself off, I heard "Woo hoo!"  coming from somewhere inside the house.  I almost fainted, which I've only actually done once before in my life when I stood up too fast from lying on the floor in front of a hot fire...

All was OK, though, it was only my wonderful 91-year-old friend on her way home from the store.  She saw my truck in the yard and decided to stop in and became alarmed to find my door open (!!) and me nowhere around.  Since I have joined her ranks of widow-living-alone-in-the-country, she had to make sure I hadn't fallen and couldn't get up.  So she stepped right into my house.

This is OK with me, I do the same thing to her, because she's hard of hearing.  Do you know how difficult it can be to walk up behind a nearly deaf person and let them know you're there without scaring them half to death?  But I, too, want to make sure she hasn't fallen and can't get up.

So...a little more advice from the country widow... lock your doors for privacy before you climb into the tub.  Unless you're planning to fall and not be able to get up.  Then you'd better leave them open.

I think you'll need to decide this one for yourself.

Blessings,

Katrinka

Finishing Fence Line Clean Up

I've been finishing the east fence line.  I thought I'd share some practical info on clearing out these weeds.  Above is my truck loaded with just a portion of the outside of the fence... I have to clear both sides of the fence because the weeds grow on both sides, and there are also trees that grow into the fence that need to be removed.

I'm wondering if I should just take the fence down and keep this area mowed next year.  The fencing is a boundary, and if I get a dog or chickens again in the future, I think I'll wish I had kept it.  So I'll wait and decide on that next spring.

When we first moved here we had two dogs. One was an older dog who was blind and the other was a younger female, we think 1/2 German shepherd and 1/2 Husky.  We found her on a drive out into the country and brought her home.  She used to yodel at us, kind of a warbling howl.  Anyway, we had no fencing at first and I'd put the blind dog on a leash and lead him around the yard, right around the property lines.  And the female would follow along behind.  About three weeks after moving here, the older dog died and I stopped with the walks.  However, the female would walk the property line every day at about the same times, all the way around the acreage, marking every few yards.  I've always wondered if I could purposely train a dog to respect boundaries using this method, without having fencing.

I had to buy a new tree saw, my old one just got too worn out with all the sawing I was doing.  This is my favorite kind of saw, and it only cost me $20 at the hardware store.  It would have cost $15 to have the old one sharpened.:

Fiskars brand 15" curved blade tree saw

I can get a lot of leverage with this type of saw, kinda hang on it a little pulling it backwards and I can get two hands on the handle and really put my weight into it.  It makes all the difference if you're doing a lot of cutting.  Of course, since it's curved you can avoid poking the end of the saw into branches or objects close to the limb you're sawing.  One thing to be aware of is if you're sawing out a tree that's inside a wire fence with this curved saw, make sure you start the cut in a place that you'll be able to finish it without hitting wire.

I was really wearing out as I neared finishing this fence clean up.  I could tell, because I kept having to take a break every 10-15 minutes.  I discovered that kneeling or even sitting on the ground and scooting along and working that way took a lot less energy.  The only difference was that I couldn't stack the weeds as I went along, but just threw them behind me and had to come back later and gather  them in stacks.  That was no trouble, though, and saved me lots of energy to do the actual chopping/sawing.  After I gathered the weeds, I came back with a garden rake and pulled all the dead grass away from the fenceline and mowed down the fence on either side.

I have some more trumpet vine along the south fence that I need to prune, and then I think I'll just burn off any more of the fence that I want cleaned up.  I couldn't do that with this area, as there were too many trees and vines.  I've had a couple nightmares lately of long, skinny arms reaching out with short twiggy fingers pulling at my hair... memories of getting tangled in the tall, dried weeds!

When I burn off the fence, this means I'll need to wait until everything along the fence is nice and dry and also have a few buckets of water to splash on the wooden fence posts so they don't catch fire.  I burnt up one of my good wooden fence posts last fall.  I thought it was well protected, but I came out a couple days after burning the grass and found it smoldering!

We have cloudy skies today.  But I'm pretty sure that right before the sun sets, down on the horizon, there will be a break in between the cloud cover and the earth and the sun will dazzle us just before it sets.  I don't know if this happens all the time, but it happens every time I have been watching.

Blessings,

Katrinka

Here's a photo I took just a few moments ago of the sun breaking through the clouds right before it set.  My camera phone doesn't do justice to the colors.  

Chickens, Prologue

banty gamecock rooster

When we had our chickens, we had basically two batches... one 'on purpose' flock of heavier bodied egg/meat birds, usually Buff Orpingtons.  The second flock was the result of someone giving us a gamecock rooster and two little black cochin banty hens.  These little roosters are called gamecocks for a reason... there are only two things they like to do, and fighting is one of them.

These smaller birds were very active, could fly into the rafters of the barn (which is where they preferred to roost).  The hens would get broody very easily and made excellent mothers, leading huge groups of little fluffy chicks out of the barn every so often.  They were dark colored, so avoided the eye of the chicken hawks.  I lost track of what exactly was going on out there, what with all the other things I did, until Mister D came in one day and said that some of those banty roosters would have to go... he had counted 25 of them!  

'To go' in homestead chicken language means 'to go' into the stockpot.  But these little fellas are not much more than bones, feathers, and muscle.  Still, he said we would do the usual routine with these guys until we got rid of some of them.  

The usual routine for butchering chickens around here was that we would get up early and I'd start a big pot of water heating while Mister D went out and chopped the heads off of 6 birds.  Then he would come inside and dress for work and leave.  I would spend most of the rest of the day dressing out the chickens and either canning or freezing them.

This worked well for getting rid of these little birds until one day, for some unaccountable reason, I began to feel sorry for Mister D that he had to get up and kill little birds all the time before going to work.  So I volunteered to do the whole job for him.  I assured him I would be fine, I could manage it, he should just go ahead and dress in his work clothes and I would handle it all.  He wasn't so confident and questioned whether I should do the chopping-the-head-off thing.  He felt like it was man's work.  But I insisted and he finally agreed

Little active birds on a chopping stump are harder to hit than a big, fat, lazy bird.  The target is smaller, the bird is wigglier... you get the idea.  I did OK with the first two birds.  The third rooster, however, was my downfall.  I chopped and yes, I did kinda take the head off.  But only the front half of the head.  He leaped up off the stump and took out across the yard, crowing and zig zagging all over the place.

I was horrified.  He couldn't see, but he could hear and his legs worked just fine.  I grabbed a dish pan and went running after him, thinking I would plunk the dishpan down over the top of him and figure out what to do next.  But when he heard me coming behind him, he would take off like a rocket.

I had a bad go of it.  He didn't wear out or slow down, and once, even when I got the dishpan down over him, he jumped up and knocked it away and took off out across the yard again! I was wearing out and getting desperate, and worse was even beginning to admire his stamina and wishing I didn't have to do him in... but of course that was still going to have to happen.

I went into the house and called Randy at work, and, in tears, begged him to come home and finish off the rooster.  All he would say was, "I'm sorry, baby."  I pleaded with him, I rationalized, I came up with every argument I could think of, every bit of pathetic femininity was put into my conversation, but "I'm sorry, baby" was all he would say.  Finally, I lost my temper and hollered, "Stop saying you're sorry and COME HOME AND KILL THIS BIRD!" ... Hahaha.  That didn't work, either.

I'll interject right here that I like a man who won't let me push him around.  It gives me a sense of security knowing that he'll do what he thinks is best even if I hit him with all I've got.  However, I was having some serious doubts about this philosophy that day...

Well, it all worked out.  I finally caught the rooster, finished the job, couldn't stand to dress him out, though, so he got totally disposed of.  I shakily butchered the other remaining roosters and dressed them all out.  After that, it was Mister D's job to do the butchering.  

I guess if there's a moral to this story, it would have to be to not feel sorry for men who are doing man things... they got it covered.  And also, maybe, when butchering smaller chickens remember to always aim low.

Blessings,

Katrinka