It’s so obvious how ball sports were created!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuY731NWAi4

 

The flock continues to grow and handy hubby continues to master his new hobby.  He sneaked in a dozen new arrivals under one broody mama and my did she wake up with a surprise!  All are happy and healthy.  Except that the current count is 80, which seems to me a bit ambitious, but I’ve got my hands full in the garden, so I’m not saying anything.  Yet anyway.

In spite of a very dry, hot, windy spring our harvest has been abundant.  We’ve been able to make huge improvements in just a year and much of that has to do with the chickens, keeping down the bug population and fertilizing our gardens, and the new raised beds that give more control over everything:  weeds, insects, soil, watering, and soon-to-be much needed shade.

Spring is a busy time and my updates are stalling in consequence, but here are some recent events in pictures, since I’m sure you’re very busy too!

In my basic research on food and agriculture for this blog I have come to realize we should change our Statue of Liberty’s motto for newly arriving immigrants, so they really understand what they have signed up for by coming to the U.S.

Instead of:  “Give us your poor, your tired, your huddled masses longing to be free . . .”, which we obviously haven’t wanted for many generations now, I believe we should be more honest and transparent with our new and potential immigrants and the countries from which they come.

I suggest:  “Give us your diseased, your depressed, your addicts longing for more, because they’ll fit right in.  All others, run for your lives!”

The statistics of disease, particularly cancer, along with depression in this country should be shocking to every American citizen.  Immigrants should realize that coming here will likely be extremely hazardous to their health.

According to Robyn O’Brien, who sites statistics from The American Cancer Society and LiveStrong in a recent speech, not only do we have the highest rates of cancer in the world, when immigrants come here from other countries their likelihood of developing cancer increases dramatically.

When it comes to depression, we also take the cake.  In her new book Fried: Why You Burn Out and How to Revive, Dr. Joan Borysenko notes that of the entire world’s supply of antidepressants, a 9.6 billion dollar business in 2008, Americans use 2/3 of it.   I wonder if we might be depressed because so many of our friends and family members have cancer.

Cancer and depression aren’t the only diseases we are suffering from at abnormally accelerated rates.  Severe allergies have increased exponentially in this country since the 90s, as have multiple other diseases associated with inflammation.

Our economy is not the biggest crisis we are currently facing as Americans.  The major crisis is our food, and our lifestyle.

Please watch, and please, take action.

TEDxAustin Robyn O’Brien 2011

Papi is more entertaining than TV,  according to ME.

And such a BOY.  So proud of his stick and ready to pee on it all!

Happy Weekend!

CHARGE!!

Taking a look at holiday time around the globe, we should all wish to be Finnish.  44 days each year.  That beats handy hubby, who began his 6 weeks vaca last week, eagerly nose-diving into projects: drip irrigation on the sexiest garden yet, coop 2.0 for the forthcoming meat flock, and the usual homestead upkeep that keeps him out of my hair while still fully participating in this household.  Goddess bless this rural life!

After 2 decades of nomadic life, neither of us could now imagine living anywhere else than in the sticks of East Texas.  Except maybe Finland.

I’m not going to preach more about our over-worked, over-consuming culture, because it seems to be either to the choir or the critic.  But, just one thing:

When we don’t take adequate downtime we become stressed, and when we are stressed, we often misjudge.  When we misjudge continually, our mental and/or physical health breaks down.

I’m just asking:  What does the Good Life mean to you?  What is keeping you from creating it?

When I tell friends they are often envious of the 6 weeks handy hubby enjoys, not to mention his 2 week on, 2 week off schedule year-round.

I’d love I job like that, they say!

So then get one.  Or take one.  Or create one.

Because it’s seriously worth it!  The changes we are making are absolutely improving our health.  Ok maybe that’s not some great accomplishment like saving the planet, but I believe it all starts at home.  I’m not trying to tempt fate here, but besides a stone or so in weight gained and lost according to the seasons, our combined health could only be described as pretty darn stellar.  Soon to surpass that of our youths.

If you’re not lucky enough to live in Finland, well then maybe you could re-invent wherever you are living, and whatever you are doing.

Why not?  Loads of folks have done it.  You probably have too, maybe without even realizing, at some point in your life.  But what have you done toward The Good Life lately?

Do something today that connects you to your calling!

Like what?

I don’t know what you can do, that’s up to you, but here’s what I’m doing.

I’m introducing a new segment in this blog called:

Now What?! For those times when your opportunity exceeds your skills or knowledge and the next step requires research.

This week’s Now What?! Radishes.

I love spicy crunchy radishes and they are one of the easiest veggies to grow in your garden, and one of the earliest to arrive.  But what to do when you’ve harvested several pounds of them at once?  They don’t freeze too well, but you can shred them first to flavor soups and stews.  It seems some folks also dehydrate them, but that sounds too hardcore for me.

Vegan Spring Salad

A Czech favorite dish of mine was Jarní Salat, a mixture of shredded carrots and celeriac in a sour cream based dressing.  With our first spring surplus from the garden I’ve created my own very healthy and delicious version of Jarní Salat (Spring Salad) that is vegan and full of earthy flavor.

Before you think you don’t like beets, try them fresh from the garden, they are sublime!

I’ll also be experimenting with a few of the pickling and relish recipes I’ve found.

Here’s 2 that look great:

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/harvest/msg1021361225547.html

And one more:

Chili Tomato Radish Relish

1 1/2 cups tomato puree or crushed whole tomatoes

1 cup diced onions

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 T. minced fresh basil or 1 t. dried

1 T. fresh crumbled oregano or 1 t. dried

2 t. ground cumin

1 t. chili powder

2 t. lemon juice

2 T. sesame oil

1/4 cup vinegar

2 cups sliced radishes

Gently simmer all except radishes for 20 minutes. Pour the hot sauce over the sliced radishes, chill.  Yields 6 servings

Lifted from:

http://forums.homestead.org/forum_posts.asp?TID=12300&title=radishes

Where I also read this great quote:

The farmer is the only man in our economy who buys everything at retail, sells everything at wholesale, and pays the freight both ways. JFK

Apparently my question last week was not very compelling.

Let me try again:  How much vacation do you take each year?

It’s been proven that the only folks to hate spring have serious allergies.  Thank goodness mine are mild.

I love traveling too.  I spent a week in Vegas at Kevin Hogan’s Influence Bootcamp, learning a lot but not having much fun, except that the learning part was a lot like fun.  I don’t gamble, not at all, so most of the Vegas hoopla is lost on me.  When I was not learning I was mostly staring out my window at the mountains, wondering about life and love and people, same as I do here.  I still got up with the rooster.  Apparently, to do more staring.   The people there were unexpectedly awesome, but that’s not enough to drag me from a few hours of quiet and solitude over more socializing.  Typically.

What I almost missed were the dogwoods blossoming!  Quel scandal!  Which got me thinking of a great question:

Do you prefer city travel or nature travel?

I’m going to share with you three secrets I learned in Kevin Hogan’s Influence Boot Camp in Las Vegas last week!
I hope I don’t get caught!

Secret #1: Use the word “secret”

Secret #2: Use video. (see photo link below!)

**Good writing is about as useful as good toilet paper in this new age–it’s great if you’ve got it, but soooo not necessary.**

Secret #3:  Ask questions, people feel by nature compelled to reply to them.  Do you feel compelled now to reply to mine?

Bonus Secret #4:  Use bonuses.  That is, in order to drive traffic to your website, where it is expected that you have something to sell or promote.  Oops.  Looks like I’ll be hitting boot camp again next year.  If you want more secrets I guess I’ll see ya there!

To see the videos click on the photos below to be redirected to my YouTube channel–you guessed it–another secret!

This week it’s continuing to cultivate stillness versus Influence Boot Camp: Las Vegas.  Hmmm, I could be going crazy out here.  That has occurred to me, of course.  With suddenly so much time and far fewer distractions along with a complete shift of the influences in my life, this intense transition I am feeling, which for convenience I’m just calling mid-life, even though I still feel too young for that word to apply, has had me searching and pondering in all new directions.

At different times in my life I’ve been more drawn to spirituality, self-help, yoga– a sudden quest for nourishment–physical intellectual emotional spiritual.   Before it has come in waves, but this time it feels more like a tsunami.  But before I use that reference so lightly, let me pause, and think of those suffering and struggling in Japan right now, and everywhere else soon to come, and send them my deepest heartfelt prayers for themselves and their homes.

But a tsunami is how it feels and I have been left so curious.  How much do our individual and collective lives mirror the universe?

What about all we’re hearing of 2012?  Do the odd predictions resonate with you more this time than in the past?  Is the stillness/intensity contradiction residing in me alone?  I don’t think so, and let me explain why.

As I mentioned my influences have changed significantly.  About six months ago I joined a course called Feminine Power, all women from many countries around the globe.  I have sucked up this this work like a thirsty sailor dry for years.  It is astounding to me how often the right teachers appear in the most crucial hour.  It is the best schooling I have ever had in my life, because it’s about life.  It’s not easy to describe in a sentence what is taught in this course but I’ll try.  It’s part women’s support group, part self-help, part spiritual practice, part visionary training, part psychoanalysis.  It is a large group of women gathering who intend to evolve the world, and with them I know I am home at last.  It could very well be a cult.  But I mean that in the very best way.

There’s that cynical voice in my head that laughs as I write this, “You’ve moved to the country and joined a cult, nice one!”  And in such close proximity to Waco!  If you were saying that too, hold up a sec.

This course is teaching me how to squelch that cynic, and it’s working.  Are you wondering what’s this got to do with 2012, cultivating stillness, Vegas Boot Camp, or for that matter, a homesteading blog?

Be patient please, I’m getting there.

A new friend in the course recommended the newest book by Gregg Braden,  Fractal Time: The Secret of 2012 and a New World Age.  This is fascinating stuff and it’s all new to me!  It seems I’m not alone at all in feeling this tremendous personal, social, and universal shift, and the Mayans knew about it too.

Before you think, wow, she really has gone over the deep end out there–just wait, there’s more!  The Feminine Power course is part of a larger umbrella called Evolving Wisdom that includes online seminars with a number of social visionaries, all of them very interesting.  One author who offered a seminar is an astrology expert, Carol Allen, who says that this shift will be most intensely felt by those in two of the signs, one which happens to be mine.

Open your mind to the possibilities.  Before you turn away automatically, look closer.  Our ancestors were knowledgeable folks living lives much more closely tied to nature.  They had a very long time to observe, and we cannot discount them as easily as we have been.  The chaos we are now experiencing, the weather, the wars, the financial failures, it’s not just our impression these are happening more often and more intensely, Braden reports in his book.  And if what he says is true, he’s just explained for me why we made this move to the country, why we are obsessed with self-sufficiency, why my life feels full of contradictions, and even  why one week I’m obsessed with stillness and the next I’m off to boot camp in Vegas during prime spring gardening time.

I’m not smart enough to know if Braden’s right or not, but it sure is nice to have all my answers wrapped up in one pretty little package for just $12.95!

I loved my Peace Corps service mostly because I love the country where I was sent.  I had first visited four years before in 1990 and fell immediately smitten first with Prague, then with everywhere else I went in the country.  I still think it was something like destiny, but in truth a lot of effort went into making it happen.  Just not a lot of effort by me.  In my experience the notion that “nothing worthwhile comes easily” is a lot of hoohee.  I attest that it’s the exact opposite.  The best things that have ever happened to me came as if I were the magnet, not the plow. Those other things I had the impression of working really hard for I found eventually unsatisfying, or lost in the dust, through hurricanes and other mysterious acts of nature.  Some of them, by the time I’d achieved them I think I was just too tired to really appreciate them.

I sometimes wonder if I would be such a huge PC fan if I’d been sent to Guinea Bissau or Yemen, the other two options on the table at that time.  My then-hubby got friendly with the DC staff at several Country Desks,  using his wealth of personality to cajole not only one of the best assignments, but also one of the best volunteer locations once we got there.  I wish I could say I had something, anything, to do with that, but all I ever did was say, “Let’s join the Peace Corps!”  The universe seemed to take it away from there.

When I think it’s been 15 years since my PC service, and now 50 years since the first PCVs served,  it feels like something close to dismay.  Was life supposed to happen this fast?  And, weren’t we supposed to be further along in our collective (and personal) evolution by now?

While I was teaching in Cheb, a lovely little city very near the German border to the west, the constant change was a palpable quotidian thrill I will never forget.  It was customary that you shopped for food every couple days, a market conveniently located right in the “housing block” –those quite unattractive Soviet-style “apartment villages” –and I would marvel on each occasion at all the new goods on the shelves.  Because we were right on the border, and the Germans loved to come over on weekends to shop, the development in this city was faster and more easily witnessed than anywhere else I can imagine.  Overnight the toilet paper choices tripled, from two to six.  Low-fat yogurt and broccoli were a major development in my life that first winter.  Pasta sauce choices and packaged foods were to soon follow the path of the toilet paper.  Never before or since has the grocery store been such a reliable adventure for me.

This was of course ancient times, pre-cell phone or even hotmail.  A young volunteer today wouldn’t be able to imagine a world without several instant communication possibilities.  This was a world where two weeks to receive written communication was considered fast, and to make a call home required multiple highly annoying and uncertain steps, including finding a working pay phone without too long a line already waiting, and hoping you have enough credits on your card because the kiosk is closed, and further hoping that if you do get through, and have enough credits, the folks in the line behind you won’t stare holes through your back the entire time you are using them.

Am I really THAT old?  I don’t feel so old that life could have gone from that, to this, in such a relatively short time.  How quickly we adapt!    I left home without my Iphone last week with in-town errands that would keep me busy the entire day.  I was lost.  I didn’t have my lists, my numbers, my addresses, hubby couldn’t reach me and was getting worried, and as I’m sitting alone in a café eating lunch without the ability to surf, I kept thinking, how has it come to this?  It’s been two years this month, the same amount of time as my PC service.  What has coming to the country really meant for me?  I call it being alone out here in the sticks half the month while hubby works.   Imagine!  It’s tough to say how very far from the world you would have to go to really be alone.    If I wanted to take on a challenge I’d live totally unconnected to the virtual world for a month and see how sane I stay.   A decade ago I’d have thought that’s doable, today I’m certain I’d quickly end up like Tom Hank’s character in Cast Away, conversing with a ball.  I’ve already started talking to animals, so it’s probably not too far of a stretch.

It is the new truth, the new normal, and for every comfort, convenience, connection, piece of knowledge it offers, there’s an equal list on the other side that takes away.  There is something wrong at the very core of this development, for as much as I love it and have become irreversibly dependent on it, there is that inner-voice that says, for all this connection, I seem to spend less time truly connecting.

The contradictions of my daily life fascinate me ceaselessly.  In an urge to get back to the land and live much closer to nature, I find myself relying on technology more than ever before.  In these remote dirt roads TomTom has become my second best friend.  Handy Hubby is of course still first, and when it comes to directions he is nearly as good as TomTom, but while away at work half the month he gets replaced by a little toy-size machine.  (Hey, get your mind out of the gutter, this is a PG-rated blog.)

Most recently I have decided I NEED dual monitors, to increase my productivity, so I’ll have more time to spend outside, away from all the machines.  As I stare into the guts of another machine trying to make enough sense of it all to follow the Utube video demonstration from my laptop, I am absolutely astounded once again at how damn smart people are.  We must surely rival nature in sheer genius.

It’s the machines that make this life here even possible, and pleasant, but the desire to get away from them is far more intense for me here and now.  The humming of computer fans and fridge motors is a constant low groan upstaging the bird calls and whispers of wind, which before I would hardly have noticed beyond the ceaseless simultaneous distractions.

It’s astounding both our inner and outer mechanisms to evolve and adapt.  Like the destiny of my PC destination, I believe we can stop working so hard.  We’ve already got loads of great stuff, I’m thinking it might be a good idea to slow down a little, take some time out for reflection and evaluation.  I believe what’s meant to happen will happen with less effort if we let it.  Once we stop pushing so hard I think we are likely to find resolutions come more quickly and effortlessly.   And I suspect we won’t miss our maniacal competitive drive as much as we currently imagine, once we rediscover how lovely it is to just sit and be quiet sometimes.

Evolution is in our genes, progress is in our minds.  We often judge our world on its progress instead of focusing more deeply on the process and the effects of its evolution.  The same was true I felt for the Czech Republic and all the rapidly expanding formerly Soviet controlled economies.  Were these changes of progress or evolution?  What did all these sudden changes change?   I see in hindsight my life mirrors our society, because I am starting to realize I also have been too focused on progress.  I see that evolution is like a magnet we hold inside us, and progress is the plow we labor to push in front of us.  My goal for myself and the world is that we stop pushing the plows so much, and start becoming the magnets.

As RPCVs we might be cheering and promoting the Peace Corps, but I think what really makes us loyal is less the concept and institution of the Peace Corps as we now know it, and more the feelings associated with the country where we worked and the people that we knew.

The Peace Corps for me will always be the Czech Republic first, and then the belief that at the wise old age of 50 it could aspire to be one of the very few new-age, yet traditional, institutions whose focus is evolution over progress.

Of all the work I’ve ever done in my life, gardening feels most like fun, usually.  Maybe that’s why the first two years I called it dabbling and experimenting and didn’t take myself all too seriously.  Well this year let the real games begin.  No more fluf- n-stuff, I mean business.  This is the year I graduate from Tiny Tots and move on to Little League!

I already showed you the new Master Garden Plot, fenced for hen, deer, and rabbit.  The raised beds are loaded with our own compost creation, already sprinkled with seeds for Winter Veg Trail 1, frost protection in place.  I’ve even got a redesigned foolproof record system, with dates and diagrams and ample space for notes and stuff.  I’ve simultaneously got the Winter Veg Trail 2 and Summer Crop 1 under grow lights waiting for their future time in the sun.  I feel just like a real scientist, I think.   I would say farmer, but I don’t think farmers house their labs in the kitchen.  I could be wrong.

In taking it up a notch I open myself up to failure, and thereby vulnerability, in this new serious spin on something I used to think of as playing in the dirt.  A bit ironic because in being vulnerable that means playing in the dirt takes me closer to my feminine nature.  Two interesting things I’ve learned lately:  Down here it’s not uncommon to garden by the moon, and among our ancestors agriculture was one of those few places where it was typical that women and men worked alongside each other.

Gardening is actually very empowering, I’d bet a lot of folks don’t know that.  To watch that tiny seed go from miniscule to enormous with only the mildest attention and action required by you is like watching an earthly testament to the divine and the extraordinary in the everyday and seemingly ordinary.

With gardening now in my blood, I wonder if I’m ever again going to be able to take a real job in the real world should one really arise.  At least in my cyber work I can be home to tend to all the plants’ needs.  Not to mention, according to my calculations, I save about 3 hours a day living in the country and working from home rather than living and working in the city.  That’s a significant time savings for anyone!  All my previous commute time, primping time, shopping and water cooler time can be devoted to our homestead hobby.   I really can’t imagine a better trade off.

So whatever it takes to make my garden grow: cheerleading, special lights, classical music, planting by the moon, a scientific approach, patience, action, a fancy mixed cocktail of all of the above, whatever.   I’m an athlete now, training for the Olympics–whatever it takes for success!

We at Rustic Romance Farms have discovered the key to true Romance.  We call it: Novelty.

Valentine’s Day is a major holiday now and no amount of your complaining is going to change that.  But from couples who have been there and done that together for YEARS, we often hear a big bored Valentine bah humbug.

We make preparations, buy cheesy cards, dress up in uncomfortable clothes, light candles, have what’s supposed to be a romantic dinner that’s ridiculously over-priced, then go home.

Relationship experts agree that novelty is a requirement of romance, that’s why they recommend we older couples try to shake things up a bit: get a hotel room, dress in lingerie, use props, experiment with aphrodisiacs.

But I’ve got a great recommendation that will be much cheaper and develop your skills at the same time!

This Valentine’s Day, why not slaughter your own dinner together?!

For just $22.95 you and your beloved can have the Valentine’s experience of a lifetime.  Come on down to the farm and pick out your very own chickens, then let us guide you on a magical journey together while we slit their throats, pluck their feathers (yours to keep as a souvenir for your grandchildren!), eviscerate them, and you take them home to craft your very own rustic romantic roast chicken dinner, or chicken pie, straight from the farm!  I’ll even throw in my best old-fashioned country-style recipes.

Act now and we’ll send you home with a free dozen yard eggs you can collect yourself from right under the hen’s behind!

But that’s not all, I’ll even share my award-winning, top secret recipe for French Toast-not a single illegal ingredient, so perfect for the whole family!

Recreate real romance with your beloved  at Rustic Romance Farms, home of the chicken slaughter Valentine!

Here’s what folks are saying about their Slaughter Valentine experience:

“We had such a blast!  One time Micah accidentally splattered blood all over me!  It was so funny!”
~Shannon & Micah St. Louis, MO

“Mishelle and Handy Hubby are awesome hosts.  They even lets us take home the chicken guts for our dog!”
~Eli & Christina Manhattan, NY

It helps to have an audience

My new garden space is too sexy for this blog