Sometimes i just can't keep up with life. . .

I woke up praying the other day, which is a pretty weird occurrence. Once my eyes opened i knew that i was being prepared to endure the storm of the month. I suspected that it was going to be at work. . .

Oddly work was phenomenal. Better than i could have hoped or dreams. Even with all of the hiccups that have come it is still the greatest job ever!!!

Nope. . . the storm would come from home. The end result is that for all of the immediate frustration is that we are blessedly being nudged toward a greener way of living.

So i had recently drained the engine in our four year old John Deere lawn tractor (yes, my man toy. . . that actually Amy uses more. . . Hmmmmm?!) so that i could change the fluids and tune it up. It turns out that some of the neighbor boys came to borrow it, because we are the only folks on the block with a trailer, to move some manure for compost. Had i slipped the spark plug wire off we would have been fine. That night i came home to a host of folks standing around my tractor starring grimly at it.
Sure enough twenty minutes into their chores the engine blew into about a thousand pieces. She is done. . . .
So here i am with a huge lawn and no mower, but we have been talking about sheep for some time. In rural Mexico, and other under developed countries they use goats to mow the lawns. Talk about green!!! Totally organic lawn mowers, and if they break, well, you eat them!

Well. . . instead of sitting here, i should be out constructing the sheep barn. . .

When the currents of joy meet the rip tides of frustration

Not a clear picture, i know, but not bad for pouring rain. Yup, the rains came this week, just when i thought we were going to have another arid April (last year April was horribly dry and it led to rain from middle June to August - nothing grew well).
And with the rain, the birds came up with a much improved design for a chicken tractor.
Today being Friday, i am finally getting back into the swing of having a five day work week with weekends off. The joy is a little weird. . . and really i don't have the weekends off, because i am always doing something farmy.
Tonight the boys and i went out for eggs and got the treat of the spring. Well, it's a treat if you are a National Geographic kinda person. While collecting eggs we got to witness our standard bronze turkeys mating. This is exciting because we can be certain that our turkey eggs are fertile, but frustrating because i can't get the humidity in the incubator regulated. . . stupid machines!! i have it half in me to let the birds do it the old fashion way, i just don't have the faith that they would.

A couple more days and i will give it a try. . .

The locavore's dilemna

It seems forever since i blogged, though i am sure it hasn't been all that long. Work has been so overwhelming lately - planning, reading, writing, planting. . . i almost forgot to enjoy the peepers. i am really glad for moments when that ol' inner voice says, "Stop!"

The rain today is a welcome change to a dry April. No snow this year, that doesn't bode well with my experiences of summers past. Dry April = wet July. We will see.

Amy and i talked very briefly the other night about trying a locavore diet for a year. Yes, that means only eating what is grown in a XX mile radius of where we live. We really didn't talk long enough to determine how far that might be, but Amy in her usual wisdom mentioned that we should definitely do our homework on this one!
She's right.
A whole year - no coffee, or sugar, chocolate, or rum (it's a great muscle relaxant after a hard day's work). To think about it is tough. Tonight James and i talked about the old children's rhyme, "Peas, porridge hot". i explained it's origins and tried to make him understand the severity of what we had discussed. He adamantly declared that a world without restaurants was just not worth living in. i guess we will have more conversations on the matter.
Either way, i am convinced that we can grow an adequate variety of crops that if we mind our cooking and study up a bit that we can make a years worth of yummy, nutritious goodness. Or maybe this is just another one of my idealistic crusades. . . we will let the future determine that for us.

Tomorrow is earth day!!!

When it rains technology it pours technology

Like an avalanche roaring downhill toward complete destruction. . .

So is technology reestablishing itself in our house (stay tune the ginormous flat screen t.v. thingy will be next). It all started with a silly computer, then a cellphone. . . now an incubator (Okay, that one was all me. . . bad, hippie, bad!!). Now this old beast of a computer that we use is aged and probably has hepagonacyphaherpeaids among other evil computer viruses! If it doesn't, it is developing a mind of its own and we are going to rename it Hal and grab our ankles, because it now does whatever the heck it wants with no regard for the user.

So last night we went on a trip to town to look for a new computer. My friend Stu and some techie-guy convinced me that it would be better to purchase the Enterprise-D (yes, that was a Trekkie reference) than something that would be outdated in just a few short years.

To Amy's dismay this means that once again the fancy-shmancy digital camera will have to wait because we are going to have to sell at least one of the children to buy the computer. . .

. . . whatever happened to the day when an ox or an ass were the "big family purchase"???

P.S. Its sad that the words "Trekkie" and "ginormous" are in the spell check!

Knowing when to be afraid and when not to

i guess you can tell a fire fighter's kid from other people's kids. i acknowledge that i am no longer a fire fighter, so perhaps that makes me a wannabe now (not the first time i have been a wannabe), but i was a fire fighter so in many ways this applies.

Tonight we supped on one of my favorite (when i get the recipe right) winter dishes. No, its not winter, but we did get exposed to the influenza B virus this week. Supposedly that is the good one?!?! Anywho, that led to turkey stew. Of course in our house you can't have turkey stew without having the famous Lamont pop-overs - one of many things (especially culinary) that Amy's family brings to the mix! Of course you don't know that the pop-overs are done until the smoke alarm goes off.

Now any good parent has trained their kids proper fire protocols: Where the exits are, where to meet, how to call 911. Does that happen in our house??? What do you think?

Three kids - three responses. Here is how proper fire escape happens in our house when you hear the smoke alarm:

Option one: Exit below the smoke layer

Option two: "What's going on guys?"

(No independent pictures for this. . . just watch the little head in the other three photos)

Option three: "Dad, would you stop burning dinner again already!?"

The end result. . . scrumptious, mouthwatering popovers!

Its quieter on the pharm today. . .

Okay, so i am celebrating my first full weekend off in a long time. . . .aaaaaaahh!!!!

The weather is fabulous. We have done some cleaning, some reading, been out with friends. . . what an amazing couple of days.

The one really noticeable difference is the volume in the backyard. With eight less gobbling turkeys in the paddock the yard is amazingly quieter. The two jakes that have stayed on to help us keep the flock growing still make quite a raucous, but nothing compared to what there was when all ten were singing in harmony (sort of harmony).

The snow is all but gone!! Woohoo!! The farm project is making progress, as is the home garden. We ordered seeds Friday, only two seed varieties were unavailable, and one was on back order till early May. Oddly, i received an envelope from the seed company yesterday. i thought it odd that it wasn't my seed order. . . instead it was the pack of seeds that was on back order until early May. Boy, i hope i didn't hear the guy wrong and that the rest of the seeds aren't coming until early May. . . .eeeek!!

The Maine Fruit and Vegetable School. . .

. . . offered by the University of Maine Cooperative Extension was held yesterday at Keeley's in Portland. What a grand time it was!
Many of the local farmers came together to learn about updates in technology, agriculture practices, and public policy. i saw some old friends there - folks who i rely on to supplement my summer veggies and almost all of my fresh autumn apples. Though there were only a VERY small handful of us who were not professional farmers, the practices being taught applied to most of our hobby farms and home gardens as well. It was a good time to connect with some of the smaller farms that i have had a hard time finding (it doesn't help when some of them change their names).
The ironic part of the whole day was that i, the only organic farmer in the group (that i know of), managed to sit next to the guy who is on the state board of pesticide/herbicide use. Its kinda like sitting next to the crazy guy on the bus.
We were civil, and actually had a very good time in spite of our ideological differences.
Overall, it was a great day. i would recommend the conference to anyone in the Ag business or thinking about going into the Ag business. You can find the link on the University of Maine Cooperative Extension's website, or google the Maine Fruit and Tree School. Its good stuff!!

Oh, and the Pesticide guy. . . he made sure that i had a copy of the official Pesticide Applicators Log before i left.