So i promised no more turkey tails. . .

Well, perhaps i fibbed!

This year is just getting stranger and stranger. i am certain that for the last, nearly ten years, that i have lived in the north land. It often feels that i am only about three feet from the arctic circle. . . well three months into winter it does. So i started the spring with doom and gloom predictions because we went through all of April without a drop of rain. Well - here it is June and we haven't really seen a day without rain all month. Most days it feels like we are living in the rain forest (which tickles me to no end). All plants that threatened to strike are now growing fantastically - especially the weeds - note the accompanying photos!! In fact it's not yet July and already i have okra (yes a southern food!!!!!) in the garden. Yea and yummy!!!!!

And these turkeys. . . you know, the ones that i ranted and raved about endlessly for six weeks. . . well, they were ALL eaten in ONE night. A raccoon broke into our paddock one night and killed everything in it. The peahens. . . gone. The big turkey. . . gone. The baby turkeys. . . all gone.
We thought it was a fisher or maybe a fox. Turns out it was raccoons, who, will kill indiscriminately.
A neighbor gave us box traps to help with "fixing" the problem. We have been thus far skunked. . . .until today. There is a raccoon that has taken up residence in my garage for the night. And tomorrow it's sentence will be read at the gallows!


In an odd twist, last night (before we confirmed raccoons in the yard), Chris and i were chasing foxes who were chasing the chickens around the yard. Only one shot was fired, but that is another story for another day. . .














P.S. Did you know that the average kid can recognize somewhere in the neighborhood of one thousand different name brands and less than twenty five vegetables in the garden. . .or something sick and twisted like that!

Somedays it rains. . .

Today was just a rush of emotions as it seems many days are recently. Good, bad and a blur of everything in between. i have always been a bit skeptical about spiritual warfare things. . .frankly many have turned it into a fantasy scape goat and blame it for a whole host of problems that could probably be better blamed on other things (or people).

i was pooped when i got home this morning, but we needed to weed in order to find the corn. Too many weekends filled with other distractions are exactly what weeds like. . . that and all of the rain. i opted to sleep first and weed later. When i got up, i dilly dallied a bit, but finally made it outside with Jacob. We barely got to the end of the row to start weeding when the heavens opened up and the lightening came down all around us, so we opted to go back in. The woods behind the house were struck. . .again. Tomorrow maybe we will try and find the tree that was hit this time. And of course we will weed!!

i was contacted again by an old acquaintance who i also consider to be a friend though we barely know each other. In thinking about it i like the distance but also closeness. She has spent a considerable amount of time in Ireland doing missionary work in spite of a whole host of personal struggles including a pretty heinous illness. But still she trucks along because that is what God would have her do. i am both humbled and inspired by her. Half of the time i can barely keep my focus on God long enough to blink. When i do succeed in finding quality time with God i usually squander it foolishly only to feel a bit depressed about my pathetic state of being and how i have waisted a tremendous amount of time.

i see needs in the world and my heart breaks (pretty regularly), and yet i can not distinguish between faith and irresponsibility. That is where i think i am caught in some crazy spiritual vortex. Isn't there something about a man tossed about like a wave in the sea. . .

Lack of faith? Lack of bravery?? Lack of vision??? Who knows. . . This i do know, it's harder when there are more of you (like a family, or a community) that you have to put first. God grant direction and peace. . . and some snippet of certainty.

Lobster. . . the poor man's food.

At least it was - a hundred and fifty years ago. Now-a-days you can afford it if you sell off the first born.
This weekend a very good family friend, Katie (formerly) Rowell got married. For whatever drug induced reason she and her hubby wanted to have Owen serve as the ring bearer. i was honored to have my son in the wedding, but really?!? Owen?!? He is listed on the "Weapons of Mass Destruction Master List". He isn't allowed in federal buildings, airports, or Chuck E. Cheese's in Portland.
The bride and groom very graciously invited the whole family to the rehearsal dinner which was as fancy a spread as i have ever seen at a rehearsal dinner. They served steak, lobster and mussels!! WOW!!! It was great. . . would have been greater if my daughter wasn't there. We discovered that the little turd has quite the appetite for anything sea food. She was supposed to be seated across the table from me, but in fact was standing just behind my seat eating my mussels, my lobster, my potatoes. . . It was wicked entertaining. i enjoyed every minute of the little mooch standing behind me. It's nice to know that there is another seafood eater in the house. . .maybe next week we will try sushi. . . i can't afford that either.
The wedding was beautiful! The ceremony was followed by dinner and dancing on a small cruise ship in the bay. Amy is still recovering from the all night dancing! She's a wild woman on the dance floor.

It's raining today. Praise be to God! Good for the veggies, good for the weeds!

Weekends together

The body of Christ (AKA the Church) is a fluid thing. No one has any ownership over anyone else, we commit ourselves to each other.

That was a point that our friend Damien made during one of the many talks that we had over the course of the weekend. It was a good reminder for me. Especially when i realize the wonder of the community that we have that ebbs and flows. i sometimes get locked into this crazy fantasy that community is together, always, and i lose sight of the community that comes together and goes apart only to come together again.

 

The only constant in life is change. We see it all the time, and still it's hard to keep it in our minds eye. Among all the crazy critters that have taken up temporary residence in our back yard, this weekend we were blessed to add our friends. The phunny pharm is already blessed with an abundance of wee-little ones runnin' around, but it seems so much more complete (albeit with room still to grow) when we add the Tougas family. Three more kids, two more adults that think too much. . . it's great!!! It makes our community just feel more . . . whole.

 

i love how they inspire us to think about eating healthier, living simply and being the Church. The weekend was amazing - A gentle rain, fireflies, good food, good conversation, songs, critters. . . Life is fantastic when we (people) come together and spend some time enjoying the simple things.

 

Gobble, gobble. . .

So this perhaps should be the last post on the topic of turkeys that we see for a while. . . well at least until the autumn when we entertain ourselves by traumatizing the children! Yes, 200 years ago when you wanted turkey, or chicken or the like for dinner you didn't just run down to the nearest Hannaford's or Safeway, and there were certainly no freezers to grab that handy prefab fake food dinner from. Nope! You want chicken, you go out in the yard in the morning, pick your bird and clean it all yourself. Gooey guts and all.

It's really amazing to me that there weren't more vegetarians back then. Especially the kids. But it illustrates just exactly where the mindset of our society has gone. We can run to the nearest grease pit or chow on a turkey on thanksgiving without taking any responsibility for our food, or where it comes from. For all of the hunting and ranching naysayers out there, who call the practice of killing an animal inhumane yet can willing buy processed meat and eat it without a second thought, i ask, "who is more sick and twisted?"
And yes, the house rule is that if you want to eat it you get to participate in the process from beginning to end (raising to butchering) so that everyone in the house understands where the food that they take for granted comes from. (They only have to do it once. . . unless they want to help again later)

And so it is early June. . . and we picked the hottest possible days of the year to build the new and improved turkey paddock. 97 degrees on Saturday (in early June, in Maine), and 95 degrees on Sunday (again in early June in Maine). So nature drew first blood - we got COOKED!!!! But the turkeys are much happier.

After a month of growing waaaaaay too big for the 45 gallon Tupperware bins that they were in they are now free to roam (mostly). They have a big coop to roost in and a 100 square foot (i think) yard with grass and dirt and bugs and all of those things that make turkeys happy. Even the peafowl, who were really irritated by their new house mates seem to have an improved mood about their conditions.

Now hopefully there wont be anything more to write about them until they are ready to offer themselves for food. So we can find other really boring things to write about . . .

Nostalgia

Dances with Wolves - one of my all time favorite movies. The only way that i can see to improve it would be to eliminate Kevin Costner. i enjoy watching it for the amazing imagery of the native American culture, the open landscape, and the idea of living a simpler life. Just tonight a friend was telling me about how he realized that as his family makes decisions to live a more simple life they stay just as busy. Doing things the old fashioned way he said, "we spend more time doing less things."

Working to live rather living to work. . . hmmmm.

 

i also think about the natural balance. All the animals that God put on the planet that we have taken off (or darn near. . ). There is an account from an early explorer who remarked that they came across a herd of Bison that was a 5 day ride across. Wow!

 

For the meat eaters - Bison tastes better, it is more lean, they grow bigger, and they used to be abundant. Still we cling to our cow culture. . . and now they are cloning those. . . Something is amiss.

 

i love the life i have been given. But still it would be cool to return to a time when we were connected to the land, connected to our food, and more closely connected to one another.
That and horses get better gas mileage!!!!!

 

Rain at last. . . rain at last. . .

Albeit its only been a day, but at this point i would take seagull sweat falling from the sky! It was a good overcast steady rain.

The turkeys are finally ready to be outside. i left four of them out last night and they seemed to have done well. Tonight there are six going out. My plan is to make sure that the fence is reinforced tomorrow (so there will be no escapees) and put them out permanently on Friday morning. One of the perks of an hot dry spring is that the nights are warm and i wont worry about the birds freezing.

The garden is finally all in. Dry, but in. We are going to experiment this year with some "communal" planting. i am sure that there is a way more technical term, but communal seems to be the catch phrase around the house. i have been reading up on plants that are natural deterrents to certain pests that make vacation homes in our garden. For example - marigolds and flea beetles don't get along well. So now all of the planting is a matter of flowers and optional.
Yummies are on the way. . .