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People are freaking out. This virus has us self-isolating, social distancing, quarantini drinking, and stocking up on so-called necessities. Toilet paper, guys? Really? I started writing this post a few weeks ago when the current cry of our golbal pandemic was a mere whisper. Interestingly, I think this post is more relevant now which is why I’m choosing to publish it without near neurotic editing.

The day-to-day in my life has barely skipped a beat since our White House leader declared a National Emergency this past week. I attribute this mostly to the fact that I’ve learned to not only be comfortable with living on needs rather than wants (read: I am highly economical and err on the side of just plain cheap) but I also buy in bulk when possible. My purchases are always thoroughly examined (ask my mother, she refuses to go shopping with me for anything besides comestibles) and because I hate packaging, I purchase in large quantities to avoid superflous plastic wrap.

When the COVID-19 panic ensued, I took inventory, calculated usage and material availability, and followed up with a singular trip to the liquor store. I’ve since hit up Agway for horse and hen feed, but have yet to set foot in another retail establishment. I haven’t felt the need to and that comes from the way I think about my own existence on this little marbled orb we homo sapiens call home.

I am [We are] here on this planet for just a blink in time, and I’d like to leave this place with little tangible evidence of my existence when I’m gone. If I can contribute to a healthier environment, well, bully for me; if I can return to the soil having imparted only minute damage to said environment, I will depart with a conscience eased by clarity.

If the latter ideal appeals to you too, one of the biggest small changes you can do is shift your awareness regarding waste production. Fortunately there are simple ways of incorporating waste reduction into your current lifestyle. You don’t need to morph into a Prius driving vegan to effectively decrease your personal carbon footprint. No one is telling you to give up your current vehicle or completely alter your diet. Think of this adjustment as a stroll in the forest, not a sprint down Main Street (though you’d be surprised by how much Main Street has to offer in terms of low impact). Small steps made continuously result in the same covered distance as leaps and bounds but without the drawback of burnout or fatigue. The situation is this: individually, one person cannot reverse the damage currently afflicting the planet even if their leaps are awe-inspiring. An entire neighborhood, on the other hand, or a united community, state or nation, can absolutely shift the trajectory of global conditions, even if their leaps resemble bunny hops.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

— Margaret Mead

Want more incentive? Interestingly enough, many of the suggestions I’m about to drop are beneficial not only to the environment, but to your wallet as well. Help the planet while saving money? Mind-blowing, I know. Up front prices of eco-friendly products may seem elevated when compared to their single use equivalents, but the integrity of the former means there won’t be a replacement requirement in the near future. Investing in quality will save you money even if the initial purchase is more.

In the next few paragraphs I’m going to focus on food-related and cleaning-specific single use products because these goods are not only some of the biggest offenders of our planet’s health but also the easiest to replace with reusable alternatives. Ready? Here we go:

Sandwich bags, oy to the vey.

Consider this: A box of single use sandwich baggies costs approximately $4 (total count: 90) and a reusable sandwich bag by Stasher or an online Etsy wizard will run between $4-$13.

With me so far? Say you are one of those people that take a sammy to work daily. There are approximately 52 workweeks in a year so 260 baggie opportunities at a Monday through Friday kind of job. Many of us use these same style wrapping accoutrements for snacks too, so let’s increase that number by just a third, allowing for the occasional soup or salad alternative, vacation break, or pre-wrapped goodie. With that last equation we are up to about 346 bags used annually…

I’m no mathematician, but I’d wager spending $8-$30 on two reusable bags that could very possibly last for the duration of your work career will cost less than purchasing new single use bags over the course of that same time period. If you’ve got kids, imagine the savings there. And if not the savings, think of the amount of plastic that won’t be in the landfill on your dime. The same theory applies to reusable shopping bags. I use the word shopping rather than grocery when pertaining to reusable totes because folks, those cloth bags are capable of more than just lugging produce and pasta. Use them wherever you go and refuse the plastic at the shops.

Straws and eating utensils: Bamboo or bust, baby, as far as I’m concerned. Bamboo is inexpensive, sustainable to grow, easy to clean and holds up far longer than I ever expected (bamboo is a grass after all). My bamboo utensils are going on seven years now and while I have had to replace a few, sand a few (not common I’d wager since I’ve only had to do it with 2 spoons in the span of those seven years), sacrifice a few (bamboo can be porous and odors can permeate their surface after time), the cost of replacing them is pennies and they are biodegradable so if and when their use has diminished, I have no problem tossing them in the hard compost or more often than not, placing them in my kindling drawer for a future blaze. I have recently swapped my bamboo straws for a collapsible metal and rubber allstar because I grossed myself out a few months back when I realized my uncovered straws were chilling at the bottom of my handbag alongside my truly disgusting wildlife rehab gloves…not okay. My new straw comes in an impermeable travel container and the mouthpiece is rubber, which I love. There’s nothing eco-savvy about chipping a tooth on a glass/metal straw and I avoid that possibility by using soft materials like bamboo when at home or my telescope straw when on the go.

Alternatives to bamboo utensils:

Hardwood: much more expensive because of the labor required to produce them. Still susceptible to stains and odors. Lightweight and easy to transport as well as biodegradable.

Metal: heavier to transport but resistant to stains and breakage and lasts, well forever ( or until you misplace it). Metal is the utensil material most people have in their drawers at home. Can be repurposed through heat or ingenuity (my coat rack in comprised of old metal spoons and forks!).

Bioplastics: the same look and smooth feels of plastic, plus fun color choices but made from the byproducts of plant materials like sugarcane fiber rather than petrol. Light My Fire of Sweden makes fantastic products you can feel good about purchasing even if they’re not manufactured stateside. Biodegradable over an extended period of time and optimal conditions.

Food Packaging and Preserving

When out for meals: I used to be uncomfortable fishing my Tupperware container out of my bag at a restaurant. It felt weird, I looked weird, but guys, I got over it and you can too. On the occasion that I forget my own, I request a sheet of aluminum foil as an alternative for carrying out a leftover burger or sandwich and have even wrapped up a salad like an origami master with the same material (to the delight, or embarrassment, of those present). I used to lug a Pyrex container with me but have since switched to a collapsible silicon alternative I originally purchased for camping. It folds up nicely to fit in smaller spaces like a backpack or a handbag. Bringing my own reusable container reduces the need for a restaurant’s provisioning of standard plastic or Styrofoam substitutes.

At home and daily use: My cupboards are filled with odds and ends regarding containers. I have an awesome Pyrex set in varying sizes and approximately 900-tomato sauce and pickle jars at my disposal. I bottle a vast percentage of my leftovers and it’s not uncommon to believe at first glance that my entire refrigerator is made up of tomato-based canned goods. I don’t remove the labels but do boil out the residues to remove lingering odors. I fill my jars with soups, salads, cut fruit and veggies, smoothies, purees, rice, and the likes. I use the Pyrex containers for meats and pastas and other items that either won’t fit in a jar or won’t exit the jar easily once in there. I use these jars in the fridge and in the freezer (being sure to leave room for expansion if contents are liquid) and my favorite part about them is they cost me nothing beyond the price of whatever was originally in them.

I transport soups and salads in these jars for lunch and pack one of my collapsible bowls alongside a cloth napkin for serving purposes. Dry snacks go in cloth pouches, sandwiches are wrapped in beeswax cloths or newspaper, trail mix is packed away in a little jelly jar, and at the end of the day when I return home from the mountains or a job site, I have a lunchbag filled with items that end up in the sink rather than the landfill. For overnight activities that require more than just a lunch, metal containers are less weight than glass, and I do still resort to old Tupperware containers when even the tin is too heavy in bulk. I save the plastic bags that bread comes packaged in and use these often to stock up on dry goods or freeze individual cuts of meat.

Food: Buying in bulk is difficult but not impossible. I don’t shop bulk often because the locations that offer the products I’m seeking are a bit far from home. Some places for you to consider depending on your location are the Concord Food Co-Oop, A-Market (Manchester) Monadnock Food coop (Keene), Granite State Naturals (Concord), and Earthward (Amherst). Hannaford also has a small bulk center as well as a growing holistic lifestyle department. Opt for products that aren’t double wrapped in plastic and bring your own produce bags. Cashiers take the items out of the bag more often than not to scan them so don’t worry about your bag being transparent. I have several that are made from old t-shirts and leftover fabric from long ago crafts.

Drink: Between the plastic bottle and the plastic cap and this country’s inability to provide safe drinking water, it’s no wonder our landfills are inundated with this single-use item. Invest in a water treatment plan for your home if you haven’t already. If you have reason to believe your water isn’t safe, drinking it should be the least of your concerns. Showering, and more specifically, inhaling the steam produced from said shower is just as dangerous if not more so depending on the condition of your water. Cooking with water, using it in your coffee maker, even washing your dishes with it… water kits are well worth the peace of mind a $30 lab test can provide. If you must purchase water, purchase it in jugs rather than bulk 8 oz. bottles. Less waste is the goal here, remember, and a jug can be used to fill a reusable water bottle.

I have always been a huge fan of the Nalgene small-mouth water bottle. I never kicked that college habit of covering the sides with stickers although I did upgrade to a cleaner, BPA free option back in 2014. I use it only for water because cleaning a small mouth is difficult if not impossible to do, not to mention I can’t really see the interior now that the exterior is covered in layer upon layer of adhesive memorabilia. Plastic alternatives range from metal to glass and depend on how rough you are with your water bottles. Mine gets dropped in the dirt, tossed in the car, and has made it back and forth across this country numerous times without damage. I have a metal back up that is 3 years younger and looks way worse for the wear plus it makes water taste tinny. I never got into the glass water bottles because of my dentophobia but they get great reviews. Make sure you’re buying authentic or original brands like Life Factory when it comes to the glass containers. Many that are sold online are manufactured in less than reputable work conditions with cheap materials. Background check before you make purchases on items available with just one click and aim to purchase locally if possible. The less your product traveled from its manufacturer, the smaller its carbon footprint.

In and around the kitchen cleaning wise:

Paper Towels: It’s a running joke that whenever I host a party, my mom brings along a roll of paper towels. I don’t keep them on hand here at Sweetbirch Homestead, because once I stopped using them five years ago, I never felt the need to go back. Old fabric has been a perfect replacement, with ragged towels and outworn t-shirts making up the bulk of my clean up kit. I know people who have gone through the work of sewing squares of absorbent cloth materials together, attaching them at the corners with Velcro, and then rolling them together so they can be ‘dispensed’ like actual paper towels. I applaud the concept but prefer to just keep mine in stacks under the kitchen sink and tucked away in the bathroom vanity. After they’ve been used to clean up whatever mess I’ve created, they are hung to dry under the cabinet on a specific hook I have reserved for dirties and are then tossed into the laundry bin to be washed and then reused again and again. The only time my cloths can’t hold up to the job at hand is when I am making creams or hosting a boiled supper. The grease from the oils involved on both occasions is not something I want to put in my washing machine, nor is it something I’d recommend putting in yours. In these instances I’ll firstly wipe with newspaper and then go in for a nice swipe with a paper towel or two, (courtesy of Mum). Hand drying is done exclusively with hand towels.

Sponges: We are so used to these silly things that anytime some kind visitor offers to do the dishes they can’t for the life of them figure out what to use until I present the knitted cloth square they overlooked. Sponges in the US, my friends, are rarely biodegradable. If they come in any color besides brown or white you can be pretty darn sure that they are made from plastic and are here to stay even when thrown away. The earth friendly options are expensive and break down while you’re using them, which is a great indicator that they are in fact naturally derived (typically from plant cellulose or coconut husks), but they need to be replaced frequently. Wool, on the other hand, does not. Sheep’s wool is naturally antimicrobial and mildly abrasive. It cuts through caked on grime and doesn’t seem to harbor odors. If they do, a good soak in a bath of boiling water with some salt and essential oils does the trick (tea tree is great for this). Also worth mentioning is that if your wool squares are not caked in grease, they can always take a spin in the washer. To clarify, you can purchase premade wool ‘sponges’ on places like Etsy or you can knit a few small squares yourself from scrap bulky yarn. It’s important to note that wool fibers are antimicrobial, biodegradable and sustainable; synthetic wool materials are not.

Dish soap and cleaners: I have yet to attempt making soap. I’m not super into the idea of playing chemist with the lye and I already have a brand I rely on. Seventh Generation is a Vermont based company that does one heck of a job creating excellent products that are both ethically sourced and sustainably produced. Their cleaning merchandise works as well as any commercial brand but without the chemicals, carcinogens, and parabens that can lead to polluted waterways or worse. Not sure how your current cleaners stack up? Check out this site where products are rated and their chemical constituents are examined here.

The packaging for many of Seventh Generation’s products is made from 100% recycled plastic, which is wonderful, but their cardboard-based laundry detergent containers are a thing of greatness. Seventh Generation is the brand I turn to almost always when I can’t make it myself. I buy their toilet paper, tissues, and cleaning products regularly and when I’m hosting for a larger crowd and don’t have enough cloth napkins to go around, Seventh Generation has me covered there too, offering unbleached, 100% recycled paper napkins too. The only thing that could be improved upon is the plastic wrap currently securing their paper products. With hope a solution for this is on the horizon (bio-film and shellfish chitin will be on the market soon, I’m willing to bet) and when it is, I’d wager Seventh Gen. will be in on it.

Garbage Bags: This is a tricky one that I’d love to answer with a simple, “Just purchase compostable alternatives!” Well, without getting into the nitty gritty details, I’m only going to say that composting is an art form and our current waste management system is a far cry from Rembrandt. That said, compostable trash liners are an improvement to their plastic counterparts, but while they aren’t made from petrol, their manufacturing process may require just as many resources.

At my house, I firstly use naked (unlined) 3-gallon garbage bins that fit under the sinks of both the bathroom and the kitchen. When they are full, I transfer the rubbish into an empty grain bag, always handy thanks to the feathered flock. Sometimes I will line the bathroom bin with the plastic packaging my toilet paper comes in, but I only need to replace that occassionally. If there is residue in the actual bin, I simply rinse it out with soap and water and let it air dry. My trash is rarely if ever wet or malodorous because I readily compost here at Sweetbirch. If I have something like grease or a spoiled oil, I pour it into an old bread or chip bag and tie it up before depositing it in the bin. Using naked bins means I don’t need to purchase any liners plus I give new life to a grain bag that was already headed to the dump.

If you are able to compost your own food scraps whether by tossing them in a designated spot in the woods, feeding them to backyard poultry or pets (guinea pigs and bunnies love veggie greens but check with your vet first regarding safety), or actually converting them into soil with a defined structure, compost away without reservations! You will be amazed by how little ‘trash’ accumulates in the waste bin when food materials are diverted. There are hundreds of resources out there pertaining to compost 101 and many cities now have curbside compost pick ups. Check it out and place food scraps where they belong, back in the dirt and far from the landfill.

Another little trick I’ve picked up that reduces my need for a.) liners and b.) taking out the trash: Any time I have a wrapper left over from snack bags or packaging, I roll it up or fold it into the smallest shape it will allow. A chip bag gets folded until it is approximately an eighth of the size it was when full. When you crumple things up they expand in the trash and thus, take up more space. When you press the air from within these bags and containers, then roll or fold them tightly, they become significantly smaller in size and are easily tucked into a small bin. I go literal weeks without needing to transfer my upstairs bins to my basement bag. I am a party of one so understandably my trash accumulation is low, but I encouraged my kindergarten class to take the same steps with their trash and the results were the same. Folding and rolling works (Still debating this? Compare the size of your laundry load before and after it’s been neatly folded…).

Since I’ve been handling my waste quite personally in an effort to reduce it, I recognize how many bags and boxes I can repurpose or reuse rather than simply dispose of. These new travel bags or office organizers may not be fancy, but if they fit a need and remain out of the landfill, I don’t see a problem. Take a moment to pause before you crumple up your waste, you might be surprised at what you can do with it.

We’ve become quite accustomed to our throw away society. If it’s broken, buy a new one, is a common [consumerist] concept in today’s culture. Decades ago that was not the case; products were manufactured to last, constructed of parts that could be repaired rather than replaced. Luckily, there are still companies that support and produce product investments. Must we all make the change, expend the effort, and forgo our much deserved leisure time to research and referencing, product integrity, and corporate standards? Most certainly not. Fortunately, small changes can lead to substantial ripple effects and even the tiniest of shifts in consumerist ideals can be the change that resonates with our environment, our country, and our planet.  

Stay tuned for more mind musings as the current state of the world opens up some time for typing. Be well, dear readers, and wash your filthy hands 😉 

I bought my first piece of property in my home state of New Hampshire in late October of 2015 after a markedly hot, dry summer. The meadow grasses were already golden and stiff as I moved the last of my belongings across the threshold. The first few nights I slept here were uncharacteristically warm for the season and I kept the windows opened, the rushing of the wind across the meadow a lullaby I hadn’t heard since living out west.

We have a lot of trees here in New Hampshire…and by a lot of trees I mean we are second only to Maine as the most forested of the contiguous United States. Open meadows are hard to come by in comparison to wooded lots and I was, and still am, enamored by the expansive view.   

I knew I wanted to set some roots, both literally and figuratively, and while I was excited to get going, moving in October, a season associated with rest and respite rather than growth and cultivation, gave me some much needed time to quietly observe the cycles of the land.

It is common for many new homeowners to start ripping up their landscapes the minute they move in. Less common but still occurring are new farmers doing just the same. Sometimes this works out and the recently relocated aren’t stuck with unintended consequences…more oftentimes than not, these same people end up with sheds underwater come mud season and tender perennials that are decimated after the first snowfall. While sitting back and reading your property rather than working it may be akin to having a salted caramel brownie placed in front of you and not eating it, observing the lay of the land that first year is an investment in the success of your homestead.

I haven’t taken a permaculture course (yet). I am familiar with the principles because I am familiar with Nature. I recognize patterns of growth in the forest; I have seen what sprouts through patchwork snow and what lays in slumber below the soil until long after the spring thaw. I have noted that certain plants almost always grow near one another and many different species congregate around stonewalls and boulders. There are less species in basins and hollows compared to those on flat or sloping land although north-facing angles rarely house any soft vegetation.

I have seen windbreaks offer shelter to plants otherwise incapable of growing against the breeze and plants on top of a hill budding earlier than those at the bottom. With these observations in mind, I have attempted to replicate Nature when I first devised the layout for my own homestead and garden designs.

It was easy to figure out my orientation here at Sweet Birch. Using the handy dandy compass on my iPhone I was able to determine where the East met the South and the West met the North. A screenshot of my property on Google map offered a fairly accurate image of what I was working with in terms of meadowland and forest, stonewalls and structures. From here I started designing the things I know I wanted in order of priority. For me it looked a bit like this:

1^st year:

• Chicken coop and run
• Compost center
• Raised beds

2^nd year:

• Horse shed & paddock
• Additional Raised Beds
• Manure mitigation plan

3^rd year:

• Cold frames
• Pollinator garden
• Raspberries/blackberries
• Farmstand up with herbs, veg. & eggs

4^th year:

• Solar Electric to the Horse Shed
• Farmstand to include micro-greens
• Beehives?

5^th year:

• Farmstand to include berries (honey?)
• Move

Yea. Move as in relocate in Year 5. I’m a bit nomadic and staying in one place for longer than five years gives me bone deep anxiety. That said, I’ve only ever been a renter so owning a property makes things a bit more difficult. This week (mid-March) I have a meeting with a real estate agent regarding the market here in my tiny town. I know housing here is liquid but it might be prudent to rent the property rather than sell it. What will happen to the horse and hens? Ideally they will move with me. My belongings? What I can’t sell to downsize I will place in storage.

I should note that all of the listed additions to the property are only semi-permanent. The electric fencing can be removed in a day and the chicken coop sold within weeks. Panda’s shed can be either relocated or repurposed if the new renters/buyers don’t have their own equine partner.  The raised beds can be removed and tilled back into open lawn space should gardening not be in the cards for a new owner and if I actually go through with the beehive endeavor, the hives can be transported if need be.

The permanency of objects is important to consider when attempting a homestead. While many people are hoping for their forever homes when looking, for a lot of us, that isn’t the case. Whether because we outgrow the land or the land outgrows us, I think it is essential to evaluate how our decisions affect the future of the property as a resale. Does this mean you can’t make your house a home? Most certainly not. But making alterations that are too personalized can create a challenge if a better farm property suddenly becomes available or that dream job opens up in another state. A giant herb labyrinth might speak to your soul, but to a future buyer its message may suggest intensive work rather than zen work. I am not saying to go without but I am advising you to think from various perspectives rather than seeing your property solely through yours or your partner’s eyes.

I’m not sure if I will choose to leave this parcel as suggested in my Year 5 plans. Things can change and this house has become a home. My family is nearby and I’ve made some close friends this past year that pull my roots deeper into the soil here at Sweet Birch. Is the land perfect for what I want to do? Not even close. There are days when I look out at my waterlogged paddocks and find myself crying in utter despair. Then again, there are mornings when I watch the red orb of an early spring sun, rise from the behind the tree line and reflect on the sparkling snow below… and I find my cheeks dampen then too.

This property is right for now, but it isn’t just right. I will continue to scheme and experiment and work with the land to my best abilities until something more suitable arises. While I have set some roots here in Chester, they remain shallow even though they are of quality. The breeze has tickled from time to time with whispers on it breath, but it hasn’t had enough force to persuade me from this location…yet. When the time comes I will take what I’ve learned from Sweet Birch and apply it elsewhere. But for now I will embrace those sunrises, stick to my goals, and be thankful for my perfect for now home.

When I was working as an environmental educator here in New Hampshire several years ago, I had the honor of teaching a nature photography class to a group of middle school students. We got along well enough, but as is typical with pre-teens, my charges voiced their opinions from time to time in regards to scheduled lessons. Several members of this particular class had Ukrainian heritage, which I enjoyed immensely, having eastern European roots myself. However, it is one thing when you are being chastised in your native tongue and another when complaints and goodness knows what else are being directed your way in a foreign language.

During one exceedingly challenging class where the students (and myself, to be honest) really did not want to continue with shutter speed semantics, I heard the words “buzzkill,” “fun-sucker” and a new one, “saroka” muttered from the mouths of my kiddos as I pressed through the lesson. Ignoring their pleas, I pulled out my teacher card (read: stern voice) and eventually got the kids to settle for another 15 minutes with the promise of several rounds of playful silliness as a reward to compensate their focus.

Even after our agreement, I continued to hear the word “soroka” uttered like a cuss from the back row where my trio of elder bilinguals were working. I remember thinking, is it worse that I know or worse that I don’t, and deciding that the latter would in fact be worst, I mustered up my courage and advanced to the back row where three sets of hazel eyes looked up to meet my own.

“What’s it mean?” I remember asking directly.

“What’s what mean?” sweet Clara asked, shifting her gaze to her companion, Nikolai who was suddenly very interested in his camera’s mechanics.

“The word I keep hearing you use, over and over today. What does it mean?”

Shifty gazes, the whole lot of them, with no utterances now.

“I won’t be upset,” I continued. “I just would like to know if it’s something I should be offended by and if so, perhaps there is something I could do in order to cease acting a ‘saroka’.”

Clara giggled. I stiffened.

“Are you going to tell me or not?” I said and, in retrospect, vaguely recall putting my hands on my hips.

Nikolai was the one who responded first.

“It’s not a swear,” he began. I raised an eyebrow.

“It means…” Clara started. “Well, it means… magpie.”

I stood dumbfounded. Apparently they took my silence as inspiration to continue.

“Magpies are really loud,” Nikolai explained. “They don’t ever shut up.”

“Neither do you,” said Clara before flushing a strong shade of vermillion and ducking her head towards the desk.

I pondered this for a moment. “You’re telling me that ‘saroka’ means magpie…and you’ve been referring to me as such because I talk a lot?”

All three faces were red at this point. I can’t recall Clara’s sister’s name but she looked mortified and kept jabbing her right elbow into her younger sibling’s ribs.

Nikolai answered hesitantly with a quiet “yes.”

“You call a person who talks too much or rattles on about one thing or another a сорока,”  added Clara’s sister who was too old to be in this particular class, a saint for putting up with our juvenile antics, and whose name I unfortunately cannot recall.

I laughed; they all looked up. “The magpie is my absolute favorite bird!” I exclaimed, beaming at this new discovery. The eldest’s eyebrows raised a few millimeters. Her facial expression didn’t require a translation: she was clearly thinking I was not only obnoxious but insane as well.

For the remainder of that particular camp week I was Miss Coroka pronounced “Suh-row-kuh” and it has stuck ever since. So much so, that this past year (2018) I had my legal surname changed in the court system.

There will be additional information added here on this site in regards to my beloved magpies. You don’t take adopt a new name based on a winged creature if you’re not committed to jabbering on about them to friends, family and total strangers 

If you have stories about these beautiful, clever, and often naughty corvids, do feel free to share. Brownie points if you have photos! In all honesty, if you have stories or photos involving lilac-breasted rollers, loons, goshawks, kites, or really any avian species, be in touch! Birds of a feather, right?

On how I am slowly becoming a chicken lady…

I’ve been thinking about expanding my flock for the past few months now. I have 3 ½ free-loaders (the ½ chicken is a bantam and feels her adorableness is rent payment enough) and 2 laying hens, which is fine for a party of one, which I am. That said, I’m in the process of developing my mini-farmstand for the coming grow season and I’d like to offer fresh eggs alongside herbs and veg. Two butt nuggets a day may fill my belly, but they don’t fill a carton quick enough to cover a grain bill, so I’ve been prowling the NH Farm & Garden Facebook pages, keeping an eye out for someone waving the white flag of defeat in the midst of a typical NH winter. When a woman posted that she had year-old hens not only available but available right here in town, I was on it.

Fast forward 24-hours and you had me and a fellow Chesterite gabbing about flocks and critters as we caught hens from their perches and popped them into one of the animal crates I’d brought along for transit. I paid the woman what she was asking ($24 total for six) and returned home with just enough light left for me to locate the run and squeeze the new birds into the current coop. Garnet managed to peck my hand twice (that red devil) as I was loading them in, but all in all, it was an easy transition from crate to coop and I retired indoors feeling particularly satisfied with the freshly acquired gems I attached to my Crazy Chicken Lady crown.

As predicted, the next morning was sheer mayhem. One of the new Buffs had cornered an older Wyandotte whom I assumed was dead based on her crumpled form below the straddling strawberry blonde. The rest of the flock was like a scene from Jurassic Park at feeding time in the velociraptor habitat…birds were running, hopping, leaping, and crashing into one another while still others were perched on suspended branches hollering as though the world was coming to an end.

I scattered the oats I’d been grasping and beelined it to the ‘dotte who shocked me by leaping up and taking off the second her aggressor jetted away. Pearl, as it turned out to be, looked a bit haggard with her torn up cere (the spongey, red flesh where the beak meets the face) and bedraggled neck feathers, but appeared otherwise unscathed from her recent assault. In fact, she too began pecking at the oats I’d dropped in my haste and within moments, everyone was contently scrapping about for snacks.

It was blatantly obvious that my previously perfect enclosure was not going to comfortably accommodate the new additions. I had, after all, doubled the population, and eleven full-grown hens were not going to retire to the current coop without external influence (read: chasing, dodging, and artfully scooping agitated featherbutts).

The day was brisk but young, the hens were pacified for the time being, and I had 9 hours of February sunlight to both start and finish this project. Needless to say, if that isn’t motivation, I don’t know what is.

Poor Panda was completely neglected that Sunday as I quickly got to work measuring the space and coming up with some rough sketches. To clarify, I am in no way an architect, nor am I a carpenter. I am comfortable cutting square angles with my circular saw and rounded edges with my jigsaw, and while I’m competent with an electric screwdriver, non of the above equates to much if you aren’t adequately prepared to handle them.

I am excruciatingly aware of how dangerous these machines are so I take as many precautions as possible when operating them. That said, I am also a diehard independent warrior and, as such, have been known to cut corners in order to make things work when I don’t have a partner in crime available. In this instance, the ‘cut corner’ phrase was spot on and my sawhorse is pretty mangled from that, er, slip… insert raised eyebrows of shock plus relieved grin here… Be safe out there, kids; Power tools are no joke.

Anyways, I conspired a plan before that fateful sawhorse tragedy, and per usual, called my dad to see what kind of scrap lumber he had milling around his property. He didn’t disappoint and an hour later I was back at Sweet Birch unloading a 6′ high shelf and some panels of plywood and getting busy. I couldn’t have asked for better outdoor work conditions: the sun was strong and the ground bare. The high of 26 meant that the ground was frozen and thus, dry at the surface, so even though it was a bit brisk, I didn’t have to worry about my lumber absorbing moisture.

The first step in this renovation was the removal of two of the pre-existing shelves. I left the one on top to act as the roof and the one on the bottom for the floor. Then I took one of the shelves I’d removed and sawed it in half before reinstalling it on the rung above the the floor. This, I decided, would be a great platform to encourage the girls to go vertical and up to where the two perch rails would be going. The perch rails, by the way, were leftover batten beams from Panda’s shed last May. I cut them to size and sanded them smooth so the chickie lous would have a gentle edge under their dinosaur toes.

Platform, perches, now it was time to box this sucker in and turn it from random old shelf in Daddio’s basement to makeshift winter coop for the new mother cluckers. I measured and cut the plywood to size leaving space at the top for windows and ventilation. This sounds fancier than it was. In reality, the plywood I had swiped from Mom & Dad’s wasn’t large enough to cover the 42” opening of any side of the coop and I didn’t have enough materials to mix and match dimensions, I chose instead to leave a gap along the upper portion of the non-entry sides and close these in with chicken wire.

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Lastly I cut a chunk of plywood to a height of 30” and another to 12” and pieced them together so they completely covered the final side. I attached some old door hinges to both that lower panel and the floor of the coop and just like that, I had a door that swung up to close and down to open.

I didn’t have any latching hardware so I took a small chunk of discarded batten, drilled a long screw through its center and attached it so that, when turned vertical across the upright lower panel, it prevented the door from swinging open. Ba-da-bing…chicken coop made!

Because winter isn’t over yet, I wrapped the vented windows with poly sheeting, a product as useful as duct tape here in New England. I abhor plastic products of all kinds but I do use this stuff to waterproof items that require solar penetration (think greenhouses, cold frames, and in this case, a chicken coop).

After another fifty staples or so (“Hey Mom? Do you have staples for a staple gun? I am o-u-t.”) the coop just needed to be moved into place. As if the Universe could hear my thoughts, my father suddenly appeared around the corner (he was checking in to make sure I wasn’t facedown in a pool of my own blood, circular saw inserted in my thigh).

Between the two of us, we managed to move the now surprisingly heavy (plywood adds an impressive amount of weight) shelf-turned-chicken-abode so that it directly abutted the existing run. The newly created contraption was hardly level due to a bit of slope and unyielding frozen soil, but with some ingenuity, awkward shifting and one or two pinched fingers (sorry Dad!) we got it where it needed to be. I successfully secured the little house to the deck beams to prevent it from falling over in high winds and the coop was officially ready for hen admission.

I entered the run with scissors and my staple gun and carefully cut a hole in the chicken wire directly in front of the coop’s door. Then I attached that same chicken wire to the new coop so that the door could open and close without interference but the chicken fencing remained impermeable. For those of you familiar with cutting and bending chicken wire, you know what my hands looked like after this particular part of the remodel. For those of you who have not yet had the pleasure, imagine taking your uncovered hand, tucking it into a fist, and then repeatedly punching through the center of a robust rose bush. Now you know what working with chicken wire is like.

I took a step back to search for breaches in the altered run while rubbing my torn and tattered knuckles. Miraculously, I couldn’t find a single mistake; the whole thing was functional. The door opened and closed, the coop itself didn’t wobble, and there was plenty of light filtering in through the poly wrap as the day began to wane into evening. I tossed some chipped straw into the coop in an effort to entice my curious spectators to enter on their own and then lost my patience and grabbed Garnet who was stalking me per usual and predictably squatted when I reached for her. I coaxed the little hen in through the 12”x 30” doorway and smiled. ‘This is going to work,’ I thought. And it has.

The new girls got into the habit of turning in for the night after only two evenings of either relocating or corralling . Garnet and Galena and the ‘Dottes refused to adopt the new coop, relentlessly leaping out and making a run for it each time I got another one in. Our comedic bit would have been more entertaining had there not been a previously installed tree limb that intersected the corner by the new coop. I had no problem avoiding it on the way to the coop but could not for the life of me remember to duck out from below it after transferring a hen. As such, I repeatedly slammed my skull against it every time I stood to chase yet another escapee. Thirty minutes and one soft concussion later, I resolved to let the original feathered farts maintain their routine and praised the ease at which my new girls embraced their separate residence.

It’s been exactly one week since my flock of Tyrannosaurus pecks doubled in size and all is well again at Sweet Birch. In keeping with tradition, the new gals have also been named after gemstones. My morning greetings sound more like I’m taking inventory in a quarry or at a rock swap but I think it’s fun to have a theme, so there. I’ve got Opal, Jade, Carnelian, and Garnet, Galena, Covellite, Fluorite, Chalcedony, Quartz, Calcite, Topaz and my wild card, Phyllis (she’s the ringleader). I don’t say their names in that sequence aloud because I’d pass out from lack of oxygen after Fluorite. There are Buffs now, and Easter Eggers, and Americanas mixed in with the Wyandottes, RI Red, and Barred Rock, and I’m excited to see what my carton of eggs will look like when they are all laying at once. Fingers crossed for some greens and blues!

I am already sketching plans for spring’s remodel when the winter coop is left to rest, requiring me to construct a whole new coop and run. I’ve come to terms with the novel idea of having to actually buy lumber this time around too, since Dad’s place is getting a little scant from my frequent pillaging. Somehow I assume I will have both the time and finances, in addition to the skills necessary, to accomplish this… then again, I may or may not be concussed. For now though, winter may be waning but it is still time to dream and scheme while the ground is frozen stiff. The hens are content with their current arrangements, the days are growing longer, and this girl still has all ten fingers with which to tackle the next DIY chicken challenge. Until then- be well, dear readers!

I open the door and inhale the smell of thawing Earth and dry grass. The breeze carrying these scents is soft and warm, like the arm of a loved one draped affectionately across a shoulder. Birds are alight on the wind; their joyous chirrups resounding across the landscape.

I am dressed in a flannel top with a light vest and jeans tucked into rain boots. The sun on my back is strong as I traverse the steep slope leading down to the meadow. I can feel its rays through the thin fabric covering my shoulders. Subconsciously I run a hand over the back of my head, fingering the warmth my dark hair has absorbed.

Slush pressed out from beneath either side of my boots as I slog through the basin where winter snow has accumulated. It looks like a silver lake as it transitions back to its aqueous form. The ice below this layer is still thick atop the ground and my steps are methodical as I traverse this stretch. The terrain beyond the tundra feels sponge-like and soft below my feet and smells of sun-warmed hay. There are insects flitting in the air here, fluttering and hovering about, too minute in stature to be heard, but visible still.

I duck under a string of electric fencing and note how the terrain on this side of the paddock is already bare. The last of the snow has melted here and the grass from late summer lies in lumps, unmowed and toppled over, still frozen in place regardless of the warm temps today. I stop by the picnic table and sit with my face to the sun, my hands in my lap, and I sigh. It’s sixty degrees at the moment, but it feels closer to seventy in the still air.

I stretch my legs out in front of me, exposing their length to the strong rays of mid- afternoon. The warmth envelopes me like a plush blanket and for a moment I simply exist, casually converting oxygen.. Then, my guilt surfaces like a bubble from the depths of a shallow puddle. I remember that it is February; early February to be more precise and this heat, this blessed warmth, should not be here. A week ago today, it was negative degrees at 6 AM and warmed up to the single digits as the high. The following evening we received five inches of fresh snow and temps that remained cool enough for it to endure through yesterday.

The horse is lackadaisical in this unanticipated thaw; her thick coat clearly uncomfortable in this heat. While I can shed a layer, Panda does not have that luxury, so she slows her movement to keep her body cool. She is sluggish, reminding me of a reptile in early Spring or late Fall. The wellbeing of neither ectotherm nor endotherm is exempt to the risk of yo-yo temperatures and I am keeping an eye on my mare today, monitoring her just in case the unexpected heat interrupts her homeostasis. These substantial quadrupeds are no stronger than porcelain figurines when it comes to abrupt changes in the environment; an equines surprising vulnerability is often overshadowed by their magnitude.

I hate how much I love this respite from the cold of a traditional winter. More than that, I hate that I know to be mistrusting of this seasonally atypical interruption, rather than joyous of this otherwise lovely day. I wish that I could simply embrace this as a gift from the Universe after a period of frigidity and dark days… but I can’t. As much as I may indulge in the calescent rays upon my unlayered body, I am ill at ease while absorbing this long-sought dose of vitamin D.

I acknowledge the unnaturalness of a day that feels like May occurring months earlier than it should. I recognize the confusion it must spur in creatures reliant on consistent weather patterns. I am acutely aware that the insects I saw earlier should not be flittering about so soon and I worry that when broods are hatching in the coming months my feathered friends won’t be able to source enough invertebrates to offer their rapacious chicks. 

My relaxed stature at the picnic table has bristled with these thoughts and I am no longer registering the pleasure of the sunbeams. Now I am regarding Panda’s pulsing sides, her breathing more rapid than usual while at rest. I’m observing snowmelt coursing in veins down the hillside and pooling in a shallow basin, unable to be absorbed because the soil is still frozen below. I am hearing ‘come hither’ birdsong from avians that should not be pairing up this early in the season, and I am feeling a familiar knot of worry developing at the base of my sternum. Indicative of something awry, it feels like an agitated serpent, twisting and rolling about below my ribs. “I hate how much I love you,” I whisper to the world.

I’m not sure if my subconscious utterance is in reference to the warmth of an unstable climate or rather my insight as to identifying it as such.

In the summer of 2016 while admiring a neighbor’s stunning vegetable plot, my hostess mentioned that she was a Master Gardener. Honestly, I assumed this was just a personal accolade and nodded it off until she asked if I was familiar with the volunteer-based organization. She described to me both the educational and outreach components of the continentally recognized Master Gardener Program and suggested I look into University of New Hampshire Extension to decide if I was a candidate. It turns out I was, and realistically anyone with an interest in gardening or landscape design is eligible, as long as they’re willing to commit the time and effort.

The UNH Extension’s MG Program is a 12-week course that meets once each week from 9AM-4PM. Within the course, students are taught various subjects pertaining to the yard and garden. From lawn care and pest issues, to backyard chicken keeping and organic vegetable production, the classes are dense with information and geared towards providing each student with ample information to pay it forward in the second phase of the agenda.

After the in-class course is complete, Master Gardeners-in-training have one year to accrue 55-volunteer hours in order to achieve their Master Gardener status. Every year thereafter MG’s must participate in 20-additional hours of community volunteer work in order to maintain their title.

The idea of this program is to firstly train and educate an interested group of people and then encourage them to share this newly acquired knowledge to their communities. I always envision programs like these as having a dandelion effect. We, the students, act as one giant seed. Our guest lecturers and instructors provide us with all the essentials to grow. As the course concludes we are offered the final nutrients to stimulate seed production. When our experience with the course has shaped itself into a stunning, spherical seed head, our director makes a wish! Just like that we are dispersed across the country, packed with knowledge rather than DNA.

My class was comprised of people from all ages and stages of life. I was a kindergarten teacher at the time, developing a school garden and hoping to build a new network of botanically savvy friends. A woman I sat next to regularly was newly retired from her legal career and whose love for flowers and subsequent struggle with deer brought her to the course in search of a solution. There were professionals from the medical field, the forestry industry, and data engineering. Men and women from all walks of life joined together each week to absorb the lectures and lessons and connect with one another over a shared interest in plants.  

I still have 5 additional hours to tuck into my belt before I can officially call myself a Master Gardener but I have meetings this coming week that should bring me into the home stretch. After that, the projects I am personally working on will demand significantly more hours than the required 20 per year and I am excited for the spring when myself and the rest of the MG crew can get our hands back in the soil. Until then, we dream and scheme and design our dream gardens. There’s something magical in knowing that next year’s bounty rests just below the snow.

If you’d like more information about the UNH Extension Master Garden Program, I highly suggest you check out their website.

I will be blogging about my recently approved MG project here in Chester, NH. Stay tuned and if you’re interested in getting your hands dirty, I promise I can make that happen. There will be numerous volunteer opportunities at Spring Hill Farm in the coming months and I look forward to building community while building our educational garden. Much to come. Until then, be well! We are halfway between winter & spring!

xo, Willa

Life isn’t always easy. The morning, for a lot of us, seems to be particularly challenging. Most people I know fumble their way through the early hours of the day. The idea of sitting in a sun-drenched kitchen, dressed for the day, and happily sipping coffee while smiling over a bouquet of daisies at your spouse/cat/houseplant sounds more like a laundry softener commercial than reality to me.

Reality is knocking your laptop to the floor when the alarm goes off since you fell asleep binging on TED Talks. After that recurrent tragedy comes the catapulting out of bed and the subsequent collision with the door because it’s winter and the sun is still dozing below the horizon even though you’ve hit snooze three times already.

Then we have the minute-to-win-it power shower, followed by verbally coaxing the coffee maker to brew faster into a travel mug that will inevitably be left on the counter. Add some children to the mix and I imagine your morning routine resembles that Cheaper by the Dozen scene involving a boatload of eggs, a pitcher of OJ, a lacrosse stick and a frog. You know the one I’m talking about? I could be wrong, but I’d wager there are a few of you parental figures nodding in understanding right now.

For those of us with a farm (okay, okay mine is a “microfarm”), our morning shenanigans usually begin out of doors. In extreme heat and deplorable cold, we are out there with our creatures and/or our crops, making the most out of a life a lot of us (in today’s generation) hand selected. Let’s take a quick jaunt through a bit of agricultural history, shall we?

It’s funny to think that just a century ago our country’s agricultural production was almost entirely reliant on sweat equity. It wasn’t until the 1920’s when the increased manufacturing and availability of tractors incited the slow but steady replacement of “horse power” with horsepower.

The decline in workhorses, mules and oxen coincided with the reduction of farms contributing to the food and textile industry. If you couldn’t afford a tractor, you couldn’t compete in product output with those who did, and smaller farms were absorbed into larger, more profitable farms.

Today, this pattern is still prevalent as mega farms buyout mid-size farms, the latter unable to afford the rising cost of land leases and permit upkeeps, not to mention the general maintenance of cultivation and livestock. These mega farms are typically monocultures, producing one specific [cash] crop and producing it rapidly (sometimes in order to squeeze in an additional annual harvest). This monoculture concept isn’t new; in fact, this cultivation method dates back to the early 1900’s before the mechanization era even arrived. That said, the implementation of monocultures wasn’t without skeptics then and the model is facing new critics today. Environmentalists, agronomists and horticulturists alike are reevaluating whether the benefits of monocultures outweigh their disadvantages, specifically in relation to the bionetwork in which they are residing.

So is monoculture agriculture bad for the planet? Well, I suppose that depends. It depends on the size of the crop, the species of the crop, the longevity of the crop and the location of the crop…just to name a few determining factors. It also depends on whether we are including humans in this definition of “the planet.”

While I personally believe that polycultures (growing numerous species amongst one another or rotating various crops in one plot) are advantageous to both the plant as well as the soil they are cultivated on, I am not yet convinced that we, as an ever-growing populace, can survive without mass-produced, readily available, monoculture foods. That said, I find it ironic that we are headed towards a “global food crisis” but have more edible food waste than ever before…

These morning thoughts are triggered by who knows what? I certainly don’t. My right butt cheek is still throbbing a bit from where it met with a concealed patch of ice on my way back to the house after AM chores earlier today. I thought I would write an ode to thick snow pants or perhaps a hate letter to the bitter temperatures freezing the troughs, but I found that my mind, per usual, swayed from the intended topic. So here I am trying to connect back to where I began: with mornings that are rarely sunshine and daisies.

My tush is going to be sore for a few days, I’m sure, and my fingers have just now thawed enough to flitter across the keys, but my coffee is hot and my house is warm and even though I’ll be going back out there later to break ice and fill waters again, it was my choice to be a microfarmer, so this gal isn’t complaining. My little homestead wasn’t handed down through generations and this part-time occupation was never a family obligation. I chose this lifestyle and while some days are more difficult than others (these negative degree days sort of suck, to be honest), I take pride in the care I provide to the creatures who rely on me for their well-being. So later today when I’m trudging through the snow and skidding on the ice that’s only loosely covered below, I will pause (for only a second otherwise I might freeze to the spot) to acknowledge my purpose, and be thankful to have found it. Our country might be composed of a handful of megafarms today, but the microfarms revolution has arrived and there are quite a lot of us starting to return to our agricultural roots and I for one, can’t wait to see where this leads us.

Be well, be warm!

The house is cool and quiet at Sweet Birch Homestead today; the ticking of the baseboards and intermittent rustling of the furnace the only audible interruptions in an otherwise serene environment. The world outside it coated in a crust of hardened snow. Yesterday we received a few inches of dry, fluttery flakes but by early afternoon it had changed to tiny spheres of frozen rain. The resulting rind of layered precipitation is slick and ungiving, requiring forced effort to punch through it rather than glide across. Deciduous trees stand stark against an otherwise milky backdrop in the snapshot I’m observing from my bedroom window. It is a balmy 1 degree outside on this January morning, but I am warm indoors and dreaming, as I often do, of the gardens sleeping soundly below the snow.

I’m not really sure when it was when my interest in gardening presented itself. I remember my parents tending to a small in-ground plot as a youth in my childhood home, but I myself wasn’t very involved beyond snacking on the ripe cherry tomatoes in July or playing with the hornworm caterpillars that plagued their vines. When I moved to a rental space with a small yard a few years back, (setting some literal and figurative roots after traveling post-college), I felt compelled to try growing some of the herbs I’d become familiar with in teas and tinctures. Opting for container gardens was a cost-effective way to try out this new hobby and after one season, I was enamored with horticulture.

The following year I scraped the grass from a small section in the side yard to try my hand at growing some vegetables in addition to my herbal allies. How hard can it be? I remember thinking, plugging my seedlings into the dusty soil. My herbs did great in this location, growing large and wild as they’re apt to do and imagine my surprise when I harvested a pepper and some zucchini! Alas, between the weeds (I never tilled), the poor soil (I never tested, nor amended) and the sunblock of a fence against the mid-afternoon sun, I really only did get that one green pepper and a handful of skinny cucurbits. As it turned out, however, these small successes were all that was needed to incite my passion for growing and I had gardens on my mind when I began hunting for new housing in late summer.

I found Sweet Birch in the fall of 2015 and added only my DIY chicken run  that first year because I chose to watch the land before designing. I observed the sunlight patterns and tracked where the rainfall drained. I noted the slopes of the property and monitored how well the soil both absorbed and retained water. I filled a sketchpad with notes, site plans, bed sizes and plant species and in my second Spring, I began to play in the dirt.

I decided on raised beds for various reasons. Firstly, I really like the neat and tidy look of straight and narrow garden plots. Secondly, the notion of minimal weeding is pretty alluring. For my beds, I sawed some old lumber to size, drilled in corner braces (4×4’s lopped to approximately 8″ in height) and dropped cardboard within the frames to smother the grass. I borrowed my dad’s truck and ordered some dirt and compost from a local farmer who loaded it into the bed with a little ski-doo. $50 later (for dirt. for DIRT) I returned home and dropped the rich soil atop the cardboard. wallah. My garden site was prepped and ready for planting. The entire endeavor from cutting the boards to dropping the soil was done in a day and I was planting seedlings that evening as the sun began to set in late May 2016.

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For those of you who already garden, you’ll understand this more than those who don’t (yet). Over the following weeks, I formed what I can only describe as a paternal relationship with my plot. I tended to it every morning before heading off to work and returned to it every afternoon. Oftentimes I would go directly from car to garden, leaning my slew of bags and totes against a wood-framed bed before immersing myself in the various tasks I’d find to keep me busy. My garden gave me purpose and I grew to love my new role as a garden guardian.

One of my favorite parts of playing make-believe horticulturist is watching seedings develop into maturity. This happens remarkably fast. The seedlings I transplanted from my growing tray were noticeably larger within days of submersion in the outdoor beds. Every morning I would note how a leaf had changed shape or a spindly stem had thickened and grown more robust. The chlorophyll-infused hues of aerial parts became more verdant as day length increased; the cheery lime of new leaves contrasting in both color and shape to the rounded, spinach green cotyledons below (cotyledons are the initial leaves that sprout from a seed).

In late-June, flower buds began to develop like silvery bells on the peppers and saffron slippers on the squash. When they bloomed, the garden came to life in a way I had not seen at my last abode.

The garden was suddenly ebullient with the flashing of jeweled wings and the buzzing of focused flight. Pollinators in all their glory were notified of the new blossoms by word perhaps of the wind, and they flocked to the garden in droves. Butterflies flitted from herb garden to veggie bed, preferring the blossoms of the Korean licorice mint to anything else in the parcels but tasting everything available to them nonetheless. Tiny hover flies and cabbage moths, bumblebees and even bluebirds came in accordance with the blossoms’ development. The sudden energy was contagious and I found myself rejuvenated each morning as I stepped out to greet my garden familiars.

The plants, too, became more jubilant with their arrival. Flowers quivered as though suppressing laughter when a honeybee tickled their petals; and sage leaves bobbed like miniature surfboards when the pollen-encrusted creatures alighted atop them to tidy an antennae or adjust a basket. The bees arrived to the garden before I did in the early morning and departed, as though cued, when the tree swallows performed their final aerial waltz at twilight.

I was already planning on expanding when a Facebook post from a community page advertised free raised beds to the first taker. I responded immediately and was borrowing my dad’s truck once again to pick up the lumber from a nearby neighborhood. I framed and assembled the new beds before the first frost, dropped cardboard (and compostable paper plates from summer time festivities) and added a layer of chicken manure and grass clippings to keep my recycled lawn suppressants in place. When Autumn came around I gleaned the rest of my bounty, adjusted some notes in my garden journal, and put my current beds to rest.

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Being a rebel (read: impatient), I began transplanting my hardier seedlings the week before the recommended Zone 5b last frost date of Memorial Day. My perennial herbs were already up and flourishing and the cold crop plants were a couple inches high having sprouted around Cinco de Mayo. I had a backup plan in case the temps dipped low (and will have a blog post for that quick and easy trick) but was confident that my young plants would be just fine in the coming weeks; our seasons, as you might have noticed, are becoming milder.

Our spring was in fact an easy one, void of sudden frosts and my crops did beautifully this second year. I had radishes and beets galore, various salad greens in abundance and sweet peas dripping from the trellis. My valerian grew taller than me and the bee balm behind it brought hummingbirds to my garden for the first time. Every perennial from the year prior bloomed. The mints and lambs ears, sage, thyme and lavender, lemon balm, hyssop…everything was both radiant and, coincidentally, purple-themed.

When early spring arrived I already knew what I was doing with my beds having filled those long winter nights with books on companion planting, integrated pest management and crop rotations. I got right to work with sowing my cool crop seeds in the original beds in late April while amending my soil in the new beds after receiving another load of dirt from the same greenhouse as the year before. This year’s compost blend was a bit rockier than the original purchase and wasn’t as rich as the year prior either but I mixed in the (now-aged) chicken manure/ lawn clippings blend and the soil fluffed right up.

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We had a viciously hot and humid summer starting in August and when it got wet, things got a little challenging. Mildew sprouted on my cucumber leaves and the zucchini fell victim to a vine borer and was decimated before I correctly identified and resolved the problem. Neither my sweet nor ornamental corn grew higher than 3′ in height and the climbing beans in the 3-Sister’s Garden bloomed but never produced.

Not all was lost, however and I did harvest about one hundred sugar snap peas, and more lettuce than I could consume. I pulled dozens of beets for pickling and produced the best pepper crop I’d ever had, with the fruits turning color on the vine rather than on my windowsill. My Roma tomatoes were tough but made an excellent salsa, and the Cherokee purples were delicious cut fresh, just dripping with flavor. The purple bush beans were overly abundant but stored well in the fridge and I gave these out to friends and family as I picked about a handful each day that season.

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My tulsi and sweet basil were out of control and eventually I grew tired of pinching back their flowers and surrendered them to the honeybees. The peppermint and chocolate mint were, per usual, vastly abundant and I trimmed these weekly, tossing the fragrant stems and flowers to the hens who would shuffle it about in their run and perfume the air in the yard. The only herb that didn’t thrive was the bay leaf, where, because of poor planting, it didn’t receive adequate sunlight once the Korean licorice mint became grand. My calendula sprouted everywhere I tucked it and by continuously dead-heading I was able to keep blossoms well into mid-September as I was harvesting the last of the epic eggplant crop.

I replaced the dying cucumber plant with arugula, spinach, beets and radish seeds for the coming fall and began to watch for pests as my plants were growing weak with the passing of summer. As expected, squash bugs showed up and with then late-season cucumber beetles. I did my best to hand squish these pests and removed infected plants as needed.

Eventually the garden slowed and the marigolds were the last bursts of color in an otherwise dreary plot. The purple petals of the mints and monarda had turned a rusty brown and the basil leaves were wilting in the cooler evenings. I harvested what I could and brought it indoors for sorting, giving the remaining annuals to the hens to dissect. I left my perennial herbs as they were, telling myself I would trim them when the inevitability of a frost was no longer deniable but tucked them in for added protection with raked leaves from the maples across the way.

The frosts soon came and with them the final harvest of beets and radish. I decided to incorporate an in-ground garden to accompany my raised beds for the following growing season but a hard frost beat me to my design before I could finish. It now waits, incomplete, under a blanket of January snow.

So here I wait too, dreaming of new varieties and plotting battle against pests that undermine my horticultural endeavors. I read, I sketch, I try to embrace the winter but I’ve noticed that whereas years ago I eagerly anticipated the first snow, now I look to the first thaw with more excitement…

With the longer days comes the time and the temperatures conducive to improving old garden practices and experimenting with new methods. But for now, we rest, for in winter we reflect and recharge as we prepare for the coming season of rapid growth. As the plants must go dormant, so must we, to a degree.

Be well, be warm, be mindful, dear ones, and allow yourself this rest. It’s what Mother Nature recommends and Father Winter commands.

Post One: Bartering

I have always been frugal. Some even refer to my living style as cheap (#haters). I don’t update my wardrobe, I buy used over new for most items excluding comestibles, and I could care less if my tech. gadgets are upgraded in line with the latest model. I don’t own a television nor an electronic coffee maker, and until last month, I didn’t possess a dryer (my current housemate bought one so it’s here with her for now). Before the dryer I would hang my clothes on lines strung across the basement (still do for my jeans) and during the warmer months I have an awesome umbrella clothesline that pops up right beside the patio. Line drying may take a bit longer, but it is completely cost effective.

I grow as much food as I’m able to during the summer and can/freeze/dry for the colder months. I charge smaller electronics on my car battery during errands or commutes and I monitor the peak hours of usage for my electric company and plan my washing, trough-filling, and charging of larger electronics on off-hours. (For information on your off-hours/peak hours, contact your local electric provider!)

Today I exchange goods for other goods or services when I can, having recognized early on the strength of a small scale barter economy. When you’re a street hustling adolescent, like I was back in the early 90’s, bartering with candy was a sure shot to way ease into the (sugar-crazed) market of childhood supply and demand.

I recognized early on that not everything has to be purchased with coins or cash and some goods increase in value depending on when you offer them. As a kid, this was a crucial observation and candy, as it turned out, appreciates like gold in the weeks proceeding Halloween.

The day after All Hallows Eve was a bartering playground. Literally. I mean, the playground was crawling with kids hiding under the slides or behind the monkey bars’ platform doling out tootsie rolls for dum-dums or a packet of Nerds for watermelon Blowpops. Different candies had different value, you may recall, and siblings often pooled their loot together.

Those first few weeks of November were mayhem at bus lines and after school programs. Kids had lollipops tucked up their sleeves, Hershey kisses locked in their pencil cases and pixie sticks tucked in the folds of Trapper Keepers; these tots were hustling fast and hard. By mid-November there were still a few of us with decent sweets to barter with and now our Milky Ways could be cashed in for mini-erasers and scented pencils.

I don’t have a sweet tooth now and I didn’t have one growing up. My younger sister would literally house her Halloween candy in under a week and I would stash my own goods to prevent her nicking them. Once that obstacle had been dealt with- “come into my room and die” worked pretty effectively back in those days- I just had to wait for the demand to arrive. It always did and I was never disappointed.

By late November, the candy trade was down to yellow Starbursts and malted Whoppers and the after-school market was becoming stagnant. As Thanksgiving came and went, I turned to my funds. Blessed with a taste for savories over sweets, I still had in my possession all the goods. From my trick-or-treat pillowcase came the Kit-Kats and Airheads that I’d been reserving for this moment. When December arrived, I pulled out the other highly coveted sweets: Gobstoppers, Snickers, Poprocks and Sugar Daddy’s quickly taught me the fundamentals of a supply and demand economics. The demand was high but the supply was low and this girl owned the bartering terrain of Terra Lane. While the rest of the gang was scraping by with candy canes, I was cashing in my Reese’s cups like they were Benjamins.

Black licorice and Heath bars have been and still are my favorite sweet, so it was easy to reserve the stuff that normal kids like as marketable trade items. Kit Kats were worth new pencils, Snickers were worth 3-5 Pogs (not slammers, let’s be real), and one pink Starburst held more value than the mystery 2-pack of the same product; a handful of pinks could get you an entire roll of Lisa Frank iridescent stickers.

I swapped candy for magnifying glasses, mini-notebooks, bouncy balls and once, a pair of swim goggles in March from a kid named Taylor. I’d trade for grab bags of Bugles or pizza Combos as my own parents wouldn’t splurge on those delicacies and on rare occasions, I even swapped for dimes and quarters.

Every once in a while I would combine a couple chocolate bars alongside a box of Nerds and an Airhead in exchange for something exceptional like a Koosh ball or a Beanie Baby. I knew I would have to push the rest of my loot before Valentine Day came with its pink lollipops and conversation hearts, but by holding onto some Babe Ruths and sour strings from Halloween, I was able to score some solid trades even after that Hallmark holiday.

I’d replenish my stock to my best abilities over Valentine’s Day, and later Easter, and then sit on my funds until May when my schoolmates’ baskets were reduced to little more than crinkled paper grass and empty plastic eggs. Then I would haggle those sugar fiends once again. Thus began my early years of recognizing the value behind things that appreciate seasonally.

Flash forward a few decades and while it remains that I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, I am still looking for ways of using what I’ve got already to get me things I’d rather have. Additionally, I have trained myself to only purchase things of worth and continued value. If I like it now and I buy it today, will I still like it next season, next year, or several years from now? Will I be able to resell it? Will it have any worth in a year? If the answer to any of the above posed questions is no, then the purchase is nullified before the cashier can ask if I found everything I was looking for. This brings me to my first rule of shopping: Don’t go if you don’t have a particular item that you need.

If you walk into any shopping center without a defined purpose, you will indubitably find something that you want, Watson. As we know, a want is not a need and so you’re stuck spending your hard earned money on something that doesn’t fill a void. If you’re not missing it, you don’t need it. If you buy it because you want it but don’t actually need it then you, my friend, have just made an empty investment in superfluous consumerist crap. Asking yourself about the functionality of the product in question before making the decision to replace it can save you money and prevent consumerist crap accumulation.

Some examples:

A new sponge to replace the current science experiment living on your sink: need

A new sponge because the one at Target is shaped like Hello Kitty: superfluous consumerist crap

New hand towels because the ones you have are tattered and torn: need

New hand towels because the rainbow farting unicorn print has all but faded on the current ones: superfluous consumerist crap.

A new pair of black heels because the other ones are bent and irreparable: need

A new pair of black heels because the other ones don’t have metal spikes: superfluous consumerist crap (unless those shoes with the spikes are a workplace dress-code requirement in which case, they’re now a business write-off, so go for it).

Get where I’m going here? If you wear heels on a regular basis, I firstly applaud you and secondly suggest you look in your closet and determine how many pairs get worn more than once a week. Separate them from the ones you wear more than once a month and then lastly, designate a category for those you wear once a year.

If you have a pair of heels for each of these categories you probably don’t need to purchase any more heels. Money saved for your nest egg. Those you are only wearing once a year, consider selling or trade with a friend who has also done this exercise and more than likely has some unused heels with which to barter.

Do this with every item of clothing you currently keep in your closet and bureau. If you have bins under your bed that are filled with clothes, I’m thinking you might not miss them if they were suddenly gone. Sell or trade these too. Online sites like thredUP make it easy with a fill-the-box-kit but if you’ve got a Plato’s Closet nearby like we do here in NH, they’ll buy your old brand name items right then and there in person.

In regards to daily linens like hand towels: own one decorative set and reserve it solely for company. When you invite the people you love and care about into your house it is only logical that they judge your abilities, personality, character and wit based entirely on your choice in linen hand towels. Pacify this dilemma by either a.) getting over that delusional misconception or b.) keeping the schmancy towel set tucked away for times when you’re hostin’. The unicorns will always get their limelight in the grand scheme of things and the towels themselves will last significantly longer if not used day in and day out.

As for sponges, I ended up switching to hand-knitted washcloths a few years ago after a coworker gifted them to me. The benefits of using wool-based washcloths far exceed the trial period of getting used to them. Wool washcloths don’t fall apart like sponges and they can be sanitized in the washing machine. #score They cost virtually nothing (old yarn= new towel) and they are biodegradable when you’re totally done with them. I have a scrubber brush for harder to clean messes that can go through the dishwasher or tossed in boiling water like a toothbrush for sanitation, so essentially, the need for sponges (in the sink) has been eliminated in my home.

That said, I do keep a few earth conscious sponges handy, because sometimes it really is easier to sponge up a mess. The sponges I purchase are made with cellulose and for whatever reason they don’t get that nasty smell traditional sponges acquire after a period of use. They also last significantly longer and rarely fall apart. I ditched paper towels eons ago and have rarely missed them since. I’m saving money and reducing my impact on the landfill. Lest we forget, traditional sponges- those pink, yellow, blue and green ones- are made out of plastic. We might throw them away but they are here to stay in the bigger scheme of things.

In the spirit of not making this the longest blog post in the history of the magpie, I ask that you stay tuned for more frugal living and easy $$ saving ideas. As always, thanks for reading the idle thoughts of a scattered mind.

Much love,

-W

What do you call a group of individuals, whispering in Latin and pointing towards the sky? Lunatics, of course, but birdwatchers is an adequate synonym. Add to that image some beige couture and a camera lens that costs more than my first car and now you’ve got serious birdwatchers. There’s a broad spectrum of these addicts, ahem, hobbyists, ranging from the amateur beginner birder to the advanced birding fiend. Somewhere in the middle, you’ve got me.

I love birds. In part, I think, because of my deep-rooted envy of their ability to fly. I love listening to them, I love identifying them, I love watching them dip and dive in flight. I love using my binoculars to zoom in on their itty, bitty, birdy feet, with their miniature dinosaur toes and precious little claws.

I am not picky when it comes to what birds I enjoy watching. I keep winter feeders and rejoice when a nuthatch or downy woodpecker alights on the suet or a flock of goldfinch flutter about the thistle. I saw a Great Horned Owl this past December and died a small death when my heart stopped as I visually devoured its perched profile. In retrospect, it was a good thing that my morning visitor didn’t linger long since I swear my cardio system was on pause until it dropped and soared into the dawn. Wild birds bring me joy, excitement, peace of mind and a cherished connection with Nature. That said, I find similar enjoyment when I silently stalk my chickens…

I have five girls at the moment. 3½ Wyandottes (the ½ represents a bantam), a Rhode Island red and a barred rock. Garnet, the red, sticks out like a sore thumb against her black and white compatriots. Her personality too, is significantly different from the rest of the flock’s cautious, aloofness. Garnet is an excellent egg-layer, a tidy hen, and a freaking biter. You read that right; she bites. The red one bites.

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When I first got Garnet and her barred rock partner, Galena, it became instantly apparent that the redhead was going to be feisty. I introduced them to the ‘dottes under cloak of darkness as this is how it is done in the chicken world: you shove new hens (after quarantining them beforehand, if you’re smart) into the coop when all the others are asleep and by morning the prior hens just accept that the new hens have been there all along. Immaculate generation… there’s a reason we coined the term birdbrain. This method, by the way, has never worked for me, but it’s the easiest option and eventually they all seem to settle in regardless.

Garnet, Galena and their rooster pal, Gideon, had been backyard pets of a friend. He was moving to a more urban neighborhood and couldn’t take the birds so I scopped the girls and dropped the roo off at my mom’s. I have a strict “ladies only” policy when it comes to raising poultry. Garnet had always been very friendly at my buddy’s place. ‘Friendly’ is what I call a chicken that when threatened by an advancing person adopts an emergency squat position and succumbs to pats and cradling. I used to catch her for chicken cuddles whenever I visited and was thrilled when he asked if I could take his trio as he prepared his rural departure. 

The morning after my drop and ditch, I woke to a high-pitched symphony of some pissed-off poultry and entered the run expecting zero eggs (“Our flock has been breached! Our energy must be reserved for shrilly vocalizing our annoyance and despair!”). I wasn’t wrong; the nests were empty and the ‘dottes were carrying on, directing their annoyance at me now that I’d joined in the rumpus.

One of them was clucking like a metronome from atop the coop roof, two others were strident from their perch on the straw bales, busy “ba-cawking” their faces off, and Carnellia (the bantam) was vigorously chasing the invaders around the run, establishing her newly risen role on the totem pole of the pecking order. I scooped up Carnellia as she rushed past, beak open like a bite-sized velociraptor, and redirected her towards the food bowl I had just filled. Scattering cracked corn had the same effect as hitting the mute button on a stereo and for a blessed moment all was well as the three large hens ditched their posts and shut their yammering in order to house some [corn] crack.

Garnet began to amble cautiously over towards me while the others were busy snacking and I watched, curious, as she got closer and closer. When the red hen was within arms reach I began to bend towards her. Before I could even initiate movement, however, that little sh*# bounced straight up as though on a trampoline and bit my hand where it rested by my side. I have been pecked by hens before, usually while retrieving an egg from an annoyed brooder. Never have I had a bird jump into the air in order to reach their target.

Getting bit or nipped by a chicken doesn’t hurt, but it is startling, and I reacted as any other startled chicken owner would have: I slipped my foot between her legs and lifted that mother clucker up and away. She landed softly on the hay pile I aimed her at and immediately hopped down and came strutting back. Prepared this time, I quickly lunged towards her and she sank into a squat and froze. Thus began our daily routine. Advance, hop, bite, fly, advance, crouch, freeze. We’ve got a bit, the biting hen and I.

Garnet and Galena have been here now for just under a year and things have settled down. Garnet no longer greets me in any fashion, aggressive or otherwise, recognizing me now as strictly a food source and a nest-robber like the others. Carnellia wasn’t able to keep Galena under her tiny, chicken foot but she has prevented the sole red hen from rising in ranks. The flock is amicable for the time being ; it is winter after all, and the more tolerant they are of one another, the better their chances at enduring these bitter nights.

There’s a message to be derived from this flocking together in times of need, but I’m going to let you figure that one out for yourself. I am just happy that I’m still getting several fresh butt nuggets each week and no longer being bit every morning. If you don’t have hens already, you should get some. If you don’t have a bird feeder at your digs, you should get one of those too. Speaking Latin isn’t a requirement until you’ve reached the advanced birder stage and everyone has to start somewhere. If spying on haughty hens makes one a birder, than I’m a GD pro already.

Get out and enjoy Nature! Go stalk some birds!