Fire Hazard

E left her lampshade askew, and this is what we found a few hours later...very good reminder.

The Bee's Knees

Gravenstein Apple

4-Way Cherry

4-Way Pear

I like the idea of keeping honeybees, but I'm not ready for the work. Some year I'll take a class, invest in a swarm, give that golden sweetness away to friends and family, blah, blah, blah. But for now I'm trying out Mason bees. They're docile, solitary, and really hard workers. I threw in a small orchard last fall and my trees are starting to bud; it's crazy exciting! I have high expectations for these little saplings and my duty is to help them and by extension me out in every way possible way; water, weed, feed...and now pollinate!

box-o-bees

La Casa

I purchased a small starter house, tubes and matchbox sized cardboard box with 10 cocoons inside (that are now patiently waiting in the back of the cheese drawer in my fridge). Apparently these things multiply like rabbits, and maybe I have a few hibernating out round the yard already, but I wanted to start out with a few mating couples now. This bee crisis seems to grow while the EPA looks the other way, my favorite pastime threatened, and the good food on my childrens' plate in jeopardy, I'd like to say I'm doing my part.

Crown Bee is a local information source check them out. Help out your garden and our food supplies!

Now, if only the weather around here would stop the massive rain showers and warm up a bit, we'd bee in business.

It's Not Always Easy To Figure Out How I Got Here...

...but this article hits it pretty squarely on the head, and no I didn't breastfeed my children until they were 4.

Give Big - June 23

"GiveBIG is a communitywide giving challenge created by The Seattle Foundation that will increase the size of your donation to a non-profit (of your choice). This new, one–day, online charitable giving event will rally together our community on behalf of the amazing nonprofit organizations in King County." There's loads of good organizations to give to  like our zoo, Seattle Tilth, etc. Help out!

* Quote from zoo.org

The Underbelly of the Chicken World

* I try and keep this blog as PG as possible, so I will not post photo's here of events that transpired, but a word of caution...there is descriptive carnage in following post.

I awoke with a start this morning.  There was some gruesome sounding squawking going on in the coop. There I found one of our 2-month-old-babies (Daisy, the Buff Orpington) with it's head in a hole (not unlike an ostrich) breathing deeply but otherwise not moving. My heart sank, I gently lifted her to my chest and quickly saw that the feathers and skin had been pulled back from her neck. She was horrifically mauled by her own kind. The older ones have been pushing the younger ones around some, but they must have cornered her and really went for it. Things were pretty heated a few weeks ago, but I was under the impression that they had worked things out. Thankfully I have my most knowledgeable chicken friend on speed dial and frantically woke her from her sleep shortly after 7am. She confirmed that I should separate her from all others, gently clean wound, medicate with Neosporen and let her rest in the quiet garage with the heat lamp.
Daisy has been eating, drinking, pooping, and chirping so I think she'll make it, but oh, I do not want to go through that again. I will take more precautions next round of chicks, and have already altered the coop so I can manage the two flocks easier. We were all pretty shaken, but it's a bit of a reality check; they are animals, they have instinct and no amount of anthropomorphising on our part changes them.

Living Social + Red Cross

Donate now and Living Social will double your money toward the Japan Earthquake & Pacific Tsunami Fund through Red Cross.

4-H

E joined 4-H today! A new group has just formed and we're taking advantage of it! E will be working on showing poultry. It was a crack up to see all these city-farm girlies with their hens and rabbits today. We all me at the leaders home in the Wallingford District, received instructions on how to show chickens, what judges will look for, and what judging is like. It was so fun!

Here is E with our Blue Laced Wyandotte, Petunia (iPhone pic's sorry).

Miles for Midwives

Come support a very improtant part of our community!

2.8 mile Family-Friendly Fun Run/Walk

Saturday, October 9, 2010
Seward Park in South Seattle
5895 Lake Washington Boulevard South
10 am to Noon

*find their website here

Swim Diapers from ImseVimse

Love, love, love these!  They work just like disposables (hold in the solids) but you wash 'em up and reuse.  Plus they have a side snap that completely eliminates the tug and pull action!

Monroe

E has croup, again.  We took it easy for the first half of the day, but I think we were all needing to get out of the house on this very wet and dark afternoon for a little field trip. Being outside in the moist air is really beneficial for E's tight air pipe.

I have mentioned the feed store in Monroe where we got Petunia, it's a great family run place that has the largest selection of chicks I ever dreamed of (ducklings, turkeys, and guinea fowl too).  E was in heaven.  She moved slowly from bin to bin exclaiming how cute they all were and picking up the little fluff balls to get her little fuzzy fix.  We were pretty much the only visitors so we stayed for a good 1/2 hour or so.

I was in the middle of a relatively lengthy conversation about waterers and feeders with the clerk when I felt a tug at my jacket and heard an obvious concern welling up in E's raspy little voice. "Mommy!  I need to show you something!"  This wasn't giddy excitement, she was worried.  I excused myself from the conversation and she led me to the bin of chicks that she had been fawning over and pointed to a quiet little peep, "That one is pasted up!"

Alright, poultry talk:  *Pasting up : "a condition in which their droppings cake up and block their vent opening, preventing them from passing any more droppings."  It is deadly if not dealt with promptly, and E knows this.  She is visually terrified.  Alright, this is tricky.  This store obviously deals with chicks a lot, they're a probably a dime a dozen, each one isn't too valuable (some of these are being sold for the table anyhow, very few I imagine will have a long drawn out life the way our backyard flock will, our pets).  God knows I do not want to tell someone how to run their business...conflict is not a strong suit for me.  Do I take care of the sick chick myself, do I lie and tell E that someone who works there will take care of it...do I get involved?  I chose the latter; to ask for help on behalf of the sick bird and my wide-eyed girl.  My daughter needed to see action.  I walked back to the young clerk I had been talking to and quietly asked if they cared whether or not we had spotted a pasted-up chick?  She affirmed that they did and asked E to show her which one it was.  She scooped it up, cleaned it's fuzzy little bum, and was able to relieve that little body of some serious built up droppings.  I'll admit it wasn't a pretty site, but when she set that chick back down and it quickly scurried away and into the flock, I felt a huge sense of relief, we had made the right choice.  Who knows, it may die tomorrow but my daughter was able to experience a sense of justice for one of God's smallest creatures and that kind of empathy is something you cannot really know without experience.  I was so proud of her, and I told her so.  We talked about how perhaps that very chick may be a pet that will make someone happy for a long time, and how maybe someone had helped one of our girls in their first week of life.  It was a very sweet car ride home, and I was so happy we had made the trip.

*Definition provided by the good people at My Pet Chicken.

His Favorite Books, In No Particular Order

Aside from "Mama, Dada, and Eh-nuh (for his sister) "Buh," is by far his favorite/reoccurring word.  Some of these "buh's" are the very same that E would pick before bedtime and naps at this age, and some are new.  Either way you cut it both of them love books and we couldn't be happier.

Colors

Trucks

Dear Zoo

Maisy's Train

Happy Baby's Words

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

ABC's

Moo, Baa, La La La

Time For Bed

The Milk Man

Moo, moo!  We're getting milk delivered to our door now! (and yogurt, cheese, sour cream, etc.)

My Day

Feeding hungry mouths, scrubbing dirty fingers, reading the same book over and over, entertaining question after question after question, drying tears, giving up on the definition of sleep, multitasking, sharing the same cold, finding the value of coffee and a camera.  I love being a mom.

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At school E worked very hard on this card for me, although we have never been to Glazed and Amazed I think she was dropping a hint...And her hand print is a quilted hot pad (too special to use of course) that one of the grandmothers created for each of the children in her class using their actual hand outline!

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And finally, me and my mom.  We had a really nice time together today.  My dad and D were out of town so we took the kids swimming, and went out for dinner.  She made us an amazing rhubarb pie yesterday and we just had a very relaxing and mellow day.  Thanks Mom, you have taught me so much.

CHILDREN'S MEDICATION RECALL

Tylenol, Motrin, Zyrtec, and Benadryl children's medications are all being recalled!

Go here to check if your Tylenol products are on the recall list

Go here to check if your Motrin products are on the recall list

Go here to check if your Benadryl products are on the recall list

Go here to check if your Zyrtec products are on the recall list

If you find that any of your your NDC#'s are listed, fill out this form for a refund check or high value coupon.

Chicks on the Brain

I've been obsessing about getting our very own backyard flock for a few months now.  D came up with the idea years ago, and only now did it seem feasible.  I've read this book from cover to cover, wandered all over the internet for coop plans and ideas, and studied breeds and varieties late into many nights.  I finally came up with a short list that we would most appreciate; winter hardy, great layers, and docile dispositions.  If anyone has some good pointers or advice send it on over!

For now our little chickadee's are doing great.  To be honest, I was a little worried after we brought them home yesterday.  They were pretty quiet and sleepy and not hungry or thirsty at all.  I also wasn't completely confident in how warm they were or weren't.  In fact I had to convince myself to stay in bed despite the fact I awoke a few times in the night wondering and worried about how they were fairing.  I was fully prepared to check on them in the morning only to find one or both dead.  But both were just peeping away, and they had happily made a mess of their food and water over night.  So, everything is great!  The only remaining slight issue is that we have a neighborhood cat that likes to wander into our garage occasionally when we leave the door open; I don't even want to think about how quickly he could carry one or both off, so door stays shut.

I can't tell you what a perfect fit these little gals seem to be for our family.  They need our care, but not too much. They're cute now and helpful later (eggs & fertilizer).   Quiet, not furry and they live outside!

And you haven't seen anything nearly as cute as a chick falling asleep all snuggled up next to her dozing buddy.

Celebrate Earth Day's 40 Anniversary with a Carbon Neutral Blog

Did you even know your blog in effect gives off CO2?  "According to a study by Alexander Wissner-Gross, PhD, physicist at Harvard University and environmental activist, an average website causes about 0.02g (0,0008oz.) of carbon dioxide for each visit. Assuming an average blog gets 15,000 visits a month, it has yearly carbon dioxide emissions of 3,6kg (8lb.). This can mainly be tracked back to the immense energy usage from (mainframe) computers, servers, and their cooling systems."  For every single blog that participates in this project, “Make it Green” and “Arbor Day Foundation” will plant a tree in the Plumas National Forest, which is situated in Northern California and was devastated by multiple fires in 2007.  This program originally started in Germany with a goal to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.  They plant a tree for your blog and thereby neutralize it's carbon footprint for the next 50 years! Everyone can make a small contribution to the environment. Every tree counts!

Visit the Make it Green website and see how you can join, Arbor Day is April 30th.

* Quotes from Make it Green website
* Photo from  PLAY Green

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This is the response I recieved after my request was submitted:

"Thank you so much for participating in our initiative and making your blog carbon neutral! Your tree will be planted this month by the Arbor Day Foundation. The scheduled start plant date was Monday, April 19 and the trees will be planted by a contracted crew. The roads are being plowed, all contracts solidified, and twelve shipments of 150,000 seedling each are being assembled. We thank you for the support!

There are still some trees looking for a sponsor. So if you know some people who have a blog or website, pass it on and we'll make their blogs carbon neutral too!"

Really Getting Started

Yes, we have a few things in the ground (got the sweet pea flowers and strawberries done yesterday), This week will be serious stuff; we have potatoes, slicing cuc's, ghost pumpkins, bush beans & sunflowers seeds waiting in the wings. But today I only have enough energy to put the sugar pea starts in. As soon as I see tomato & zucchini starts I'll get those in the ground too.

The First Thing In

We bought a few things today for our garden; raspberries, strawberries and rhubarb. The weather was so wonderful even after dinner, I stuck N in the swing and E was running all over the place, while I rototilled a bit more before sticking anything in the ground. Then she helped dig the hole for the rhubarb and watered. I love that we are finally growing our own food this year.

SEA to PHX and back

We needed a trip. We've all been aching for some sun and time away. I've pretty much been tethered to the house since N came along, and it was time to introduce him face to face with his Arizona family. D's grandpa really gave us a scare a few weeks ago, he ended up in the hospital with a very serious blood infection. We could have lost him. Thankfully he's slowly recovering, and we really wanted to see him. The timing was fortuitous; E had a week-long break from school, and 3 round trip stand-by airline tickets made their way into our hands. D flew in from his European tour on the evening before Valentine's Day, and the next morning we were back at the airport and on our way. I know I've written several times about just how special this place is, but I am amazed every time how effortless these visits are. E would rather be down there among the animals, climbing fruit trees, and splashing around their pool than anywhere else. Every night at dinner she would let out a content sigh, and say, "This was the best day of my life!" N had a nice time too, although chose that particular week to exhibit an impressive bout of separation anxiety, and I was lucky to hand him off to anyone other than his dad without his brow furrowing and a tearful "Mamamama," tumbling out...oh, and did I mention teething? They're coming, but really taking their sweet time, and he is u-n-c-o-m-f-o-r-t-a-b-l-e. Our nights were periodically and abruptly interrupted with caterwauling at the loudest decibel. And we're even still trying to fight our way back to our former restful nights. Even with all of the good must come bad, but it was not enough to inhibit me from extending our trip another 3 days. D flew back to get some work done, but the kids and I hung around to walk the zoo, go out for doughnuts and squeeze oranges. It was really nice.