I heard there was a clamor on the Internet for these photos ...

Yes, everyone's been waiting to see what the chicken tractor looks like!


Dave made it completely from scrap lumber and parts, with the exception of the wheels ($6), the chicken wire, and the hook-and-eye closures I made him get after I scratched myself on the wire closures we had before. He had to learn to weld to get it done, too -- the base 6x8 frame is welded rusty metal bars with wheels attached. Then he arched hog panels over the top of that to create the shape. He built the front end from plywood, and then I helped him stretch chicken wire over the whole works, and put an apron of chicken wire on the inside along the bottom to discourage Fantastic Mr. Fox and whoever else thinks chickens are tasty. (We did have an attempted break-in the other night -- something had put a paw on the chicken wire and managed to rip a few staples. That's as far as it got, though.) A quick door, and a tarp over the top, and it was ready for mobile chicken containment!

It adds that lovely hippies-live-here touch to the farmyard, I have to say! I am just happy we finally got our little chicken chain gang out to work.

The chickens have been in it for about three weeks now, weeding, tilling and fertilizing the garden at the rate of one 6x8 foot rectangle a day. We move it once a day (well, to be honest, Dave moves it once a day -- it's awfully heavy, and I can't get it to move over the ... let's just say overgrown parts of the garden), and in that time, the chickens make a noticeable difference in the amount of weeds in that spot. Go, chickens! Get that garden spic and span!

Dave kept saying they aren't really earning their chicken feed until they start laying, too. I told him he'd better stop wishing for them to lay before he had their nest boxes built! (There are some icky parts about raising chickens -- one of them being that if you aren't vigilant about egg gathering, some chickens start eating eggs, and once they get in the habit, it's tough to get them to stop. Ew. A rollaway nest box is the best way to ensure the chickens don't get started down the wrong path, but Dave didn't feel like building anything that complicated at this point -- a plain old box with a slanted, hinged lid helps, too, in that the egg is out of sight, out of mind.)

Anyway, Dave, Sofi and Erik went to check the chickens last night after supper, and what did they find?

One smallish brown egg!

Yes, our little chicks have become full productive members of society. Almost makes you teary when you think about it.

OK, not really. And actually, it's only one chicken, since we didn't find any more eggs out there today. But I'm sure the rest will step up to the plate (one with a side of bacon on it, preferably) and start laying soon!

Dave took that one egg as a sign and made two nest boxes last night after the kids went to sleep. I did not observe a chicken in one of the boxes yet today, but that doesn't mean much. They aren't very adventurous chickens -- it takes them a while to warm up to new things.

So there's the chicken tractor. The Internet clamor can settle down now!

Guess what we have!

It is sometimes clear to us how new we are to this whole chicken-raising business.

As we watched the chicks grow, we noticed that none of the chicks had any kind of a cock's comb when they were tiny, but that they all started to develop one as they grew. None of them had anything that resembled the traditional silhouette on the top of the weather vane -- but there was one that seemed to have more of a cock's comb than the others. And each day it had a little more, and a little more ... "I'm suspicious of that chicken," I told Dave one day.

And then, one morning, Dave came in and said, "Guess what I just heard!"

There could no longer be any doubt: We had a rooster. Or a morning alarm clock.

And boy, does he ever act like a rooster! A person understand better just what "cocky" means now. He's always the first to run forward to investigate things; when we were working outside near his house today, he started crowing regularly -- just to show us he was the rooster, it seemed like. And he really struts in there. Dave said it's like he's saying, "Yeah, I have eleven ladies!"

We are actually happy to have a rooster. Having one rooster in the bunch means there's no question about the pecking order, so there's no need to fight to establish it. And my aunt Lillian told me that the eggs have less cholesterol with a rooster in the flock.

Sofia has named him "Cock-a-Doodle-Doo." Dave says that's better than the name he was thinking of: "Soup of the Day."

Local Food Challenge: Days Two and Three: A new definition

Sigh. I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to redefine what I can expect of myself on this local food challenge: It is a work in progress.

The tagline the challenge had on some of the early posters was “How LOCAL can you go?” Well, for some meals, pretty local! For others? Not very.

Read more from that entry here. A recipe for a squash and apple casserole is included!

Local Food Challenge: Day One: And we begin!

All sorts of successful bloggers have discovered this wonderful fact of the Internet: Why post your writing in just one place when you can post it in two?

So, for the month of September, I'll be cross-posting here the articles I'm writing on the Frederick blog. This is all for the Three Rivers Local Food Challenge that Frederick Forward is sponsoring -- check out the website for the challenge to get all the details.

Here's a bit from the first blog entry:

7 a.m.: Push the snooze button.

7:20 a.m.: Jump out of bed, remembering I need to put gas in the car before I go to my sister’s to babysit. Shower, make coffee, pack bags, etc.

8:04 a.m.: Rush the kids out the door and into the car.

8:15 a.m.: Remember, as I’m driving and eating one of the whole-wheat bread and Nutella sandwiches I made for the kids and myself, that it’s the first day of the Local Food Challenge. Groan. Console myself that coffee and Nutella were on my exemptions list anyway.

8:45 a.m.: Get gas.

8:55 a.m.: Get to my sister’s house. Discuss what I’ll fix for the kids for lunch; wonder why in the world I didn’t bring any vegetables from our house! For a brief moment, believe the only local food in her house are a few sliced tomatoes. Eventually unearth corn and apple slices in the freezer — along with some local liver sausage. Realize that this “eating adventure” looks like it’s going to start with liver! But not for the kids. They get meatloaf and potatoes (not local).

Read the rest of the entry here.

Erik is 2 (finally!)

Technically, Erik has been 2 since July 28. But since we didn't really celebrate it -- we had planned the party for what eventually became the day of Dad's prayer service -- he's been kind of hanging in limbo for nearly a month now. We had decided to wait until Don and Mary came back to have the party, which is why it went so long. But it all worked out in the end! I think it was a very nice party, even if not everything worked out as planned.

When we had Erik pose with his cake, for example -- Erik made one effort to blow out his candles, but he was too far away, so we moved the cake closer. that was the wrong thing to do. Erik was scared of the flames; he had to hauled out of his chair and calm down and eat his cake until after everyone else already had theirs!

You'll notice the hat: He wore that thing nearly all day. Don gave it to him, and Erik immediately became attached to it!

I was fairly proud of getting his name to show up in jelly beans! (This photo was taken before the gummy frogs were added.)


The birthday Rice Krispie cake made it from Gram in Iowa in fine form! The gel frosting ran just a bit, but we could still make out "Erik 2 -- Happy Birthday" on it.

We had intended to have home-cranked ice cream, but the project failed -- we suspect that using canning and pickling salt is not an adequate substitute for rock salt. Oh, well -- we figured out that we could make a passable substitute by putting the mix in the freezer and stirring occasionally!

Lunch included applesauce from our own apple tree -- and a frog mysteriously appeared in it before the meal. Various suspects were accused of putting it there, but the culprit did not confess.

One of Erik's presents was a T-ball stand, and balls to go with it. We already had a bat. It was a hit! He played with that for a long time.


He even occasionally let Amara have a swing! (We'll work on sharing happily later.)


The playhouse was, of course, a hit with the kids again.


It's another version of a little house on the prairie! You can really see that in these photos, I think.

I like the grain bin at center stage in this one.

The girls have decided the playhouse should be called the "Fun House." Because, as Sofi explained to me, it's a house, and it's also fun. That works! We had planned to paint in the playhouse today -- I'd gotten samples of some fun colors so the kids could paint on the inside walls -- but it was so hot we decided not to start that project.

All of these photos, by the way, are by Mary! Thanks, Nama!

Playhouse picture album

Well, we got bored after building this house and decided we needed to build another one.

This is the playhouse in its current state! Actually, Dave got the trim around the windows done today, but I didn't have the camera out -- but this is pretty close to its current state.

The playhouse, which was intended to be finished for Erik's birthday but didn't quite make it (though we haven't actually celebrated Erik's birthday yet -- we're waiting for Nama and Grandpa to come back for the party), sits on a platform five feet off the ground. The platform is 6 x 8; the playhouse takes up 5 x 6 of that, and the rest is taken up by a covered porch. There's a ramp to go in on the north side of the porch (grownups find this a little tricky; the kids scramble up and down likes it's nothing) and a slide going down the east side.

I think it's a hit! The cousins have been over many times as this was being built -- they've had all sorts of scenarios going on over there. Playing house, of course, but once there was a slave camp, once there was a ship -- and they do a lot of cooking with dirt, water and weeds. We've had to do a bath every night since the playhouse was up, but I guess that's OK!

Here it is in process:

Don and Mary were here for the initial stages -- plotting out where it would go.

Actually, figuring out where it would go was a really time-consuming part of the process. We thought about putting it over by where the swingset is, south of the old farmhouse -- but then I couldn't send the kids out to play and still watch them from the window. Right in front of our big windows was too much in the way of cars; to the east of the house is the driveway to the tractor shed; to the north there is not a clear view except from bedroom windows, and the mosquitoes are worse back there closer to the slough; and to the west of the house is taken up by berry bushes. I mentioned that the best spot for it was really east of the sauna -- right where that hideous eyesore of a junk pile was. I wasn't sure Dave would take me seriously, since I had mentioned wanting that junk pile moved before and he might have thought this was just a ploy for that -- but then he thought for a moment and agreed with me! So now the junk pile is half gone (there's still some clearing to do to the south) and there's a playhouse in its place.

It was really hard to keep the kids from climbing the ladder while the house was in progress! That was a motivating factor to get it done quickly.

This photo was taken from our dining room windows -- see what a good view I have of the playhouse from there?

It actually came together in about a month's time.

Here they are, playing happily!

Though we still have painting to do -- Sofi REALLY wanted to paint today, but there was just a little too much of a chance of rain. And it's a good thing we didn't paint! We only had about 10 minutes of rain, but it was a downpour. Our paint would have washed half off.

The playhouse will be -- guess what colors? Red and white, of course! Like any good little Finnish house. I also bought a variety of little sample jars -- the five kids (Briella's a little too young) can work on painting the inside however they like.

Here is a smorgasbord of other photos of life in the last few weeks:

The garden is going gangbusters -- even if we lost the war with the weeds when we left on vacation, and then had a time of mourning when all sorts of things seemed less important. Mari actually picked all those green beans in the middle of the day during some nearly intolerable heat and humidity.

Mari and the girls came out for three days when Doug was on a trip -- one day happened to be Amara's birthday (Aug. 8) so we had an impromptu party for her. The actual party is this weekend.

The two littlest cousins seemed to enjoy this story by Mummu!

Sometimes they play together quite well. Other times they fight over toys -- but that's part of the whole learning process, I guess.


We also had the girls do some modeling -- Mom had made some hats that have been languishing for months without being posted to her Etsy store, and Betty also had some brooches that needed modeling. The girls seemed happy to oblige! Even Erik wore a hat for the occasion.

This summer is living up to the hot summers of my childhood memories. The wading pool has been out quite often. This was a splashing contest with the cousins.

Having Dave climb up on rooftops has been a theme around here lately. He helped install a new antenna on Mom's roof -- her TV service was discontinued, so she went back to plain-old TV. Sometimes it works well and she gets four channels; sometimes she only gets one, or none at all. We haven't figured out the pattern yet.

Summer is rushing by! Sofia starts preschool Sept. 9 -- that's just three weeks away!

So much to say ...

I've been gone for a while. Most of you who know me also know why: Dad passed away on July 19. Even as his health had been failing for months, the end still came more suddenly than we were ready for. I brought him books to read on Wednesday; he started reading one as soon as I left that evening. I returned them to the library the following Tuesday, all but one of them unread.

If you'd like to read his obituary, you can find it here. I was pleased with how well it turned out (and, as an editor, that everything was spelled correctly).

I'm not going to dwell on it too much here, but I will give a few things that I've learned in the last few weeks:

• "A heavy heart" is not just a metaphor -- somehow it did actually feel like there was an extra weight on my chest for a few days.
  
• No matter how old you are, or how old a parent is, you still feel like an orphan when a parent dies.
• It does no good to dwell on regrets at a time like this -- we were all doing the best we could, and Dad knew that -- but I do know that if I had read this article in the New Yorker two months ago, I would have made different decisions in the last week of Dad's life. (I urge everyone who sees a time coming when they will have to make end-of-life decisions in the future -- which is, of course, all of us -- to read this article.)
• The memories that make you laugh are the ones that keep you going -- like those of our trip to the Black Hills during Sturgis week, when there were no hotel rooms to be had and Dad ended up sleeping on a picnic table.
  
• You learn how many friends you truly have at a time like this -- and for us, thankfully, the number was more than we realized.

I was really moved by the words to a song that Dad played often on his harmonica -- I'd heard them sung before, perhaps, but hadn't paid attention to them until we translated them for the funeral service program. Here they are; may they bring you as much peace as they did to me.


Kiitos, Sulle, Jumalani
Thank You, My God

Thank you, my God, for the grace in all things
that I have known throughout my life.
Thank you for the bright spring days
as well as the gloomy days of autumn.

Thank you that many, many of my prayers have been answered.
Thank you also that other requests were not answered.
Thank you that in my distress I have received help through you.
Thank you that my sins are forgiven by your Son.

Thank you for every moment of my lifetime.
Thank you for sunshine as well as darkness.
Thank you for the struggles, even for the crosses to bear for my Lord.
Thank you that you remember me always and help me in my pain.

Thank you for the flowers that were blooming along my paths.
Thank you also for the thistles that cut me.
Thank you, that your will is to give me eternal life.
In all things, O Lord, I will give you praise forever.

No, really, it's too small for you.

This is what I saw when I came down the steps this afternoon, ready to head out the door! This bull, which is not actually supposed to be within half a mile of our place, had wandered over several times before to visit the heifers that pasture not far from our house. But this time, he stopped right in front of our picture windows ... and took a liking to Erik's tricycle for some reason! The only thing I can think of is that there is probably just a little bit of sweat on those handlebars from Erik's hands. He wouldn't leave it alone! I shooed him away from it once -- by opening the door and saying "No!" in my sternest Mommy voice -- but he came right back to it when I shut the door.

It reminds me of a book we've read to Sofi: "Big bull blowing bubbles biking backwards ..."

He could see me through the window -- and didn't particularly like that.

This was after I shooed him away. You'll notice Blue has the situation completely under control ... she did a fair amount of barking, but I don't think she wanted to get too close to that bull either!

... And then I noticed that it was a party! Not one ... not two ...

... but three, four and five head of cattle paying us a visit in the yard!

I called our neighbor, whose cattle they are, and he came over with the four-wheeler to try to round them up. Those cows were clever, though -- they took off into the trees, where they knew he couldn't chase them! I finally did get out the door and down the road, though, so I'm not sure exactly how this turned out. Our neighbor was going to call in backup from his sons -- all bovines were gone by the time I got back, so something must have worked!

We have chicks!

Twelve cute little downy chicks are getting themselves settled in the old chicken coop tonight, the first chickens to have made their home here in about 30 years.

We've been working on the old chicken coop little by little -- basically when Dave finds time to spare. First there was a lot of cleaning to do -- we'd been using one corner for storage, so all that needed to find new homes (luckily -- sort of -- many of the books were water damaged, so it was easy to decide throw them out), and then a layer of accumulated dirt and debris needed to be cleaned out. Making sure the electricity worked was important; the little chicks need a heat lamp for the first few weeks. That didn't take too much trouble, thankfully -- just the replacing of a few fuses. Then we had to make sure the building was tight enough to keep predators out. That took a little more doing -- a number of windows needed covering (we might repair them later) and some cracking/crumbling foundation issues needed filling with Quickrete. An little Shopvac-ing and the place was ready for new life!

Dave and Sofi went to get the chicks and all the necessary equipment this afternoon. Sofi is very excited about all this -- she had to tell me all about the equipment, and she held one of the chicks, though she's still working on getting up the nerve to pick one up by herself.

We have three breeds: Buff Orpington, "a good beginner bird and popular throughout the world" (quotes are from Dave's birthday present book "Keeping Chickens" by Jeremy Hobson and Celia Lewis); Australorp, "easy to keep and become very tame, so they make good pets for children"; and Silver Laced Wyandotte, described as "docile, hardy, friendly, and attractive" and "the ideal beginner's breed." Not the frequent use of "beginner" and "easy"! The Buff Orpingtons will be a lovely light brown, the Australorps will be black with a green iridescent sheen, and the Wyandottes will have white feathers with black edges -- very pretty, all of them! And this is a laying flock -- with no rooster -- and they all lay brown eggs.

Dave and Sofi brought them home in a cardboard box with little windows cut into it for air holes.

They were not very happy when we first moved them into their new digs -- it was too cold, and they just climbed all over one another trying to stay warm.

The heat lamp took a while to get warmed up -- in the meantime they huddled in a corner. Poor little things!

But pretty soon then settled in. And started drinking and eating. I had not realized how much those little things will eat -- in the next 10 weeks, each of them is going to eat 10 pounds of chicken feed!

Sofi and Erik got as close as they could to get a good look. (Erik might have hopped in if we'd let him.)

We'll keep you updated on how all this turns out! I was thinking today, now why doesn't everybody have chickens? They provide eggs, meat and great compost, and they'll keep the bugs down in the berry patch and work up new garden beds! The downside, of course, is that everything loves to eat chickens -- we are now at war with not only all wild predators but our dogs and cats as well.

Next step in the plan: Building a chicken tractor!

Here's a little video of the chicks ... they are very calming to watch, I think.

Random notes

Dave's parents were here for the weekend and left some lovely photos of the kids! (Don took all of these great shots.)

Sofi and Erik like to play on the old loading chute by the barn, but one board was loose; they both helped Dave fix it.

Watch your thumb, little Erik!



Peeking through the boards on the side of the chute is lots of fun, apparently!

And whose little eyes are those?

"Mommy funny," Erik says.

Sofia was a little sleepy by the end of the day.

Video from Frederick's Day of Champions Cleanup Day

Every year, Frederick takes part in the annual Day of Champions, when athletes from Northern State fan out over the region to do service projects. All sorts of things were accomplished in Frederick this year! Some people in our Frederick Forward group say it's their favorite day of the year -- we talk about doing things at our meetings during the rest of the year, and some things are accomplished, albeit slowly, but the Day of Champions is one big day of action!

Here's a little slide show I put together of the day:

Kite flying and pasque flowers: Spring is here!

Dave and the kids have been out flying kites on several occasions already this spring. On the latest expedition, Sofi got her own kite up all by herself! I wasn't along on that trip, however -- these photos are from an earlier time. The wind wasn't working in our favor that day, so these photos pretty much captured every kite-aloft moment. (The rest of the time, Dave got his exercise running around the pasture with a frog kite bumping along behind him.)


But even Erik got to hang on to the handle for a few seconds!

... We went down to the river quarter on Saturday -- a beautiful spring evening. Dave needed to check on how much fence the river had washed away this year. He was lulled into a false sense of optimism on that count -- he looked at where the damage had been worst last year, and that wasn't nearly so bad, but our renter stopped by Sunday night and said it was far worse on the other side, where it had never been bad before!

We had an awful time getting to the river quarter. There are three ways of getting there: Two of them are gravel, but one of them is basically just two ruts through grass. Since the two gravel roads had water over them, the grass trail became the best route -- which isn't saying much. It was a bumpy ride for the whole mile, and there was one soft spot where we held our breath and hoped the pickup wouldn't slip into the muck on the side.

But once we got there, we enjoyed the view.

A muskrat was swimming across the river when we got there, and two pheasants thundered up out of the grass not 20 feet from us as we walked past.

The kids discovered an old rock pile (this land is now pasture, for the most part, but it was once cropped -- these rocks were piled here to get them out of the way of the plow) that made for an impressive obstacle course. Sofi did her own hopping, but Erik needed a little help.

Up, up and away, Erik!

... And then, just as we were about to give up and go home, we made a discovery:

Pasque flowers!

I think it's amazing that they are there, because that land was cropped for many years -- were they such stubborn weeds in the field that they resisted efforts at eradication? Or did they just lie in wait underground, as seeds or roots, for all those years? Perhaps their seeds were brought in later by birds or other animals ... who knows. But I do love to see them!

Erik was happy to point them out. He did OK at pronouncing them, too!


Sofi wanted to pick some -- we explained that it would be better for a wildflower like that if we don't pick it but just enjoy its beauty as we find it. And its message: Spring is truly here!