Scythe from Shadybrook Rd.

There is this fascinating older woman named Dolores who lives on an old farm near us. She is sweet, intelligent and reminds me very much of my father in a comforting way. Her home is deeply eccentric and layered with special objects, great books, plants, a dog named Buddy. I really like talking with her. Chickens stroll around. Two of them are best friends and a bit on their own versus the rest of the ladies who are older. Their names are Butterscotch - a buff orpington I think and a little bantam named Brownie. She also has an amazing peacock and a couple of pea hens. We've seen the peacock way up high in the barn calling, his tail is insane, it's incredible and they can fly so high. She lends me a lot of great herb and farming books and old copies of ORGANIC Gardening and Farming magazines, including one with Ruth Stout on the cover from February 1957, when the words Gardening and Farming held equal weight on the title. I've also been itching to buy a scythe, but good ones are expensive. Maybe they are on my brain so much, I don't know if I brought it up or not?? but Dolores gave me this awesome old scythe. It needs a lot of work, I'll take a photo, I love it.

Chicks are BIG + beginning of the Raft

The chicks are really growing up...
going from little down puffs to feathery ladies in what seems like only a couple of weeks? Here is a photo of their new Bamboo Pirate Chickie Raft in progress (yay!) and some of their current D-Lux cardboard and wire cabin. One of The Vultures voices is slowly changing from little bird chirps, to the beginning of a bawc sound, but still mainly little sweet birdie chirps. We've only heard a few isolated attempts. It's hard to really imagine them clucking, much less laying eggs... Here they are getting a brief visit, as the little ones are getting bigger and want a patio, too.

They love greens and they all get completely wired up at the sight of us in the hopes we have some. Teaching them to be good, proper foraging ladies out in the wild backyard. We have tried letting them together but it's still a little alarming, so we're mainly letting them be separate and hope they'll get along when they move out in a week or two and have a lot more space. The little trio of Banti (the Bantam), PJ (the Barred Rock, black and white stripes named after lady rocker PJ Harvey) and Lima (a Peruvian Araucana named after the capital of.. Peru) want their own Le Patio. The Vultures have a lot to discuss amongst themselves right now and want their patio privacy.

We've added on to their housing a number of times now. It started out with the two Australorp chicks while waiting for the feed store to get some Araucana chicks. The Aussies or The Vultures, as they've come to be known, now that we have the younger three are bigger, look like baby vultures (in our imaginations) and are currently a bit inconsiderate about their new buddies or it's just that their reptile feet and sharps claws are already as big as the little chicks soft downy heads and that's scary. So when it was just the two, we started them in the galvanized tub with a chicken wire top in the office. Then the three younger ones came and we made a divided 2h x 4w x 2d box. The cats were banished to the porch at night and when we were gone just in case and we were lulled to sleep by lots of little bird chattings every night. Then when it was warm enough, we took the office back and moved them out on the sun porch and the cats switched places and seemed to realize they missed us. We added on Le Patio for The Vultures and gave more interior space to the little chicks who still needed more enclosed warmth and then now that they are bigger, they demanded their own private patio (not pictured, but a nifty wire bike basket turned and attached sideways).

And we've begun the raft as our version of a mobile "chicken tractor" which can be moved around the yard and garden beds for foraging, mowing and fertilizing. After thinking through other designs and trying to find a weather appropriate (damp winter), secure and inexpensive plan that would give them some height and room to enjoy, we decided to try to use some of the bamboo growing on the north side of our house. We thought about a curved structure and different heights and settled on making one we could walk in half of for cleaning and gathering eggs, which they can also hop and fly a bit in and a lower portion to peck around in. We're going to do hardware cloth on every side but the bottom to keep the predators out and chicken wire on the bottom, to keep animals from borrowing up and under or just lifting it up since it will be so lightweight. Here's a lashing detail and The Puff guarding the ladies' feed.

Portland Veggie Truck Chronicles + National Pollinator Week

Some of the beautiful Icelandic Poppies and Foxgloves from home:

On the route I see so many good bumper stickers in Portland and the metro area. I've got a lot scribbled down on various bits of paper... I'll get around to typing them up to share with you one of these days. In the meantime, love these two.

Driving this route really fires my brain up about humanity, housing, food, what it is to be alive as a human - to be this funny animal we all are.

And I see so many versions of houses. Houses, houses, houses. They stretch on and on... Variations on the form of what we think our basic needs are - ideas actually based on the major building industries' decisions about 'standard' materials and the building departments which follow on the industry's coattails and set the regulations for your hut.

So many strict structures, with sharp lines. Many staring blandly out like impersonal hotels. The photo is from Forest Heights, neighborhood of perched megabuildings, looking out on views of each other while vying for the mountain sunsets. I've got some more thoughts and photos to come on the Heights in the future...

These materials we can not make with our own two hands. Without far away factories we never set foot in, heavy machinery, un-thought about toxic chemicals and the laborers.

These materials form what our ingrained imaginations see a 'home' to be.

Granted many around Portland and in the woods are quite cute to me and I'll take more photos of those in the future, too. Same building materials, though, just different imaginations and skill interpreting them.

Drywall, the 2x4 stud/stick, cement, glass, you know - imagine all the parts to your house and what it would be like if the parts weren't manufactured for you. So interesting (not even available at the dump or neat rebuilding center to reuse).

Regardless of income - What would it be like if everyone had to build their own shelter in this country, themselves. What would that look like? What would the food people eat now look like if they were responsible for growing their own and bartering with each other for what else they needed?

Right now those basic needs, food and shelter, are shaped by the income generated through other tangled lines on our corporate driven, consumer society. Each person is literally a cog in the overall machine. Or an ongoing play with a huge array of characters playing their roles. You generate a certain amount of money and then choose to place it back out in exchange for housing, food, vehicles, clothing, trips - all work done and income earned by other people who then go on and place their money out in exchange for their versions of the same needs and wants.

The income your cog generates, determines and often displays whether your house is truly basic with minimal square footage or if it has been frilled out and elaborated on often to a grand square footage scale. And whether your food is as good as you'd like it to be or if it's the most caloric value you can get while stretching your dollars. It is generally not that affordable to make choices that are as local, organic and supportive for food or as green, environmental and humane as a person would like for housing, clothing, vehicles and other goods.

There are an amazing number of Prius cars in this area, but if everyone who needed to save on gas and/or wanted to try to make a better environmental choice, could afford a hybrid car, they would really be everywhere. There would also be a lot more well insulated, low-e windows and efficient appliances, solar panels and lots of other neat energy conserving technologies that can be expensive up front, but do save people money in the long run if they can afford it initially.

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Okay, this is the area my brain goes in when it's not deeply listening to OPB/NPR.

Speaking of which, I heard today that it is National Pollinator Week. The website is really neat.

Here are some photos from home and some of the flowers we hope help the pollination go 'round (Banti is looking out from the window above the cosmos):



We would have very little to eat without pollination! In case you don't make it to their website, this is text describing important pollination info:

"Pollination is vital to our survival and the existence of nearly all ecosystems on earth. 80% of the world's crop plants depend on pollination. Pollinators, almost all of which are insects, are indispensable partners for an estimated 1 out of every 3 mouthfuls of food, spices and condiments we eat, and the beverages we drink. They are essential to the fibers we use, the medicines that keep us healthy, and more than half of the world's diet of fats and oils. Insect pollinators, including honey bees, pollinate products amounting to $20 billion annually in the U.S. alone.

What is pollination and who are pollinators?

Pollination occurs when pollen is moved within flowers or carried from one flower to another of the same species by birds, bees, bats, butterflies, moths, beetles or other animals, or by the wind. This transfer of leads to fertilization and successful seed and fruit production. Pollination ensures that a plant will produce full-bodied fruit and a complete set of fertile seeds, capable of germinating.

Why are pollination issues worthy of attention?

Today pollinators' existence may be threatened. Since pollinators are largely overlooked, assessing their condition and economic importance; seeking to understand their circumstances, biology, and benefits better; and working to help keep them healthy are positive, pro-active approaches to conservation."

NY Friends and Mamo visit within a few days

Our first visit of friends from out of state... Gail and Eric just came from New York to visit us. Yay : ) !! and brought my favorite 'veggie' gummi bears from the co-op and other treats, like a very nifty green cutting board and their happy smiles... The last time we had seen them was October 1st when they kindly helped us load our moving truck in Brooklyn, including the old claw foot tub we hope to someday make a new home for, and kept us calm. I had to put the city picture of them in downtown Portland by the 'tall' buildings and in the country photo Eric's wearing a cool yellow shirt with 'Gowanus' the name of our old neighborhood and an extremely polluted canal, now becoming very fancy (ie. Whole Foods spends years trying to build on a brownfield site and condos eagerly wait in the wings to line the infested shores..), that we used to walk over on the way to the subway... Here's a photo Gail took of our address sign and Lima + Banti.

I felt an interesting feeling I can't quite place - having to do with friends from such a specific place and part of our recent lives, who in a certain sense represent that- here now in this very different new place and time of our life. Have you ever experienced that?

It was also our first reason to take a day off... so maybe that tilted my perspective on life.

We went to show them Biggie and to the Rock Creek Pub for lunch. We had a little dinner party with them and Mish and Steve. Neil cooked delicious burritos and we set up tables down by the fields from our house to watch the beautiful sunset.

The next day Neil had to do the route and I took them places our friends Jess and Michael took us to when we were out last summer. To the rose garden, Pittock Mansion and downtown; the industrial area by Hwy 30 which I thought they'd appreciate as crafty artist/builders they are. Gail saw this nifty train car and wanted to cross the tracks to go by the fear caboose and I think in the picture I am fighting her from doing that and she is saying alright little mother hen pipsqueak, i won't cross the tracks, gotcha.. and Eric in the car is saying, any day ladies, rental car is parked illegally... then the Rebuilding Center and Mississippi neighborhood and then had dinner with their really neat friends Dimitri and Jessica, who had moved from New Jersey and were staying with her parents in the Irvington neighborhood where she grew up. (We deliver to a lot of CSA subscribers there and think of it as the Knott St. neighborhood...)

She made these amazing pizzas. Mmm... We talked a lot about life, dreams and work. He seriously explored farming and boat building, but came to the conclusion that it would be too financially challenging to start with two young children (who are very smart and funny by the way). They are headed to Seattle and he's about to start architecture school. We talked a lot about all the neat things we'd each like to do and the difficulty in the end of making the numbers work. That he came to the realization that he was going to have to fit himself into one of the pre-laid down career paths available. Jessica is an artist and illustrator and showed me and Gail how to make crocheted bags out of plastic shopping bags, by cutting them in to strips, knotting them together and crocheting away. Very cool. We also talked about making and selling things like that, as the three of us like to be crafty, but also how much time it can take to make something you want to sell at an affordable price someone can actually buy. Hours versus income. She also introduced me to The Complete Tightwad's Gazette, gave me the awesome pizza crust recipe, and other Portland tips like Knitten Kitten, potholder looms, "Goodwill As Is" by the pound, Interstate Farmer's Market, 4over4.com and vistaprint.com, also screen printing with cross-stitch and puffy paint. It was hard to see Gail and Eric off, just as easily as they are here, poof, they are gone. Off to his grandparents anniversary party in Spokane. Thank you for making a special trip to visit us!

A day went by and the next monumental visitor appeared. I think my Mom actually just visited on Father's Day. I showed her around our house and we took lunch to eat with Neil, Steve and Mishelle who were working at Abundant Harvest, that was really nice. Then we went up to Biggie and she seemed pretty impressed and it was neat to get her outside opinions and view on it. And she got to meet Robin and the cat, Snaggles, photos were taken... she's going to mail them to me, but I don't have any in the computer to put here. We planted some red coreopsis flowers together in with a pepper row. We'd had an idea to somehow make it to the ocean for a hike as it's only an hour away and I haven't been there since we moved here, but she'd been on a trip up the coast on her way up to Portland and there just was not enough time before she needed to catch her flight. She was here less than a day and then also, poof, gone on a plane. Too fast, but very special to have her here, too. Definitely something unusual about people visiting you from the place you knew each other to the place you are now. I guess people leave these traces of themselves in memories of being at your home with you. And that's really nice.