Spring Chickens

March 2nd: and all of a sudden there is the promise of spring lingering in the air. A week ago, there was still a significant portion of our land covered in snow. Two weeks ago, ice cycles hung in lengths of two and three feet from our gutters. But, today, the snow is only present in remnants, packed hard into ice by tires and feet. Winter’s hold – begrudgingly – is beginning to loosen. I’m sure somewhere a witch has been eliminated and gone too is her ghastly spell.

Accordingly, Anna and I are emerging from the winter doldrums. I was sitting on the couch this past Saturday, consumed with the coming Sunday, when Anna came to me with the calendar in her hand. “Look at this,” she said exuberantly, pointing at one and two word messages written in tangerine. “Monday is March 1st, and you know what that means.” I smiled; if I didn’t know I couldn’t help but see the words “plant peppers” scribbled in that first box of the month.

The entry to our house, which serves as mud room and art room and nursery, now has over two dozen old yogurt cups full of deep dark soil, and in each cup of dirt a seed is planted. They are collected upon a changing table that once used for changing the soiled diapers of Wyatt and Elise, and they sit underneath the warming glow of a heat lamp. Much to the dismay of our neighbors that lamp’s bulb is red, which makes the northeast corner of our home radiate like an Amsterdam brothel. Indeed, there is the promise of sex, but only the botanical kind. Soon – we hope – we will be overrun with the prosperity of life.

Meanwhile, I am afraid that Anna has forgotten her first love. She thumbs through the pages of a magazine that royally displays every different breed and species of laying hens and broilers. She has marked the pages with multi-colored stars, noting special birds like a scout exploring hidden talent. I finally divulged her growing passion the other evening, taking a seat next to her on the couch while she ogled over the poultry. “See, I’m thinking this one will be good for laying eggs, but what’s great about it is that they also can be butchered.” I felt, for the first time, the warm body of a chicken in my left hand, my right holding a knife firm against its ruby throat – trying to steady myself to spill its blood. And I thought digging into the wet muck of a spring garden was going to teach me about the carnality of life!

The chicks are set to arrive on March 28th, which means we have less than a month before we reach the point of no return. The same room that now houses the yogurt-cup planters will eventually house twenty some odd pulsing, squeaking, pillows of fluff. Anna – of course – could give you their names (all derived from our deceased relatives) and their descriptions.

From the day they arrive, we will have essentially two months before we will have to provide them both shelter and forage. The second necessity will not be much of a problem given the open acreage. We also have hopes of using them around our garden – feeding their growing appetites and scratching talons with the bugs and pests that could lay waste to the crops.

Shelter, hopefully, will also be fairly easy to provide. Anna – when she is not looking through the chicken magazine like I use to look at the JC Penny catalogue before Christmas – has been investigating the most efficient, most economical and most resilient forms of movable chicken coops. She has been greatly aided by the experience and tutelage of Joel Salatin, about whom many of you already know and the rest of you would be wise to discover. Anna’s modified design of his transportable coops measures around 10 ft. by 5 ft., and is complete with a back half for the birds to roost and lay in individual houses.

We talked a fair amount about what materials to use the other evening – keeping our mind attentive to both weight and durability. Any of you with experience are welcome to add your thoughts. Actually, that last sentence may as well be applied to the whole of our adventure as we move forward into spring. We are fresh with optimism as the days grow longer and warmer … and very much in need of ongoing guidance, encouragement and wisdom. It won’t be long before those pretty little birds, which have already flown off the pages into Anna’s heart and mind, will land in our laps.

~Wes

The Cost and Value of Wood Fuel

“To me the winter would be well spent if I did nothing but gather wood to burn in an open fire, where I could watch its sublimation into smoke and ashes.”

-Harlan Hubbard, Payne Hollow

The winter has been harsh as has been broadcast upon the television news and in local papers. We have not been immune to the ongoing freezing temperatures, the snow-packed roads and the absent sunshine. Currently, there is a good five inches of snow upon the ground, the third such covering we have received this year. Besides making commutes into town difficult, the cold winter has also meant a greater need for a warm home.

Normally, to heat our home we would be dependent upon some form of gas – run through a pipeline to our home or housed in a tank. Indeed, we have such a tank on the western side of our house, but we have used its gas only sparingly this year.

Instead, we have been reliant upon a wood burning furnace on the eastern side of the house. Or, more directly: we have been reliant upon the dozen or so trees that were felled and cut into two foot long logs. Much of the wood is poplar, but there is also plenty of oak and hickory and even the remains of a persimmon tree that just last winter had left a host of seeds upon the driveway and in front of the porch. That was the first one we cut down. Another fell to a bolt of lightning this summer. Several more were felled to extend my father-in-law’s runway that is just south of our property.

I have found the use of wood as fuel to be a type of good work. It is a chore to be sure (although not nearly as much of a chore as burning wood inside a home or the chore it would have been for the early settlers to fell the trees and cut the trees with only hand tools). On these cold days, it requires either Anna or I to dress in heavy clothes both early in the day and later in the afternoon or evening, to push the wheelbarrow to the wood pile and to gather a dozen or so logs. Sometimes it also requires us to chop a thicker log into quarters. And, finally, it requires us to push the wheelbarrow back to the furnace, to open the metal door, and to deposit the wood – letting the fire do its work of consumption, turning the hard material into energy and heat.
Still, as much as the logs strain my back, there is satisfaction in this labor: satisfaction from having a hand in the whole process, satisfaction from the physical exercise that strengthens my body even in the lethargy of winter, satisfaction from the involvement of my senses.

What I mean by this last satisfaction, this arousal of the senses, is the connection and pleasure derived from all facets of wood fuel. There is the thrill of hearing the heavy axe sink into the log and the true feeling when the blade hits the heart and splits. There is the primal arousal of the smoke’s smell rising into my nose, the hot flames warming the hands and face as logs are placed into the inferno. Finally, there is the witnessing of the fruit of the labor: smoke pouring out in a snake-trail from the stack.

But, perhaps most importantly, heating our home through the use of wood has made me conscious as a consumer of the fuel. There is only one and a half cords of wood left as I write. That is supposed to last us the rest of the winter (if the cold persists, it won’t). We have probably been through another sixteen or twenty cords. I have not been keeping an accurate count. Still, for the first time in my life I have a general sense of the resources I am using and need to survive a winter in Indiana. I am gaining awareness, which is the first step in living responsibly.

Homecoming

This blog came to fruition several years ago, when Wes and I were 'on the way to somewhere.' We were living in southern California, in transition, with no real knowledge of where we might end up. And what followed were several more years of transitory living, knowing in our heart of hearts that the lands we tread would not be our family's long term home. (Okay, that makes us sound like nomads in the truest sense of the word, but you get my meaning.) And here we are now, in middle America, literally a hop, skip and jump from family we previously imagined only being able to see on major holidays. And this is it. We've arrived. We've come not only to the home of our past, but also to the home of the Kendall family future.

Wes could articulate this all much better than I, but he's in a meeting, and I'm the one with a free moment, a fast internet connection, and no childcare responsibilities. Suffice it to say, we are happily planting ourselves on a little plot of earth in Greencastle, Indiana, for all of the foreseeable future. Our life's work here is becoming more and more clear all the time, and in that vein, we've decided to make this blog solely about our family's endeavors at a sustainable life on this wee farm outside of town. Wes will do his writing primarily over at the church blog, and we pledge to get some form of internet connection at the house so that posts won't be so few and far between.

And now for a few teasers: We are coming up on the one year anniversary of moving into the farmhouse. Expect to see some before/after photos coming up by the beginning of March. And, for those of you who don't already know, I've committed to attempting pastured poultry for our family's egg supply, and will be receiving an order of fuzzy chicks the third week in March. Much of that documentation here will be entertaining, I'm sure.

Until next time!

From the Writer's Almanac

This was today's poem from The Writer's Almanac. Enjoy.

Susanna

by Anne Porter

Nobody in the hospital
Could tell the age
Of the old woman who
Was called Susanna

I knew she spoke some English
And that she was an immigrant
Out of a little country
Trampled by armies

Because she had no visitors
I would stop by to see her
But she was always sleeping

All I could do
Was to get out her comb
And carefully untangle
The tangles in her hair

One day I was beside her
When she woke up
Opening small dark eyes
Of a surprising clearness

She looked at me and said
You want to know the truth?
I answered Yes

She said it's something that
My mother told me

There's not a single inch
Of our whole body
That the Lord does not love

She then went back to sleep.

A Charlie Brown Christmas ... again