Real Snow

Here we are, the day before Thanksgiving, and it's snowing. We previously had one little snowfall, but it mostly didn't last. This is the real deal, and it's got me thinking about a few things.

 I'm really grateful that we have such a short driveway. I don't have a snowblower, nor do I really want another gas-sucking machine. I hopefully can handle the workload with just a shovel. While out earlier, I realized that this is the first time that I've ever been solely responsible for snow shoveling. I was also thinking back on the last five years at our apartment and how it was nice that the landlord came with machinery to remove the snow, but how that also left me on the hook to move the cars all the time which always seemed to be a problem for some reason or another. One such occurrence led to the final push for us to get out and get our own house. I'm glad to leave all that behind.

I was really anxious about driving in the snow to/from work considering we're in a snowier part of the state, and my commute is so hilly. I managed to get home without incident today, but I noticed that most other vehicles, including some really large trucks tackled the hills by going 5 mph both up and down them.

Finally, I decided to take a nap earlier. When I was just waking up, Naomi told me that the chicken run was collapsing under the weight of the snow. As I was scrambling to get my boots and wet coat back on, I looked out the back door, and the whole thing came down. 

After we shook all the snow off, we tried to pop the PVC sections back together. I don't think they're going to hold. A lot of the connectors cracked. When we relocated the run, a lot of the parts didn't fit back together nicely, which contributed to the weakening of the whole structure. Let's see what happens going forward.

Composting Changes

In about as many days this week, we changed our composting system 3 times. First, I had wanted to turn my pile, and decided that I would try turning it on the Berkeley method despite not having the right ratio and construction. It supposedly makes a very nice compost. Four days later, when I should have turned the pile again, I worked late and didn't do it.

So then I thought I'd forget that in favor of going full-in on letting the chickens turn it. So I emptied out the bins, carted all the material over near the chicken run, made a new pile, and popped one of my hoophouse tractors over it. I let the chickens in on it two separate afternoons. They seemed happy, and I thought this would be much easier than turning the pile every few days myself.

Then I hurt my knee. I hurt my knee because the chickens weren't cooperating with their frequent transfer, and I dove to catch one, landing on the frozen ground knee-first. It still hurts, and the birds got all frazzled. The conclusion was to then move all the compost material straight into the chicken run- no moving, no turning.

Only a few days after that, we got some really strong rain. I was worried about leaching out all the best stuff from the compost, so today I piled it up again- still inside the run, and walled it off with cinderblocks. I fully expect that the chickens will scratch the pile down, and I plan every so often to go in and pile it back up. We'll see how this goes for a while.

Getting Colder

I've been cold all of my adult life, and I'm sure Naomi would say the same. It seems that I can't afford to stay warm in the houses built by my grandparents' generation and heated by the systems and cheap fuel of my parents' generation. One of the reasons behind wanting to own our own home was so we could begin to deal with this problem, but there is an overwhelming number of things to consider.

How badly does our house leak? What are the most cost- effective and environmentally-friendly things to do to mitagate that? What do we replace our stupid oil-burning furnace with- geothermal heat pump, super high-efficiency bottled gas, heat only with wood? Heating with wood was another issue because we need an additional chimney, which I wasn't about to start dealing with as it was already getting cold. So I signed up for a home energy audit.

I hope that the energy audit folks will at least show us the low-hanging fruit, give us cost analysis, and set us up with some rebates. I also hope that I can talk them into not taking away all our incandescent lightbulbs so we can still use them as heat lamps in the chick brooder.

Earth Care

Yesterday morning, a friend had shared a story from NPR about a school program in DC or somewhere that was getting kids excited about eating kale. The basic idea was something like "kids don't like vegetables, but these kids do!" It went on to describe the program, the school gardens, and how the kids were excited to be growing, cooking and eating vegetables. I like to hear stories like this, and I liked when Naomi and I would take a walk to the school garden at the elementary school up the hill from our apartment. All of these things are fine and great, but the part of the article that stuck out to me was something that the director of this school program had said, and it was something to the effect of teaching kids to eat well and care for the earth.

These types of programs or events tend to focus on teaching kids to eat healthy, or how to grow vegetables, or where their food comes from, but caring for the earth is at the heart of it.  It's also frequently overlooked it seems, at least from the articles that cover these types of things, but it's the most important part. Naomi and I discussed this idea over breakfast that morning and came to a consensus that if caring for the earth is the basis of our actions, then we will eat healthier food, be more active in our lives, and care for other people more, but if we just focus on one of those things, then we don't also necessarily care for the earth.

I do believe that caring for the earth is the core of our beliefs, especially care for its soils, animals and each other. It's what compels me to continue doing what I do.

Autumn Encounters

 If I had been asked, my mantra of last year's deer season would probably have been something like "watch and wait." Shortly into this year's season, opening day in fact, I found myself in that same mindset. It's not a bad thing. I'm in a totally different environment and I put in very little scouting prep to this year's season.

The downside of this is analysis paralysis, which is exactly what happened on opening day. That had been my first, and up until last Wednesday, my last encounter with a deer in 2014. I kicked myself in subsequent sits for not even trying to act on opening day when a doe walked into what could have been the perfect shot- broadside 15 yards on a calm animal. The result was talking myself into a different attitude- one of purposefully entering the woods as a predator, not as just an observer- reminding myself of all of the practice and hard work I put in during the summer to make sure that my shooting is accurate and reminding myself of previous seasons' hard lessons.

Last Wednesday, I headed out for what would be a really short sit. After work that afternoon, I calmly took my time and headed out to my tree on a cool grey afternoon.  There was rain in the forecast, but only a slim chance. I put on my rain gear, but because the temperature was hovering around 60, didn't put on any insulating layer underneath. I didn't get into my treestand til after 4:00, with a 5:55 sunset time. By about 10 after 5, the rain had started, along with a steady wind. I started to feel cold, and it didn't take much for me to talk myself into climbing down early. It was the middle of the workweek, and I didn't want to end up sick. So I climbed down and got about 5 steps from the base of my tree when I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. I instantly knew what was going on, because as my dad says, Murphy has a law. Luckily for me, I had this new mental attitude that prepared me for such an occasion. With a degree of deft that I had previously lacked, I stepped behind some cover in the form of a clump of birch trees and nocked an arrow.

At this point, I started to make some mental notes of nearby trees and their approximate distance. In previous years, I spent a lot of time estimating yardages and pacing them out, but I had stopped doing that in favor of just measuring a ring around my tree when hanging a stand. I did the best I could. I had a plan for which way one of the 4 deer- 2 does and 2 skippers (last year's fawns) could approach and how I'd take a shot, all the while reminding myself that "there are no mistakes, and I'm here to kill a deer." I should add the caveat that there are no mistakes as long as I've done my best to practice and prepare, and I'm not going to do anything careless or make any stupid decisions that would result in another lost deer. My fear last year was being spotted, busted, or spooking deer because all I wanted was to observe, observe, observe. Now I figure if I spook one, at least I tried. I believe that I can actually get away with more than I think I can in regards to movements and whatnot related to attempting to take a shot.

Moments later, a doe was in front of me. It all came down to this moment.I had peeked at the watch strapped to my safety harness, and it was 5:15- plenty of time before the end of legal shooting hours. My 20-yard guesstimate tree was in front of said doe. I can shoot alright out to 30 yards, but greatly prefer 20 or under, but this was it. I was already at full draw, what felt to be about 5 minutes, but had to be much much less. With the deer's eyes hidden by another tree trunk, I raised my bow. She took another step in the direction she was facing, and remained broadside. When I was certain that my form was good, and I had a clear shot, I released and tried my absolute hardest to follow through and not try to take my eye off the arrow in favor of glancing at the deer. She took off like a crack of lightning, along with the other 3 deer. It was really grey and raining steadily, plus I had a rain hood up and it was difficult to hear. I did not see my arrow shaft sticking out of her side, nor any blood as she bounded off. That was a relief, because at least I had not made a poor shot, or so it seemed. Again, summoning every ounce of calm and patience left in me, I reminded myself not to move. Stay put, wait, don't rush things. I tried to call Naomi to let her know what was going on. She didn't answer- that's ok, I don't want to be talking in the woods right now.

After about 5 minutes (I wanted to wait longer, but I HAD to know at that point) from exactly where I had been standing, I started pacing out to the marker tree the deer had been standing by when I shot. I had aimed at 30 yards, and she had been looking in my direction- not great. I got to the marker tree- 25 yards- not good. I looked and looked but no blood. No arrow either. At that point, I was second-guessing myself, and I was REALLY cold. Then I found a bit of hope in the form of a tiny tuft of hair where the doe had been standing. I took my practice arrow out of my quiver, the one with just a field point, and stuck it in the ground to mark the spot. Then I decided to sneak back to the house, get Naomi and her good eyes, and a flashlight with a strong beam to trace from where I shot in the direction the deer had been standing in hopes of finding a clue. The arrow that I had stuck in the ground was really helpful- there's one to remember for the future. Naomi finally found my arrow, about another 40 yards past the hair clump. I was still looking for blood, but finding nothing. When I met up with Naomi and the now-found arrow, I inspected it for blood- definitely none, but also for the whitish goopy fat that is sometimes on there when shooting straight through a squirrel. The only thing stuck to that arrow was a few stray hairs, and lots of mud and wet leaves.

At that point, I felt confident enough that I had done nothing but give that doe a haircut. As she was running away, she had also been blowing at me as if to say "what are you?" I'm not sure, but I think they don't do that when injured. As Naomi and I walked back to the house, I felt very relieved that I didn't hurt that doe, but also really satisfied with myself that I didn't just sit back and let another opportunity slip by as I had done so many times in 2013. As of yet, I haven't seen any evidence of any rutting activity, but it finally started getting actually cold this weekend. I'm eager to get out again. I feel like I'm out of a slump I was in.

 P.S.- I'm not the only hunter in these woods. We had another visit from a bobcat today. I was in the garage reorganizing some things, when I heard the chickens making a huge racket, so I went out to see what was going on. The bobcat was right next to the chicken run, and it turned to walk away as it saw me. I managed to catch a few pictures with my phone. My presence wasn't enough to deter it from sticking its head into the gut bucket from yesterday's chicken harvest. It walked away with more of a "guess the party's over" sort of attitude than a "get me out of here!" one. Only time will tell about this, too. Naomi was out earlier this evening and said she saw not one but two dead bobcats on the exit ramp down the street. I wish our infrequent visitor no harm, especially not from a moving vehicle. I will definitely be sad if that was our visitor, but I have no way of knowing for sure.

100 posts!

I just happened to notice as I was sitting down here that this will be our 100th post!  I can only imagine how many more posts we'd have if I had a chance to post as often as I'd like. I'll mostly be using pictures to recount the events of the past few weeks and months.

Yesterday was our chicken harvest day, which we've been referring to as "the chop" for a few years despite the fact that we don't "chop" our birds.  The name just seemed to stick. It went well I'd say.  We put 6 birds in the freezer, and Naomi roasted one for dinner, as we usually do on harvest day. I made a ton of schmaltz and put it in the freezer.  I've been trying to use it to make tortillas, which come out much nicer than with coconut oil.

I also managed to successfully save all the blood, which didn't really work out last year.  This morning I cooked a slice with my eggs and it was really good- sort of like organ meat.  It had the mineraly taste of liver, but with a different consistency.  It was really chewy.   There's enough left that I'll probably eat it every morning this week.  I'm sure I'd prefer it stuffed in a sausage casing, if only I had a good source of casings. The cracklins from the rendering process tasted really good just out of the pan, but I ate some this evening (I also accidentally burned them) and didn't enjoy them as much.  I'll have to see how I feel about them next time without burning them.

I spent a good chunk of time a few weeks ago reglazing some of the windows in the house. They were in pretty bad shape, and were really drafty. I focused on the worst ones first. Now I want to do more of them, because it was so easy! It's just time-consuming, and I have to have an open window while I'm working on them. I fixed some of the cracked panes as well, which was also way easier than I expected. I really want to do some more of the upstairs windows so they don't rattle when we have band practice. Around the same time that I did the first few windows, we turned the heat on.  That was sometime around the first week of October. I also want to add weatherstripping to the doors, but that is turning into a bigger project than I expected.

one of my favorite visitors!

Fall came really quickly here, the bright red maple up above was from September 23. The summer had been really dry, and once the rain came back hard in October, all kinds of fungi popped up all over the place, especially in the lawn, and on the dead apple tree. I realized a few weeks ago that I now live with the most beautiful fall foliage in the world. I never really understood most people's fascination with fall foliage, until I was driving home one warm clear afternoon.  I found myself in total awe. The only tree in the yard of my childhood home was a Norway maple, and it never did seem to be too vibrantly-colored in the fall.  The leaves sort of fizzled out and finally dropped. All of the sugar maples up here are spectacular. The oaks are a little later than the maples, and go to a bronzy golden brown after most of the maples are done, and the yellows in the birch leaves are amazing.

Naomi and I used the leaves from a couple big maples in the yard to mulch our garlic beds. We planted a lot less garlic than we ever had. We always end up with too much, and it's too much to keep up with the scapes, mulching it, and weeding it during the growing season. With a smaller patch, we should be able to nurture it a little more and have better quality and less quantity- which also means less curing and storing. After our first attempt at mulching the beds with leaves, they all blew away on a 30+ mph-gust day. The second time I mulched them, I used some orange construction fence that I usually use for cucumber trellis to fence them in. Only time will tell if this is a good method or not.