So Much to be Grateful For

As I untie the last knot on the plastic yellow rope, the bean tree trellis falls to the ground and is no more. It is November in the garden, and, yes, Tim and I are still working on creating paradise in our own little corner of the world. It is a rare sunny day, warm for this time of year. As we work together outside, I think about how working in the garden with him is on my list of Top Five Things I Like To Do With Tim.

How did the garden come out? I can't say it was huge success, but I can't say it was a huge failure either. This is a picture of it in late August/early September from the upstairs window in my house. No matter what, it was all quite lovely to look at throughout the growing season.

Mama, Where Do Eggs Come From?

My backyard. It's like watching a live show at the community theater. Anything can happen, and it will. Even Shakespeare can't compare, and we have some really good Shakespeare productions where I live.

The scarlet runner beans take center stage growing up and over poles forming a nice bean teepee even though the neighborhood deer have helped themselves to lunch a few times. Butterflies, bees, hummingbirds, and predators come to visit. Worms eat food scraps and poop compost. Tomatoes turn orange and red. And the chickens scratch for bugs and worms, and help themselves to the strawberries before I can pick them.

There are things going on that I can't see, too, like the onions and potatoes growing underground. And once the hens started laying, I started to think about all those egg cells in their bodies, and it was no longer enough just to open up the nesting box and help myself to the finished product.

Endlessly fascinated, I needed to know more.

Of Coyotes, Chickens, and Cats

It felt like forever, and I was starting to lose patience. When I got my three hens, I was told they'd start laying in August probably. I thought perhaps though that these chicks could be on the exceptional side, as is my cat, Larry, and maybe they'd start producing eggs just a little early...maybe?

I am a good chicken owner. I make sure the girls have feed and water at all times. I toss in greens for variety. Sometimes a strawberry or two from the garden as well. Every worm I capture is theirs. I let them roam free under supervision when I'm working outside. And now I was ready to be rewarded for that.

But July ended, and then it was August, and still I was eggless. I started to call them "the slacker hens." Out loud and on Facebook even.

New Kids on the Block

While it's hard to think of the town I live in as "urban," and I really try to avoid being "trendy," I've now joined the ranks of those backyard poultry owners who live within city limits. The girls, three laying hens (well, someday, anyway), finally arrived last Sunday.

They came as young birds, not chicks, raised from infancy by Tim's mom, Shirley, who raised another dozen or so more for his niece Deanna and her partner, Hans. Shirley, who was raised on a farm in Eastern Washington, was happy to raise chicks for us. Since I have never owned so much as a parakeet, I was happy to let her do it.

"Shirley said to tell you that you have to do the chicken call," Deanna informed me when Tim and I arrived to pick them up at her place. The chicken call, which Shirley taught them to respond to, goes something like "toot, toot, toot!"

Culinary Arts and a Coop

It was a very busy week on the "farm," and I can confidently say a lot has been accomplished. Most of the week was spent in Seattle, and while that didn't get a lot of the physical work done, it moved the farm's concept forward in great strides.

I have decided that, if a job (teaching life skills to incarcerated men at Clallam Bay Correctional Center) I interviewed for doesn't come through, I will likely enroll in the Culinary Arts Program at Seattle Central Community College if I can get enough funding to pay for it. Seattle Central is one of a few colleges that still has worker retraining money available to the unemployed for certain programs, and one can still draw unemployment while going to school. I attended an orientation for the program on Thursday, and it was quite impressive. One of my original motivations for choosing this program was to gain credibility as a food writer, and in the orientation the presenter said some of their graduates had gone on to do just that. One part of the program includes summer work on a Skagit Valley farm and the curriculum also infuses sustainable food system practices into the coursework.

This is a very attractive Plan B, but if the job is offered to me, I'm going to take it for a variety of reasons and be content that I can continue to learn about culinary arts through self-study. At the prison, there is a large grassy area in the middle of the surrounding buildings. If I work there, my dream is to make it into a garden and teach the guys about sustainable food practices.