for a while now,  people might want to just come by once in a while.   There might very well be more posts like todays….not much to see.  A lot going on,  but of a very certain plain nature.  and for sure,  not much to see.  But i remind self,  it's a Journal and really,  tho it's plain,  it is extremely satisfying for me.

So i pitch forked and shoveled already partially composting manure and scrap feed from the floor of the Albatros where the Doe Goats overnight.  It's particularly great right now because of the feed i dumped  inside there during that week or so of snow.   Their hooves blending it in with the manure and urine.

Paying good attention to the shoulder,  i only shoveled and hauled 4 wheelbarrows full.  

 

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This is the raised bed strip just on the outside of the House Yard fence.   From the gate there to just past the Wild Lilac.   Atop if you can see them are the tomato cages lying on their sides.  This is just a little under half of this bed.  already there were two wheelbarrows full from a while ago.  

 

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This is the rest of the way.  I figure maybe 7 more wheelbarrows full.  This week.  And then just the constant adding of scrap feed for mulch.  I'm On it.   This feels incredibly GOOD.  And according to permaculture principles,  will Not dig it in,  but allow what is already in good order in the present earth to "bring down" the new in it's way.

 

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the Sleeping Honeysuckle.  Not an award winning pic….but….how it is.

 

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and i haven't stopped thinking about chickens, chooks.   This is the House Yard side of the Guinea Hen Palace that was mostly incorporated into the Doe's Middle Pen.   The Whole Thing would be Great for Chooks,  but alas,  2/3rds of it belongs to the Goats.  But i looked long today at that part on the right that is not inside their space.

 

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I COULD close this square off from the rest on the inside and Could make an entry door here on the outside.  It would be the place for the nest boxes and for overnighting.  I still want them to run loose.  That's Cinderella looking at me.

 

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they have used this middle part in the past to Kid in…being able to feel like they could have some personal  space in there from the rest of the does…and then in the summer,  two or three will lie on that shelf that's there.  Goats like shelves.  Someday i should build them shelves in the Albatros.  Would be Happiness for them.   There are still all the reasons Why NOT for chooks.  But i seem to still keep entertaining the thought.  I really love eggs being the strongest.  Am thinking a Lot about what i eat and why i eat it.   While i am drinking the TEA,  i seem to be thinking even more about how i feed this body.  

So that was today.   and we are well over the half way mark of January.  stuff is Good.  really Good.

 

Addendum.  I didn't think this "applied" to anything.  and i still don't know what it Applies to,  but i will put it here for whatever reason today.  From the book…Ensouling Language.

 

James Hillman's book The Soul's Code

There is more in a human life than our theories of it allow.  Sooner or later something seems to call us unto a particular path.  You may remember this "something" as a signal moment in childhood when an urge out of nowhere, a fascination,  a peculiar turn of events struck like an annunciation.  This is what I must do,  this is what I've got to have.  This is who I am.

This book is about that call.

If not this vivid or sure,  the call may have been more like gentle pushings in the stream in which you drifted unknowingly to a particular  spot on the bank.  Looking back, you may have a sense that fate had a hand in it.

This book is about that sense of fate.

These kinds of annunciations and recollections determine biography as strongly as memories of abusive horror,  but these more enigmatic moments tend to be shelved.  Our theories favor traumas setting us the task of working them through.  Despite early injury and all the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,  we bear from  the start the image of a definite individual character with some enduring traits.

This book is about that power of character.

Because the "traumatic" view of early years so controls psychological theory of personality and its development,  the focus of our logical theory of personality and its development,  the focus of our rememberings and the language of our personal storytelling have already been infiltrated by the toxins of their theories.  Our lives already may be determined less by our childhood than by the way we have learned to imagine our childhoods.  We are, this book shall maintain,  less damaged by the traumas of childhood than by the traumatic way we remember childhood as a time of unnecessary and externally caused calamities  that wrongly shaped us.

So this book  wants to repair some of that damage by showing what else was there,  is there, in your nature.  It wants to resurrect the unaccountable twists that turned your boat around in the eddies and shallows of meaninglessness, bringing you back to feelings of destiny.  For that is what is lost in so many lives, and what must be recovered:  a sense of personal calling,  that there is a reason i am alive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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18 responses to “not a prize winner”

  1. Liz Avatar

    Eggs are such amazing food … Americauna eggs, pale green shells with pale yolks and watery whites. The very best baking eggs I have ever used. Popovers that would positively outdo any expectation I had … light, airy puffs of goodness. So rare and even the chicken farmers never quite understood how blissed out I would be to find those pale green eggs.

    Like

  2. grace Avatar

    just googled them, Americauna, and the first site said under
    Personality: fun
    how funny. Fun. they are Fun chickens. Well well.
    There was also some stuff there about “if you might be into
    Showing ”
    your chickens
    can’t you just see me???? Showing my chickens???????
    EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

    Like

  3. Marti Avatar
    Marti

    Eggs, oh how I can taste the fried eggs my Dad used to make. Slice of crusty French bread toasted, rubbed with a garlic clove, eggs fried in olive oil until the edges looked like brown lace, open faced, biting into the bread, golden yolk dripping all over face and fingers. Always a cup of cafe con leche, half coffee, half milk, this was my favorite childhood breakfast…

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  4. grace Avatar

    reading…
    YES. an egg.
    an egg.
    and the bread, rubbed with garlic….sometimes i slice bread
    on the cutting board that i have just used to slice garlic and
    onions and the essence of those permeate the slice of bread as it
    becomes toast

    Like

  5. grace Avatar

    I just talked to Alyssia and it was one of those open phone things and Julian was there and i asked him if i should get chickens and he said
    Only if i can come there.

    Like

  6. Tina Avatar
    Tina

    Oh Grace..with you it is always an adventure…love seeing the buds on the wild lilac. Fresh eggs are so so GOOD and like they say..good for you!!

    Like

  7. grace Avatar

    Eggs. with their deep orange yolks. Their zippy crusty fried
    whites. Eggs oh, Eggs.
    That come from Crazy Chickens who live lives so totally of
    their own accord.
    When i clean for Alan, who has the peacock family and the chickens, sometimes i sit on his back deck and just watch them, how that one white chicken has such a singular way of walking, one foot crossed over the other and the brown chickens, all named Brownie don’t do that so much…
    my grandkids, when they came here to N Mex had a few chickens for a while…raised them at first in the bathtub with an electric light bulb…maybe that’s why one was called Lightbulb and then, tho, one called Pencil?

    Like

  8. Nanette Avatar

    Grace, can you tell you tell your Journal here ….and we’ll listen quietly…what the reasons are for NOT chickens. It might clarify things for you. I had an Araucana chook, the original non-cross of the Americauna…her name was Betty and she had wild sticking-up bed hair (feathers) and friends and neighbours got in line for one of her beautiful sea green eggs. They can lay all sorts of colours from khaki to lavender.

    Like

  9. Writingsoutherly.blogspot.com Avatar

    Dear grace, I’ve just been thinking about borrowing James Hillman from the library & now I shall, thank you.
    About those chooks – I’ve always loved the bustle of different lives about me, but they do require care. Time is also precious.

    Like

  10. Marti Avatar
    Marti

    When I commented last night, you had not added the James Hillman info. Upon reading your addendum,what immediately came to mind, from his words below,
    “You may remember this “something” as a signal moment in childhood when an urge out of nowhere, a fascination, a peculiar turn of events struck like an annunciation. This is what I must do, this is what I’ve got to have. This is who I am.”
    What came to mind was your telling of how as a child, up in the attic, the National Geographic magazines and their stories of the desert whispered and called to you…

    Like

  11. grace Avatar

    oh the MindPicture of lovely Betty with her sticking up bed hair
    eeeee
    and a line of neighbors…
    SUCH a huge smile here….
    and the word
    had
    popped up….so something changed from Having Betty to Had.
    another thing to think about….that transition….chooks
    do not go on forever….How long Do they live? and then
    live after not being so much into laying eggs anymore…can
    imagine this Place teeming with aging hens

    Like

  12. grace Avatar

    Elizabeth…how i love that both our minds were thinking of
    Hillman…separated by thousands of miles, but virtually
    separated by nothing at all….
    and yes….Time…..Time.
    and my egg foo yung wasn’t great….i am sure your man
    makes good gravy…mine was not so much and i didn’t have
    proper sprouts so i used alfalfa sprouts and it was
    Heavy with them…will try again. Miss seeing your
    food pictures…Love to Ballarat

    Like

  13. grace Avatar

    i thought of the Thing of DIORAMA i carry deep
    and yes…so much tied to those attic times, that
    recognition

    Like

  14. Martine Bos Avatar

    Hi Grace………..
    hi Cinderella………….

    Like

  15. Mo Crow Avatar

    that light and your clear blue sky

    Like

  16. Nanette Avatar

    someone near me leaves out poison pellets for the rats….which I hate…and I think Betty must’ve found one…the rats carry them sometimes from one place to another, then drop them as they begin to die. I had a dear old bantam called Goodie who was 11 when she went, she hadn’t laid for a few years. She loved my dog Mirrhi, and as she got old and frail, would spend her afternoons in the sun, resting against puppy Mirrhi to keep herself upright. Mirrhi would ever so gently wash Goodie’s face for her. Others have lived between 4 and 10, my current girls are around 5 and Juno lays maybe once a week now. I only have heirloom breeds and I think they live longer than the hybrid breeds bred for mass egg production. These ones don’t have a natural moult stage where they rest from egg production, and so they lay intensively then run out of energy…some do, not all.

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  17. grace Avatar

    she winked at you

    Like

  18. grace Avatar

    yes…it’s something, isn’t It…

    Like

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