A note from the author. . .

It has been brought to my attention by the editorial department (Amy) that there have been a rash of grammatical errors in my blog recently. Realistically it has probably been much longer than just recently (i was never good with the English Language).

In response to the editorial department's concerns, and for the benefit of supporting my own laziness, i submit the following for your consideration:

"Aoccdrnig to rscheearch out of Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod apeapr. The olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a tatol mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe"
Itesreintng ins't it?

Signed,

The Authorial Department!

Its not a hybrid, but it is pretty!!!!

Sometimes, when your car gets hit from behind, and the *nice* kid who hits you tells the cop that it was his fault (thank you for being honest) the insurance company will get you a rental while your car has surgery!



While the rental company is not yet equipped to provide everyone with a hybrid vehicle, and not every rental comes with a custom trunk chicken (because apparently nobody told that company with the silly commercials that transporting monkeys across international lines for the purpose of labor is in violation of like a dozen U.N. treaties!), the cars can be quite nice!! In our case the newer Dodge Caravan - that in person does NOT look like a Dodge Caravan.

The Food Policy Council

After scheduling and rescheduling, scheduling conflicts and ultimately just flat out cancellations, i expected what is ordinarily our community gathering night to be a quiet night with our lovely friends Damien and Renee. A warm pot of potato/cabbage soup, a salad of mixed goodies (sorry about the spinach guys), some sghetti and sauce, and a tasty stuffing based dish filled our bellies, and kept the kitchen warm as the temperatures outside took a big nose dive.
Coversation followed full bellies and we managed to stuff in a few more bites of an absolutely scruptuous apple cobbler! i am so blessed to have friends that can cook!

This week Amy and i were asked to sit in on a meeting for what is to become the Saco Valley Regional Food Policy Council. Big fancy name for a bunch of people that came together to eat good food and talk about our shared concerns for local food sustainability, biosecurity, and the plight of the poor.
There were people from the local town council, representatives from various food pantries, local citizens, reps from local CSA farms, old folks, young folks, American born and immigrants. It was cool!
The whole shebang was initiated by a guy named Stu, Rebecca (the poohbah for the local food pantry), and Richard (who is the head of a local organic farm). Our first meeting was to introduce people to each other, the organizations involved, and what exactly a Food Policy Council is. Two hours later we new who each other were, and the organizations involved. . . but what are we doing? i still don't think we know.
With so many people, our focus was to figure out what our purpose together would be, but it turned into a mass presentation of local concerns (not necessarily a bad thing). At the end it sounded to me as the largest concerns were sustainable farming, local food education (no, not teaching the veggies a thing or two), local growing/farming education, feeding the poor healthier foods, and garnering community support and volunteers.
After two hours we concluded that there was just too much and too many people to reign in all the ideas, so we have opted to assemble a smaller group from the meeting tonight to go through the list of ideas, thoughts, and concerns and try to develop a focused mission statement. . . Sounds kind of official. . . yuck!
i like to remember that the best changes for good in the world happen among people sharing their time and lives together. On the whole if we want to effect real change in the world we have to start in our homes with ourselves and our families, reaching out to our neighbors and friends, then our neighborhoods, and their friends. . .
Maybe there was something to Reagan's trickle down (economics) system. . .

More to Food Policy to follow as events unravel. . .

Spring is coming. . .

For those of us garden veggie addicts spring can never come soon enough. i, in particular, have discovered that i am really affected by the light. So winter represents a dull time - no garden, 'shorter' days, less lights. But i am not alone! Even our feathered friends get a little depressed by the lack of light. . .

Chickens are very light sensitive. There are some breeds that have been bred over time to be hearty and lay eggs right through the coldest, darkest months, but many take the lack of light cue by shuttin' off the egg production. Our Americana's fall into that category. But the trade off is that because of their moodiness, they also become the heralds of brighter days!!!!

Today much more reliably than any silly hole dwelling mammal, our little feather friends told us that the light is coming back. . .

For those of you white egg eating eating, uninitiated folks, Americana's lay green and blue eggs - and yes. . . that is a blue egg. . . the first in months.

The end of a long week

A snap shot of a miss-prioritized 'to do' list.

i realize that perhaps if i had paid better attention to it's order i may have had a much less stressful week. Actually, it wasn't bad at all. i ended up working mostly day shifts this week, the down fall was that i worked two of my three days off (yeah for mandatory trainings).

Having spent a greater percent of my working life on the overnight shift, i always wondered about how grand a day shift might someday be. This week changed that. i am blessed to work the third shift (is that weird?)!!!! Perhaps it is just a need to readjust to what some refer to as "normal life", but i feel like i haven't been home at all this week. Yes, i have slept with my wife, in my bed, at night. . . but i feel like i have totally missed a huge chunk of my kids, and even my wife. There is something wonder about being able to be at home with your family, but they are all asleep for most of it.

Someday i will lay down this body and sleep for a long, long time. That time will probably come sooner for me than most (they say that graveyard folk tend to die younger), but i will look back with a smile when i realize how much time i have had to spend with my lovely wife, and my little ones. . . and some of my friends too!! When that day finally comes i wont have to worry about where things sit on my 'to do' list anymore either!!!

When silence and reading save my day

my dear friend Laura (http://eatcraftlive.typepad.com/eat_craft_live/) (i don't yet know how to do that fancy link-thingy where you can make their names a link to their site. . . live with it people) posted some fabulous photos on her Photo-Friday post that made me think of my favorite poet. Then my other dear friend Renee (http://tougas.net/) did the same thing yesterday. i am so blessed to know so many fabulous photographers!!!

This morning when i got home i was rather depressed because of work. i got home to be reminded that i have an ill-scheduled dentist appointment. It is going to eat substantially into my sleep time today, but it must be done. So i took a little time before family meeting and did some reading! Nudged in that direction with the help of my phabulous photographer phreinds i grabbed one of my phavorite poetry books by my phavorite poet. . . here is just a taste of the silent sounds that lifted my soul this morning:

n
OthI
n

g can

s
urPas
s

the m

y
SteR

y

of

s
tilLnes
s

Any guesses on the Author? Here is your hint (like you need one). He was a prisoner of war in WWI.

The sky is falling.

The church met in Lisbon Falls yesterday which is a good hall for our family. They boys went to stay at Wah-Wah's house and Addy, Mumma and i made the hour + long trek to eat food, share thoughts, and pray together.

i know that the trip is long and as for gas consumption not the most ideal, but the trip along I-295 is fabulous at night with a perigee moon. This has been a fabulous season of astronomical events. In the summer sitting with Kurtz' and Chuck watching the tale end of a meteor shower with were blessed to see an iridium flare (or satellite flare).
(Thanks to Wikipedia and the photographer - whose name i don't know - for the thirty second exposure of this iridium flare. . . please don't sue me - i am poor)

Now in less than a month we have been able to witness two perigee moons.(Thanks to NASA for this photo of an Apogee and Perigee moon - please don't sue me or crash a satellite into my house!)

Perigee moon is when the moon is at it's closest point to earth making it appear much larger and brighter than normal. Before the snow storm started (just after midnight) we were able to read the newspaper outside (in part thanks to the reflective properties of the snow) at night!
What made this particular perigee full moon extra cool was an almost unnoticeable event that we caught quite by accident. After our meeting in Topsham we had a bit of shopping that needed doing. In walking out of one store we stopped to admire the moon. In doing so i was able to observe a satellite cross the face of the moon.
It was odd, normal a small reflective light crossing the sky, when it came across the moon it was an almost imperceptible black spec. It was really, unremarkable in truth, but when we realized what we had seen it was really cool!!!!
Anyone else out there notice the moon?? How about any other strange astronomical events??
i think everyone should spend a little more time staring in wonder at the cosmos!!

Learning to enjoy things again. . .

There are so many projects under way here - we get busy fast. Some are realistic others are not.
We have a major garden project to pitch to the local college, a household garden to plant, three kids to raise. . . Tonight we were looking at sheep breeds to decide which might best meat (yes it is a play on words) our needs.

Soap making is quickly becoming my favorite new project spiritually. Though we haven't actually made any soap yet, we have been collecting the tools, hunting down the ingredients, and reading a lot about cold process soap making. It was in the reading that i was reminded not to miss the small gifts of God. In the shower the other day i was overcome by the feel of the "hippie soap" (which is official designation for soaps made at home by my co-workers).

Our diet is rapidly changing as we are largely cutting out meat from our diet (unless it was grown/harvested by us, or grown locally, organically, and ethically - and special occasions). the other day we made very simple wraps and i was reminded about the simple goodness of unadulterated vegetables.

Our culture moves so fast we do things because we must without regard for why. Food - we wolf it down, be it healthy or fast food. We eat so fast our taste buds have gained the feeling that they have no further purpose in life. Do, do, do. Go, go, go!!! Faster, more efficient. . . How about slower, more intentionally! Enjoy the "musts". Enjoy the feel of the soap. The smell of the couscous cooking in cranberry juice. Even the bitter wind as you walk out to clean the turkey coop (Of course it is OK to NOT enjoy the smell of the turkey coop).
Yummy white rice cooked in blueberry juice with sliced peaches and banana - a super good breakfast!

And now a word from our sponsors. . .

Hey i was recommended a cool website by a gal i work with. Her sister went and stayed with this family for a stint. i have subscribed to their newsletter and some of their recipes sound yummy. Might be worth your attention!!


http://www.rawfamily.com/recipes.htm


Six more inches of snow forecast for tomorrow. . .

Learning to cope with a family member in gender crisis

They are words that no pharmer parent wants to hear. . . ever!

Cock-a-doodle-doo!!!!

Amy was reluctant to allow me to have one rooster, and with good reason. Our last rooster was quite literally insane. He was evil. He stopped going to roost and would sit under our bedroom window and start crowing at 2 and 3 am. Then he would crow all day till well past dark, sometimes as late as 11 pm.

Amy, who is home at night suffered much more than did i, who is not generally home at night. So it took a little convincing, explaining that it would be much more cost efficient to "make" our own laying hens rather than buying them. So we found a Barred Rock/Rhode Island Red cross. A beautiful bird mixed from two breeds who are known for their laying power (not the roosters of course).

Then came that fateful morning when we heard not one, but two sets of crowing. Now i am quite sure that the neighbors rooster has met the business portion of the oven. So what is this??? We have only ONE rooster!!
But sure enough, one of our "laying hens" had crossed the line. . . she was a he! So to complicate matters 'he' was one of the hens that i prized for 'her' beauty, and 'he' is still a beautiful bird. So i can't just go butcher him. Sadly, he is an Americana - a breed that is not known for durability in egg laying, though they do lay colored eggs (blue, green and occasionally pink i have heard). So now we have two. . . i don't know how i am going to convince Amy that we need one more to get our meat bird flock going. . . i will keep you posted on that. . .

So many plans, so little time. . .

We are not people of resolution (yes, we are blurry). No really i haven't made a "new years resolution" in about 15 years - so why start now.

We have however, for sometime, been re-examining the way we eat and live (and most recently - bathe. Its a dirty addiction, bathing!). So today i was pleased when i was at the grocery store to see that our cart was full of vegetables and NO meat whatsoever. . . until got to the chili aisle. Today the church met at our house, so while i am secretly trying to reimpose vegetarianism (mostly) in our house (don't tell Amy that i haven't been buying meat. . . she will figure it out eventually . . .), i didn't seem quite fair to suddenly impose it on our friends. Eventually i will though. . . they will survive!
But it felt good to look at all of the yummy veggies staring back at me. Eventually with the families permission i would like to try to live on only locally grown produce for a year (yes, no coffee or sugar or mangoes. . . ugh. . . maybe we will wait on all that), but not until we have the soap making thing under control.
And so we start that in just a couple of weeks, and we are still looking into the sheep/goat ranching thing, and i still haven't started drafting the presentation for the community college to the local university. . . time to add cloning to the list of projects, so i can finish the others.

We discovered his existence while out marking birds for the second round of butchering. Sadly after thinking about how we would have organic meat in the freezer (this is where the "mostly" above comes in - as long as we grow it or it comes from a local organic farm we can eat it.), and less mouths to feed in the yard, it turns out the butcher is closed till March. So. . . we will keep them around for a few more weeks. Maybe they will get a little bigger.

And so the year begins on the pharm! Time to go eat. Tonight. . . home made potatoe soup!