Brooding and hatching

Haven't been keeping up with the old farm blog as I should, but my heart just hasn't been in it. So much going on with Richard applying to grad school in NM and our septic leachfield needing to be replaced, and the truck needing $3000 worth of work, and of course with Richard's back injury he hasn't been working as much, not to mention the pay cut of $500 a month his company imposed last month, so now I'm having anxiety attacks in addition to the joys of regular life. Welcome to America!!! It seems we have, or are about to, join the ranks of most of America these days with bills we cannot pay, medical care we cannot afford--all while we stand here, scratching our heads wondering where it all fell apart.

But life does go on, and we continue to labor away on our little farm, although I'm not sure we can continue to water our gardens with the water bill so high. Where is the rain?

2 homemade baby chicks

A few weeks ago I decided to try to hatch some chicks under one of our broody hens, so I saved four, marked them with a penciled red star to keep them separated from the rest, and let the old girl have them. Well, not even quite 21 days later I find a chick under broody hen, and another egg cracking. How exciting is that? I hoped, but didn't really think it would work. Turns out we only got the two chicks out of the four eggs...I waited another twenty four hours before I threw the dud eggs away. But the two tiny ones are cute as can be, and they are now living in the good old Rubbermaid "brooder" in Richard's office.

4 month old Honey

And my sweet Honey girl is growing like crazy. Took her to the vet to get spade (the responsible choice for pet owners) last week and at four months, she's weighing in at 48 pounds! Of course with everything going on, I'm wondering which of our animals we can afford to keep for the long haul. I'm thinking of selling the llamas and the guineas...or at least trying to find them good homes.

This little experiment in sustainability didn't turn out very well, did it? Two years in and we are losing the battle. Never even made it to producing enough food to can for the winter. I have to wonder what the Universe has in store for us next, because this is getting downright ridiculous with all of our failed attempts at the good life in this place or that. What gives?

Siding and a window on goat barn

Richard is feeling good enough to get some farm work in and we spent a few days putting the siding we bought a year or more ago off of Craigslist on the goat (or llama) barn. It looks good. Doesn't match the color of our house, and it'll be even better when we put up the beige pieces. It was supposed to be for a garden shed that hasn't been built yet, but as we think of moving and renting or selling our house here, we have to finish some of the projects. We even used two of the old windows we've been collecting for a greenhouse in the llama barn siding project.

Dark red siding on goat barn

We are trying to refinance the house in the hopes we can come up with the $3500 to put in a new leach field. We'd like to give the truck back to the bank, but would be $7000 in the hole, so we have been thinking of trying to trade it in on an economical commuter car. Last year when we tried to trade in the truck, they laughed us out of the dealerships. Not sure we can afford another car payment anyway. If anyone wants to buy a 2004 Ford 250, crew cab, 4x4 for 21K, let me know right away!

Tire retaining wall in front of house

Also have been working on my little project of berming up the driveway with tires. Essentially, I'm building a retaining wall out of the millions of tires we have collected over the two years (to build an Earthship style greenhouse, which the town won't let us build). And, except for running out of dirt, it's coming along nicely. When it is finished and stacked three tires high, I'll paint it and plant something in the tires. Or someone will, maybe, if we are not here.
Perhaps we should demolish the Earthbag barn to get dirt for the retaining wall, since it seems unlikely we will come up with enough revenue to have someone finish that project. Or, when they come to dig a new leach field, I can use all that dirt for my tire wall.

So now we are in a holding pattern, just waiting, like good old broody hen. Will Richard get accepted into Highland University? Will our refinance go through so we can fix the septic? Can we find another place to live in NM that allows us to bring the farm? I have even been looking at travel trailers, wondering if we bought one with some of the house money, could we find a piece of land to park it on in NM?

The kids have their first evaluation tomorrow at some place here in town that can do mental evaluations to see if they think the kids need further evaluations. Whatever. We've got appointments a month out and I'm not even sure we will still be here. I guess with how hard these appointments are to get, we better drive up for them. Grad school starts August 21. Yeah, cutting it close. Nothing like being prepared, is there? Who'd of thought going to Taos for a party would throw our lives into such chaos. But then, that's the power of Taos, isn't it, and I was hoping for something meaningful from our trip to the Land of Enchantment.

As soon as we got back, I started reading the Georgia O'Keeffe biographies that have been sitting in my bookshelf. I thought if I can't paint, then I can read about someone who did. Of course, that pulled me deeper into the fantasies of New Mexico, and the urge to paint was too overwhelming to resist. After several days of trying to think on how exactly I could paint (where and what medium), I came up with the kitchen table and watercolors.

Watercolors at the kitchen table

I never learned how to paint with watercolors. I read a book once that I checked out from the library and could never find again. But, I've got nothing to lose except empty paper and tubes of paint that are drying up. I took it to heart when I read that O'Keeffe painted the same scene over and over until she felt she had achieved what she was looking for, and since my view is limited to the one out my kitchen door, I've been painting the Wet Mountains behind the llama barn every night after I get the kids to bed. I'm not happy with anything yet, but I sure am having fun with it. It makes me long for the oils, but I know that's too toxic for the kids (fumes) and oils are harder to drop and run when something comes up. So, for now, it's just me and my watercolors...learning how they work and what I can do with them.

I'm loving my evenings of painting, and I started adding a morning painting too. This morning I even dared to take my watercolor pencils and paper into the living room to look out another window at Pikes peak and the mesas in the foreground. Wonderful!

And because readers want to know, Richard has been going to physical therapy here in town and finally found someone who does the "McKenzie method." It has been doing wonders for him. The first thing that has really worked since he began this back pain journey last April. We keep going to doctors, and keep paying our $50 copays for nothing. No one can do anything. The drugs don't relieve the pain. And, we are running out of copay money. I hope we can continue with the physical therapist for as long as it takes, but if not, we can find the books that Robin McKenzie wrote about this method to relieve back and neck pain. If you have back issues, check it out. Cheaper than surgery and better for you too.

So, that's an update on life at the farm. Hopefully we can relocate the farm to NM and continue on our path of sustainability. Richard wants to study scientific, sustainable, farming practices in grad school and be a farmer who uses his brain instead of his brawn. That's a good plan, considering all of the doctors did tell him he has the back of a fifty year old man and no one sees how it'll get better. Although, I suspect if he stays out of the typical doctor's office his back will get better on its own time. Yoga, yoga, yoga. Flexibility will keep you healthy and vivacious. (I should get back onto my exercise program.)

Now, on to painting and a new biography...Paul Cezanne! Color, color, color...it is everything.

Crazy, hazy days of summer

Wild days of summer, with so much to do, so many plans and smoke from the surrounding fires in the air, it's definitely harder than you  might think to just stop and breathe. The west is on fire it seems, and no matter where we go, the smoke is there to great us.

Susan's Skybus

We spent the weekend of the fourth in Taos, incredibly enough, visiting our fellow Earthbagger Susan for her "Bus warming." The place is great. An old school bus in the sage, out on the Mesa, in the foreground of Two Peaks. It was an adventure, as most trips to NM usually are, and we met several interesting people at the party, some I'd like to get to know better in the future maybe. It was hot out there under the New Mexican sun without any shade, but not as hot as our little homestead in Southern Colorado, which I nicknamed upon arrival here two years ago, "The Surface of the Sun."

Two Peaks

The sagebrush soothed my soul and standing out there in the midst of it, staring at the Taos Mountain, I felt very much at peace, although I did have to silently ask said mountain why she decided I could not live there? I never got an answer, but as Richard, the kids and I spent a morning driving around town, remembering it all, I realized it was no longer a place I wanted to live, that it felt commercialized, somehow, but more importantly, it held too many lost dreams and tainted memories of things that went bad.

Little boy in sage

Still, I was so glad we went and even the two almost sleepless nights in strange places were worth the few moments of bliss I experienced standing in that good old beloved New Mexican sagebrush. Even the smoke couldn't dampen my feelings of euphoria, nor could my son, running off into the sage so I had to sprint my fat self after him for about two hundred yards. Overall, the kids had a delightful time, playing with their little friend, Susan's young daughter, and for the most part, the tantrums and strange OCD behaviors stopped. New Mexico is good medicine.

Our makeshift camper

Strangely enough, or maybe not, the morning after we got back home, the tantrums and spacey behavior started up in earnest, full blown, and Richard and I began to wonder if it is this place that is causing it? The house, the town, the geographical region? Do the surrounding prisons create a vortex of negative energy like the vortex of positive energy that exists in such places as Taos, Manitou, and Crestone? Something to think on.

Several of our new acquaintances spent time talking to Richard about life, the future and spiritual paths, and perhaps it made some impact upon him, because after we got home, he decided he was interested in returning to college to pursue his Masters, and he began researching Universities...in NM.

The trip was wonderful and I long to return to the Land of Enchantment, where my spirit belongs.

 

Back here at the farm, everything stays the same, for the most part. Before our trip we took the llama boys up the mountain to the Stage Stop Llama Ranch to get them sheared, and Vader looks foolish now, parading around as a giant poodle.

So, new plans are in the works which may involve relocating the farm to some quaint little burg in the NM landscape. Hope it works out, but at the same time, there is so much unfinished here, and so much to do just to get ourselves prepared for such a jump into the glorious unknown. I will simply allow the Universe to do as it will, riding the waves of change as they come, and who knows, maybe next summer I will be back in the New Mexican sage, on a more permanent basis.

Fun with tires!

Oh, I'm finally having some fun...painting tires to be used as planters around the gardens...everywhere. I've been waiting a long time for this--nearly a year, and now the time has come to get creative. What can you do with a tire? Well...

  

You can make it fit into the surroundings as a nice, semi-traditional planter. This one is a huge truck tire that Richard planted with yellow squash.

You can create a row of matching tires along a path. These now contain peppers and a tomato in the middle tire.

Or, you can get a little more creative and let the child inside free.

Or, you can get really wild and give in to a Jackson Pollack moment.

And I finished another after this one with big giant purple flowers. I am loving this, totally! Should have done this a long time ago.

This is all of the house paint we have been dragging around with us for years, and now that I can't use it inside because it off-gases and poisons the kids, animals and other life forms, I have a lot of paint to play with. A lot. And I have a lot of tires...like a hundred or so. The combination is a lot of stored up creativity being released in craziness. Art baby! Tire art. It is GHETTO FABULOUS!! And perfect for a couple of ghetto farmers. My funky garden.

Recycle, recycle, re-use, re-purpose.

Planting and Writing

Upper garden

Planting like mad! We finished our upper garden area with a little help from some hired hands, although not as much as I'd have hoped. It turned out the tiller they brought wouldn't run much for anyone but me...so I tilled the garden. The great thing is, it got done!

We planted two long rows of tomatoes, a bunch of peppers, more broccoli and potatoes, and in the past couple of days we turned my son's old crib (was recalled due to drop down sides) into trellis's for our loufas! We got some rows of corn in, and Richard planted melons. We also we planted some herbs in pots around the patio. Not too bad, but we still need to get the squashes and pumpkins going and the dried beans.

Corn rows

Crib side trellis for loufas

table on new patio

We got some more fence in here and there, but not enough to let the guineas free again. In the chicken tractor they remain.

Napoleon

My little Napolean is my new best friend, hopping through the 2 x 4 bottom of the field fence to run up and say hi every time I'm in the upper garden. Same story...I pet him, I hold him and then he runs back to his girls. He's a little cutie these days, and a surprise from the mean little rooster he used to be. He did peck at my son, so he can't be trusted really, but I'm enjoying the nice side of his personality.

We have been working on little booklets, that like our classes, give a hands on workshop type approach to sustainability topics. I have finished one entitled Gardening Techniques: Building a Raised Planter and Utilizing Sheet Mulch to Prepare the Bed. It is 11 pages and has detailed instructions along with color photos to guide you through the entire process.  

I am currently working on our version of a chicken how-to-guide called The Chicken Manual. Richard and I both contributed our knowledge and experience in this little book, which covers the entire subject of chickens from chicks to adult layers. Also color photos. Both are for sale...we've been peddling them at the Farmer's markets, and if anyone would like more information, feel free to contact me. They are cheap, and cover our printing costs...maybe. Anything extra goes to the farm of course.

It sure feels good to be doing something creative, and maybe one day soon I will give in to that urge to paint!

Also offering garden design consultation services in our area. Trying to work easier and smarter and less physical. So many new ideas and still so much to do here on our little farm. The critters are all doing well and the humans are getting by the best we can.

Lining up cereal

My daughter has been especially focused (between tantrums) on lining things up these days. This morning her cereal...little balls of GFCF cereal, and this afternoon, her dollhouse furniture...across the room and back. It takes her an hour to eat a bowl of cereal.

Lining up toys

This withdrawal thing has got to end soon, right? We did get an appointment with the biomedical doctor up in the Springs...for August. It's a start. Maybe they can run some blood tests and see if the kids are really allergic to gluten and dairy, or if it's something else altogether.

It turns out kids with Pervasive Development Disorders may have more sensitivities to toxins in the environment...like our house. Newer houses, loaded full of carpet and particle board cabinets and vinyl floors are extremely dangerous for people with allergy sensitivities, and in the case of these kids, the off gassing of these hazardous materials causes even more brain dysfunction.

What do I do with that? A can of no VOC paint costs about $35. We need new flooring, new cabinets, new paint, new doors, new trim...how is that going to happen? It's time to start manifesting a few miracles.

Raised beds and a trellis ...it's time to grow

Time passes and Spring fades into summer...it's getting hot now.

cabbage and broccoli

Got the potatoes, cabbages, sweet peas, green beans, cucumbers, broccoli and carrots, spinach, raspberries and strawberries in. It is a mixed mess of sunken beds, raised beds and planter boxes, although we did manage to build two very nice trellis's.




 

tomatoes

green bean/cuke trellis

 Richard's back is getting better, in spite of a bad MRI result, which showed three injuries. Now no one will see him except the Naturopathic doctor and the neurosurgeon in the Springs, which is still a month out. Thanks to Dr. Susan and a great little book by Louise Hay called You Can Heal Your Life, Richard is making great progress and has many good days and far fewer bad days.

I think we are learning our limitations, both physically, and mentally, maybe. I know this has been one hard lesson for me and I still have yet to handle any of it with much dignity and grace, although I'm getting better as I realize it is a test of spirit and yet one more battle against EGO.

Richard is realizing that he lives in a state of resistance to so many things and is trying to overcome it, so that he might progress onward on his spiritual path. Also read Countdown to Coherence by Hazel Courteney, which is a great read and opened my mind, just when I thought I'd heard almost every theory related to metaphysics.

So we come away from this lesson in life as wiser human beings...another day in Earth school for the spiritual beings we are.

On the farm, I still battle with trying to get it all done. A couple of Co-op members came out to help for a day and we got loads of things finished. It was wonderful and we learned that they are on a similar path to the one Richard and I travel. Wonderful to meet like-minded folks...always! Thanks John and Natalia!

We have another friend here to help today, trying to get the garden tilled so I can plant the tomatoes and peppers.

Honey 12-13 weeks old

Honey is growing like a weed and the children are still "withdrawing" from gluten and casein. My little girl wrote her numbers for the first time last week (normally she just scribbles). Mostly the kids are still hyper and tantrumming every time something sets them off (wrong color cereal bowl, Daddy had to go to work, I want ice cream).

patio in upper garden

I managed to get a patio built out of the old flagstones  I've been dragging around from house to house. And I got the parking area finished...well it needs another layer of gravel, but it is good enough for now.



We have chased and recaptured the guineas ( they were harassing some neighbors who weren't too keen on their morning wake up calls) and put them in a chicken tractor, which was supposed to be Andy's (the white silkie roo) new home. Napoleon fled the coop and headed off to join the girls up in the llama barn, leaving poor little timid Andy all alone.

Napoleon finds his girls

Sometimes Napoleon follows me around, yelling and wanting to fight, so today I just squatted down and waited for him to approach, and ever so gently I reached out my hand to pet him. He didn't attack me at all, and in fact let me pet him and pick him up and cuddle him and fuss over him for quite a while. I guess the angry little roo just wanted some love. Don't we all?