A year has now passed and I’ve decided it’s high time to praise all our successes here. Mom, who was our first visitor a year ago and so was one of the very few to get the full before and after perspective, has recently visited, and she said we should be very proud.   Of course, I always obey mother.

I’ve complained continually about the huge learning curve in gardening, and all the other failures, but today it’s suddenly clear to me that after one year we’re like practically old farm hands.  Last year 8 chicks lasted about a week, this year 35 chicks are still here after one month.  They are as happy in their magnificent home as our pup is in his pond, and are already successfully free ranging.  This month handy hubby, the great protector, has had to kill two raccoons, one possum, and two copperheads to ensure their continued safety.

This gardening thing is such a breeze, I’ve obviously got it down pat.  The transplants that went in a month ago, after having barely developed in their half toilet paper rolls, are now thriving.  Transplanting those measly things seemed a hopeless endeavor and took the hands of a surgeon, so I am clearly on the path to Master Gardener status.  No actually, let’s just say I am already there.  The tomatoes, zucchini, and watermelon that reseeded themselves in the corn and pea patch, I meant to do that.  Really!  I’m taking credit for everything, even the regular rain and constant sunshine.  Why not?  Last year I felt responsible for all the failures–the drought, the insects, the voles and every other critter–so now that there are successes, I say I deserve to take credit for those too.  Oh I know what you’re thinking, don’t weigh your produce before the harvest.  But what the hell, I’m feeling so good I’ll make a wager with you, in one month’s time will begin a summer-long harvest that will rival the produce section of Whole Foods, with so much surplus I’ll be cursing that I’m so damn good.

Best of all, I haven’t had one single case of poison ivy.  Last year at this time I had already had three huge rashes.  But after all the screaming, and scratching, and spraying, and pulling, and even burning, what was once poison ivy paradise is now a lovely flower garden, half annual, half perennial.   The birds are happy, the pup is happy, the garden is happy, handy hubby is happy, so damn it, I’m jumping on that happy train too.  This place is looking ship shape, so Mom you are so right again, it’s time to pump up the proud!

Some folks think what we’re doing out here is really out there, so I thought I could put things into some perspective.  Extremes exist even among the extremists– the hardcore homesteaders, the survivalists, the simplicity freaks–but the bar is moving even lower these days.  Restaurant chefs in big cities are buying into the trend to go low big time, some of them even planting their own kitchen gardens and requiring their menus come from within 30 miles.  Now that lowering our carbon footprint is an international movement, (being manipulated of course by advertisers to sell new products) I’ll bet within a few years even the craziest of the crazy won’t be considered that crazy anymore.

So I’d like to share some stories of folks who have led the pack in low, even when they might not have meant to do that.  My first fascination with self-reliance was observing the Czechs and their various skills during my Peace Corps service, talk about a low carbon footprint, they hardly even produced any garbage in the home!  But it was not until a few years later, when I was interviewing a young Czech man for my first novel, that I really witnessed low.  His name was Petr, a buff and handsome 20-something who was a reenactor.

Maybe you don’t know what that is.  It’s a troupe of amateur actors and history buffs who sometimes travel and work at castles recreating scenes and skills for tourists.  Most of the time they do it for free, much of the time they don’t even have an audience.

He took us to his “camp,” a few acres among lovely rolling fields and meadows where he and a dozen others practiced their various trades:  pottery, metal work, old school carpentry, savory dishes cooked underground or over fire, and of course the crowd-pleasing skills of swordsmanship and archery.  It was one of the most far-out things I’d ever witnessed first-hand and relatively sober.  This small group of folks, who had full-time day jobs as bank clerks and secretaries, and school teachers, chose to spend their entire weekends and vacations there, way out in the sticks, doing everything exactly as it would have been done in pre-Medieval times.  There were no motors or electricity or plumbing, all the structures were built by them with tools replicated from the period.  It was as authentic as could ever be imagined by an American–the needle to mend their boots was carved from bone, the thread was home-spun, the boots themselves were cut from leather tanned and fashioned themselves.  They bragged that one pair of boots had taken months to produce, and they had only the one pair to show for it, several others having been total failures.  I have never seen such pride in achievements in my life, not before or since, nor have I been among a happier group of 20-somethings.  They had no clue about carbon, these guys were doing it just for kicks!

There are also the hardcore homesteaders and survivalists I read about and DO NOT envy one little bit.  The ones who refuse fridge and freezer top the list (Hello, how do you keep your vodka and paté chilled?!).  There are others out there who live without electricity altogether (So how on earth do you connect to the WWW?!) NO thanks!  I will never be one of these hard core types.

But there are other ideas out there that sound crazy that I am dying to try, like the composting toilet.  I’ve been researching this one and can’t wait to share all that crap with you here (hehe).   I’m willing to try just about anything, but I know myself pretty well, the only kind of homesteader I can really aspire to becoming would be of the somewhat spoiled diva variety, except I think I might be the only one.   I would love no motors, but how would the work get done?  I would love handmade tools, but who the hell would make them?   We will try milling our own lumber and growing and grinding our own heirloom wheat someday, but for now, it’s still baby steps.  Thank heavens.

Reenactor Petr trying to teach me some skills

Our dog Papi hated lettuce, until we started feeding it to the chicks.  Suddenly it seems to be among his favorite snacks, when he can steal it from them.  In the kitchen he still doesn’t like it.  This makes me consider once again the nature of our natures and I’m reminded of the parable about the frog and the scorpion.

I’ve always hated this tale, because while I feel I’m perpetually playing the frog, others mistake me often for the scorpion.  Being convinced that I am the frog is not because I have delusions that we are not all self-interested beings.  I know, for better or worse, it is what has allowed us to thrive– the dog, as much as the frog, or the man, or the plant.  I know I’m the frog because I have always been gullible, the scurvy of the optimist.   I’ve always been over-ready to allow words or appearances to supersede actions and sometimes even common sense.  I think I’m not the only one.

So I’ve decided to update the frog and scorpion tale to suit my own life better.  The frog will be a chick and the scorpion a black lab.  Instead of a trip across the river the sweet and friendly lab pup begs the chicks to play his provocative but seemingly innocent  chasing game through the meadow.  At long last his charming pants convince them, it’s a beautiful day and he clearly means no harm.

That black lab, just look at that face, how could he possibly be the scorpion?  Has he not so far obeyed orders, sometimes under great pressure to indulge his instincts?  But just the flap of a wing and he is on high alert.  It’s so very lucky for those chicks that he is well-supervised now, under constant surveillance.  If only they knew, those poor little chicks, how their natural moves provoke him.  He cannot help that at all.  Any more than they can.  He’s still playing the patient watch dog, for now.   I know he is surely not capable of strategically planning his next move, but just you wait, one of these times that seemingly innocent little flap will provoke a tragic end to their already shortly numbered days in the meadow.

The moral of my new twist to the story?  A seemingly careless little misstep or two made out of innocence or ignorance are still missteps with fatal potential.

Will discipline trump instinct?

The first time around he said, Let’s just wing it.   This was very uncharacteristic of him, to go into something so unprepared, and I guess he learned his lesson well.  This time he’s got a set up that deserves a spread in Better Homes & Coops:  a 370 sq. ft man-sized shaded pen and a 96 sq. foot structure with gutters, windows, and storage cupboards, all on skids in case he wants to move it in the future (I can’t help but remind him we’ve had apartments that size) .  Indoors the coop looks like Romper Room for birds with tree branches and beams as bridges and a “quiet corner” for naps; underneath it all there’s a thick carpet of pine shavings.

I appreciate handy hubby’s new hobby, which has a hope of paying for itself in about 15 years, if the cost of chickens and eggs goes up about ten fold.  Yes, of course, I exaggerate, slightly, but I think it well worth that cost and upwards if the birds and eggs are as fabulous as others I’ve tasted home grown.  As an added bonus they will keep the area free of insects of all kinds and fertilize in tandem, along with the healthy dose of entertainment while we’re watching them.  It was weird for me to think of animals “grown”, like vegetables, rather than “raised”, but that’s the term used on the feed bags and in the books.  We are growing 35 of them, or thereabouts, it’s impossible to get an accurate count without tagging them in some fashion.  Only a handful will be staying around long enough to lay, and I guess that’s a more accurate time to count them anyway–who knows how many will actually live to make it to the freezer.

Chickens are the hottest topic on the homesteading wire, whether that’s in the city or the country.  There are an impressive number of books out and already four existing magazines on the topic and a new one just started last month.  As with nearly every other topic the jungle of information is intimidating, so if you don’t have a real drive to sift through it all, it’s bound to fall to the bottom of the list.  Handy hubby, however, has been talking about chickens since I met him.  Of course, talking about chickens, and actually doing them, well, he may have underestimated the first time what it would take, but now, he’s a man on a mission, failure is not an option.

The birds have already taught me something significant about human nature, which I swear I never knew before.  I’m not a sports fan and have never liked team sports, playing or observing.  But when I come across a cricket or beetle in the garden and cringe with my gloved hands all the way to the coop to feed it to them this is one of the funniest spectacles I’ve seen in ages.  This natural behavior is where man-made sports comes from, no doubt.  Only it’s hilarious!  The way the one with the treasure zips all around, through and over and past all the others, hopping up and down, the way they all chase him around the pen, sometimes he fumbles or another steals, it’s comical mayhem and it’s leagues better than any sporting event or reality show I’ve ever seen.

Handy hubby invariably has two project outcomes, either over-engineered or total bust from onset.  The cabin that sits nearly finished is an example of the former, the recent cold frame an example of the latter, there’s an entire list of them, I’m happy to report, on both ends.

So actually the chickens have already taught me two things about human nature.  The other one being, there’s certain times in life when a woman has to learn to step aside. In our defense, men have had a hard time learning that one too.  Whether it’s for women or chickens or money or glory, there is no pursuit in life more single-minded than a man on a mission, in those moments he is behaving as instinctively as the chick with his beetle.

Older and wiser the second time around, we hope

Pampered chickens taste better?