Very first tomatoe!

Chicken fun fact you weren't necessarily thinking about.

It turns out that chickens take issue with road runners. At least my chickens do. So this morning while I was watering my soon-to-be-not-so-green-but- very-tasty-tomatoes all five of the chickens were making some kind of ruckus, and when I looked up there was a road runner not 10 feet from me. It was probably going after the very healthy community of lizards that scuttle around the premises in the early morning sun, as roadrunners are rather carnivorous. Anyways road runners easily make it onto my top ten most favorite list of birds, and it was pretty fantabuloso to see one so close and mostly calm. Chickens naturally are also on my top ten list, even if they do get all finicky and skittish around their more agile and fearless distant cousin. The hens finally quieted down after the road runner had shuffled off with some sort of tasty lizard breakfast burrito.

Sonoran Desert Museum

This was to be a much longer post, but then my computer got grumpy and slow, like me in the morning, so this is what I got for now. This is from Mari and my visit to the Desert Museum just on the other side of the Tucson Mountains on Sunday morning. The desert was in full bloom and we had ice cream as we dreamt about all the wildflowers we would plant in the fall. That is, until church got out, people woke up, and all the hordes of fanny pack wearing, khaki-clad, tourists showed up, so we left.

Spring!

I think that about says it all.

News of a planting.

We got all excited and busy today, mixed up some compost with the soil, dug some little trenches and dropped in some seeds. Now some of you might say that February 10 is pretty early to be putting seeds in the ground. And you have every right to say that. But we still did it and I can't wait to see everything grow. Here is the list of what we planted and seeded today in no particular order...

Chives
Green Zebra Tomatoes
Big Red Cherry Tomats
Bull nose bell peppers
Miniature yellow bell peppers
Lettuce Mix
Arugula
Kale
Silverbeet (Chard)
Radishes
Purple Basil
Thai Basil
Sweet Basil (there is never enough basil)
Jalepeno peppers
Black Hungarian peppers
Cantelope (Amish melon)
Yellow Hopi Watermelon (actually a few days ago)
Rocoto hot peppers (from Peru)
Egg plant
Mint
Spearmint
Double yield Cucumbers
Empress Green Beans

I also spread a ton of grass seed I had collected from hiking and other random places in the back behind my fence along with some wildflowers and other stuff just to see if it will grow or not.

Then we watered in all the seeds we planted and I sat there wishing I could see it pop up then and there. The tomatoes, peppers and eggplant are only seeded and will have to be transplanted in a few weeks or more. You should all come over in a couple months and I will cook you some food from the backyard!

Saturday in the backyard.

Today was amazingly beautiful outside here in Tucson and I was able to catch the last rays of the afternoon in the backyard with a book. It was fabulous after working most of the day inside. Today when I collected the eggs (three of them!) this Araucana egg had little balls of what seem to be calcium deposits. They felt very hard to the touch but when I washed it, they all came off individually. I have never seen anything like this. Have a look...

Beautiful flowers growing in the basins.

We have broccoli going crazy right now. It is some of the sweetest broccoli I have ever tasted straight off the stalk. The carrots have amazing flavor as well. Tomorrow we will seed as much as we can for the spring/summer gardens.

A summer poem in December.

"The Summer Day," by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean –
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down –
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to all down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Sunday's bounty.

Winter gardening and chicken talk.

Pathways, river rocks, fire rings, and veggies.

Chiles!

Lettuce, spinach, swiss chard, and paths.

"Hey Hayduke, make sure no one's coming will ya?"

"Coast is allll clear Cracker."

"It's hard out there for a hen. Can hardly find time to lay an egg. Hey you Araucanas! Need some inspiration - check this out!"

Sowing seeds.

Sunday we planted three beds of vegetables for our winter garden. Everything from broccoli to kale to lettuce and carrots. I have high hopes for this planting for a couple of reasons. The first is that with the help of Chris, Megan, and Jonathan we dug two completely new veggie beds that are no longer under the looming shade of the large Chilean mesquite tree in my backyard (which incidentally is fabulous for the summer beds). Last year the veggies definitely suffered from too much shade and not enough warmth, so hopefully this will be the solution. Also, I was able to add some lush, dark beautiful compost to all these beds. Between the large amounts of food scraps, weeds, shredded documents from the office, and the occasional load of food scraps from the local co-op, not to mention the chickens own special fertilizer and their help digging around in the compost, this was by far the best concoction of natural, home-made compost I have ever been a part of.

Supposedly the seeds I planted on Sunday will grow into food that one day this fall and winter we will cook, fry, steam, and eat. I have seen this work before. I have been a part of it and even responsible for it, but I never cease to be awed at the magic that takes place under that dark warm soil, only to poke its head out and eventually make its way to my mouth. There is always a bit of a question mark hanging in the air after such acts of believing. And really in the end, there is so much that has nothing to do with me. Very strange indeed. But satisfying. Really damn satisfying. Especially when it works.

Rainy sunset from the porch last week.

One of these eggs is not like the other...

In case you were wondering how we know which chicken gives which egg, here you can see the obvious difference between the darker Rhode Island Red (Hayduke) eggs and the lighter egg from the Buff Orpington (Cracker). The Araucanas (Sally, Maria Algo, and Al Carbon) have yet to start laying, and once they do they should have blue-ish green colored eggs. In any case, pretty soon we will be swimming in eggs (mmm...nice thought huh?) of all colors. And if you have never had the experience of walking out of your house each morning and finding eggs just waiting for you in the chicken house, then you should come visit and you too will able to make an omelette with the freshest of eggs and basil from our garden. It will be one of the most satisfying meals you can ever eat - until you do it again.

One year house-aversary.

It's been nearly a year since I bought this house in Tucson (June 30 to be exact)....which is first and foremost cray-zee! and second of all, surreal and mostly unbelievable. In any case, I have been thinking a lot about the changes over the course of one year here in the bread basket of Tucson (as Menlo Park is sometimes thought of) and trying to remember exactly what it was that I saw in this house last year as I paraded my brother and friends around through the house and into the backyard, searching for some level of excitement close to mine to bolster the insanity that had found its nest in my brain leading me to go into greater debt than I had ever imagined. Needless to say, no one thought of it as much as I did, and to be honest it wasn't them that needed to, but me. So anyways, a year out, home ownership beginning to feel like something I indeed planned for and handle quite well, I have prepared a little montage of pictures showing the "before" (certifiable) and "after" (still crazy after just one year) that will hopefully show some semblance of change, if not even a bit of progress. As for which pictures are the before and after, they are a bit like those weight loss commercials that show the person looking drab and unsmiling for the first shot and then so obnoxiously smiling that they must be high on a whole slew of anti-depressants and steroids, so hopefully you should be able to figure it out. Anyways, here they are...

It's Friday and I'm going to sneak into a pool...

One of many sunflowers in my backyard.

A future sunflower.

My backyard. Yes, it's dirt. That's what happens when you live in the desert.

Cactus flower.

Just because there are only pictures of chickens so far. And besides, chickens like flowers too.