Construction for critters and keepers

It isn't quite square, and it wouldn't pass any building code inspections...but here is our bunny hutch, for nighttime use. Daytime, they romp around a fenced-in area of the basement; today we found Cecil in the dollhouse, watching TV in the living room. They don't like being caught in the evening, so I might have to cut off the legs, but I like the fact that I can sweep under it as it is. Emily and I built this together in the days right after we got back from seeing bunnies at the State Fair. (I don't know why the photo below keeps turning sideways for me, but here it is, anyway).

While we were making rabbitat, the days got shorter. The chickens have stopped laying, started a moult (feathers everywhere!), and are making more frequent visits to the front door. Are they jealous of the indoor animals? Or do they just sense that the people and food are all inside?Brian, meanwhile, has been working on human habitat outdoors - patio and back deck repairs. His work, considerably neater than ours, is worthy of showing off. As a reward, we got him a gas grill for his birthday.

I wonder if it is possible, with all of our animal poo, to bottle enough methane to cook dinner? Roast chicken, anyone? (Kidding!)

Animals indoors and out

My intentions with our daughters are always to get them outside, more. I don't always get out as much as I should, but I am *always* happier when I do. This summer I went to morning swim practice, and returned to spend days gardening, helping Brian rebuild our deck, mow, manage rainwater, and tend critters.

But Tiggy, our kitty, always liked being with us for these activities. So, despite me knowing full well what all the rescue organizations and many responsible cat owners say, we let Tiggy out with us. She would follow me to the back of the yard, and wait while I swam, and walk back up the yard with me afterward. While we worked on the deck, she would lay nearby. When we went out, she would meet us by the front door upon our return, and she always came inside with us when we came indoors. Until early July, when she went missing. Nearly two weeks later, Brian found her a couple of blocks away, addled, blind (we soon discovered), and not herself. She's back to about 95% of her former self, but now, an indoor cat, no longer our companion in the garden.

The chickens, of course, continue to be outdoor animals - albeit mostly cooped. Again, though, we have tended to let them out of the coop to explore the plants and bugs in the yard, while we're home gardening and working. And again, they have always enjoyed it, producing bright-yellow omega-3 rich eggs from their varied outdoor diet. They haven't gotten lost, at least not yet. However, the chickens have developed a couple of bad habits - one, working their way into the garden and pecking at our heirloom tomatoes (as Brian noted, we both like homegrown tomatoes more than we like eggs), and digging up the soil in our newly planted raingardens. Lately, they're losing their freedom, not only because school is starting and I can't be home to chickensit them in their wanderings, but because I can't trust them to keep to the mulched beds and pine needles and lawn. A pen is clearly a necessity, but in the meanwhile, I'm realizing freshly that free-range chickens in the suburbs just don't really work that well (at least, not as free-range).

Finally, the latest critter in the mix - bunnies. After years (decades?) of wanting a bunny, I have finally got a bunny - two, even! - to cuddle, at least when Emily and Hazel let me get a hand on them. Though we drooled at the Kentucky State Fair, we succumbed at the Animal Rescue League, where Cecil and Gigi came neutered, healthy, cuddly, and ethically (it's like an animal thrift store! what's not to love? recycling *and* lifesaving, all in one). I've met many rabbits in my life, 98% outdoors - wild, in hutches, or loose at the University of Victoria. But as I learned in the adoption process, an indoor rabbit does not a good outdoor rabbit make. The hutch Emily and I built is now indoors, with a pen in front for exercise, and a lot of unwanted garden turnips making themselves useful as rabbit forage. They'll live a good life, and we'll enjoy them - but once again, they won't be our companions outdoors.

I'm typing this in the playroom with Bella, crazy kitten, playing nearby with a marble. The hamster is running her wheel. The bunnies are downstairs in their pen while Hazel and a friend play dollhouse nearby. Tiggy is upstairs with Brian and Emily, laying nearby while they read or play computer games. The chickens are roosting for the night. The garden is outdoors, waiting for tomorrow, but meanwhile we are now a household where nature is both outdoors and in. Animal husbandry may not be farm-style around here; between nearly losing Tiggy and really losing chickens to a fox back in 2008, we've had enough lessons about nature being red in tooth and claw. Instead, we're learning about responsibility, the inevitable conflicts between love and freedom. We're learning about lots of different kinds of poop. And I sleep a lot better knowing all the furry critters are safe, as long as I don't go all Lenny on them and pet them too much.

Rotational intensive badminton

Last fall, I was lucky enough to find an intact, well supplied badminton set at a thrift store, and was able to initiate the girls into one of my favorite sports from my high school days. (My friend Conley and I played many hours of badminton in gym, demolishing the birdie with whatever clique or boyfriend-related aggressions needed outlet at the moment.) For the winter, the set simply sat in the yard, tolerating the snow and waiting for better days ahead. The lawn was none the worse for it.

This spring, we've come to rely on this $6 find for entertainment much more than I would have guessed. It turns out to be good for all the ages in our household, good for short or long moments outside, good for relaxation or, as I found in high school gym class, for peacefully working out more - shall we say - intense emotions. We're wearing out the rackets and the birdies both, and I think replacements will be in our future before long.

What I didn't anticipate - but should have - was wearing out the turf. This is a subject I think about by day (teaching in sustainable agriculture class about rotational intensive grazing or talking with local field managers about complaints over soccer field rest periods), and a subject I thought about occasionally as a child (our front lawn sported two matching bare spots where I caught or batted while Dad pitched). I've sometimes heard myself telling the girls to switch spots for their soccer goalie practice, so as not to compact the soil - poor children! But I'd never really thought about it much.

Brian and I both see that the ground is too wet for the turf to handle this kind of abuse. We've moved the net a couple of times (note the matching worn spots a few feet apart in the photo above). We've tried to put it in the least-soppy areas - a challenging task in a relentlessly wet spring. We both try not to stand in the same spot all the time, though the reality is that setting up in a central part of the court is critical to badminton success. In our own rather vague way, we're still trying to rescue the poor grass from its doom.

If I were a real scientist, perhaps I would take this as a learning opportunity. I could try to experiment, to find out how many hours of play and how much recovery time is necessary to maintain healthy turf under badminton pressure. I could do treatments to see whether aeration or modified mowing treatments helped abate the damage done by our competitive feet. But really - it's a *backyard*, and the whole reason I wanted one of these silly grassy spaces was for the kids to *play*. They're doing it. I really can't complain.

Because in reality, we're having a great time. It's a lot of fun to play. The game is compact enough (unlike tennis) that you can still talk (without shouting) while lobbing the birdie back and forth. It works for the beginning player (Hazel, who does a charming lift of her opposite foot each time she swings) and the take-no-prisoners grouchy spouse or moody 11 year old. At the same time, badminton is hard to take too seriously, and there's nothing quite so humorous or humbling as a noisy, swishing whiff followed by a birdie hitting the ground, unhit, at my feet.

So we have some bare patches, and some very mortally wounded grass in our backyard. Big deal. It's less to mow, and represents a lot of fun in progress. It's just irritating enough to make me wish for a really compaction tolerant weed to come in and make itself a home there. At least that way I won't get muddy when I slip and fall while trying to whack a line drive at some poor member of my family.

Mind games with trees

Since we have moved to this house, we've been proud of ourselves for keeping up a regular pattern of tree plantings. We've planted at least three oaks, an ash, a maple, three red buds, a couple of spruces (one died, though), a tulip poplar, and two sycamores. Also, Brian has germinated some burr oaks, none of which are big enough to call trees yet, but they're thriving young saplings in the mulch next to our swing set. We're on track for roughly two trees per year in the suburbs, and we certainly plan to keep it up.

Lately, though, I've started wondering if our tree planting - and the idea of tree planting, for Earth Day or carbon credits or self-congratulation - isn't a bit of a self-delusion. We buy the trees from the garden center or nursery, but meanwhile, we keep mowing the lawn, we keep weeding the garden, and each action prevents a number of willing young volunteer trees from reaching their full potential. We have ash trees volunteering beneath our pines; I have oaks volunteering in my snap peas; each will be trimmed, or pulled, or otherwise cut short in their efforts to repopulate Pennsylvania's forest primeval.

I'm treating these trees as weeds. And while that seems eminently justifiable for Ailanthus, or Norway maples, it seems strange for natives like ash (threatened by emerald ash borer - could one of our seedlings be resistant to the pest?) or the hard-wooded oak, shade tree extraordinaire.

Back in our little woodland, volunteer trees get a better welcome. We celebrate that a volunteer oak has finally stretched its buds above deer browsing height, the improving architecture of a wild-sown crabapple, and we watch with interest to see whether any young sassafras will take hold among the jewelweed, pokeweed, goldenrod, and dock within the understory. I've been tolerating Virginia creeper and training some wild grapevines onto our dying ash trees, as we're afraid to cut them down outright, and risk the black cherry or mature sassafras trees in their midst.

Taking credit for planting trees is further complicated by the question of provenance. If we buy a 5' sapling from a nursery, do we get to take credit for tree growth, or does the nursery? If we plant one tree, while weed-whacking down dozens of volunteer seedlings, have we done a net harm, or a net good? Does pruning branches occupy a separate moral sphere from cutting a tree at its base, and if so does size matter for each? Does it matter whether the wood goes in our brushpile to rot slowly, or whether it goes in our copper-pot grill to help set the mood for a backyard campout?

The whole situation reminds me of the difference between midwifery and obstetrics. My cousin Brigid, a midwife, refers to her task as "catching babies", while obstetricians usually refer to "delivering babies". The midwife's catch is a more passive action, a response to a projection performed by another person's muscles, while the obstetrician's delivery (falsely, in my opinion) implies that the transport from the womb is instigated by the medical professional (whose contractions were those again?). Similarly, I have a beekeeper friend who also encourages wild, native bees to live on her property, a process she calls "hosting" rather than "beekeeping". The language is carefully chosen, reflecting her welcoming passivity in the process of providing habitat for the wild fliers.

In our suburban treetending, we're both midwives and parents, keepers and hosts. We welcome some wild-sown trees, relocate a few, and pull others. We purchase, we foster, we germinate, we trim. We pat ourselves on the back. In any case, a little more humility is unquestionably in order for us. The trees, after all, are doing the largest share of the work. We're just the ones with shovels and saws in hand, ready to take whatever credit we can.

The Weedy Outsider

Early next week, I'll travel by train to Middletown, CT, where I'll visit with a college friend and speak about the wonders of weedy lawns at the Jonah Center for Earth and Art. I'm halfway packed for it already, and really psyched to go, in part because of the train ride (rarely all that convenient from here) and visiting with my good friend (who I've known longer than my spouse), but also because I'm reaching a new career milestone there: the outside expert.

Here in Pittsburgh, we have experts in most any area of environmental study - not many marine biologists, perhaps (besides Rachel Carson, who left our city before fully developing her expertise in that field) - but solar energy specialists, wind energy pioneers, urban forestry experts, scientists of Marcellus Shale, founders of the field of environmental oncology, the original citizen's air quality group, dozens of environmental engineers and consultants, a topnotch university sustainability coordinator, and lots of darned good environmental educators. But we have a running common complaint: when someone wants a speaker for a big event, they usually invite the Outside Expert.

At her worst, the Outside Expert assumes that she has been brought in because no locals know half as much as she about the topic of interest. S/he takes the podium, and tells us how the brilliant, faraway people of California or New York solved the same problem (which we also have our own solutions for), and that with inspiration from her/him, we can finally rise out of ignorance and learn to solve our own problems just like they do in her/his perfect city. (Meanwhile, local experts sit seething, imagining what they could have accomplished with half the money it took to fly, pay carbon credits, and compensate the know-it-all on the podium.) The Outside Expert is standard fare among invited speakers, and I suppose the only justice is when the local expert gets to become the Outside Expert for some other city.

The folks at Jonah Center are no strangers to environmental lawn care. My friend, who has done work on prairie restoration, knows far more about ecology than I do, and is certainly capable of saying all of what I'm going to say. Further, others in her community definitely know the benefits of a biodiverse lawn - Kim O'Rourke, especially, who has helped lead Project Green Lawn, has already written about how tolerating weeds is an important step in creating healthy pesticide-free lawns.

So it is an open question whether anyone in the audience next Tuesday will learn anything they haven't heard before: I'll certainly give them my best shot. In any case, I get a lovely train ride and a good visit with a friend, I get to show off a display of Sheila Rodgers' beautiful weed photos, and I'll hopefully reduce the overstock book population of my office by a bit. I get to be the Outside Expert for the first time, kindof a fun milestone for someone a few weeks into age 40.

Maybe, if I play my cards right, I'll also gain some really awesome new friends and colleagues in the process. And then, when I need to invite an Outside Expert to Pittsburgh someday, I'll know exactly who to call from Middletown.

Weedy wheat overtakes suburban lawn

Last fall, Brian and I did some re-landscaping of the backyard, leveling a bit of space behind the house so we might be able, one day, to put out a table and eat dinner with the chickens for company. The process involved a truckload of topsoil, moved via wheelbarrow, then topped with grass, clover, and wildflower seed mix...and covered with straw.

Straw, in the classic sense, is grass stems, the part left over after the seed has been harvested. If it has seed in it, that's a bit of a shame, because that seed isn't needed for the function of straw. Straw is horse bedding, to be used and pooped on and mucked out. But for whatever reason, the straw we used had a fair number of heads still on it, with live seeds.

I watched the wheat seeds germinate, beneath the straw covering we so lovingly provided. I watered them, hoping to just get some ground cover before winter hit. Since we did the landscaping fairly late in the summer, we probably even followed the wheat planting guidelines, which is to plant the crop after the passing of the Hessian fly free date, meaning that our wheat crop shouldn't have any infestations of a fairly brutal insect pest. The wheat - and the lawn grass and clover - grew well, and through this winter we seem to have lost very little of all that soil we brought in. We definitely succeeded in establishing this new bit of lawn.

But the wheat is an odd sort of problem. It's winter wheat, now ready to grow like - well, a weed - to set seed and harden up, oh, about midsummer. And though I have my vegetable garden nearby, this spot wasn't intended to be food, it was intended to be lawn - just more exercise for me and my reel mower. Instead, I have this food crop, growing not only in the back of the house, but near the boundary between us and the next door neighbors (not the nice ones, either), and at the end of the driveway. I've mowed it twice so far, reluctantly, feeling vaguely that it must be some sort of sin to mow a food crop when plenty of hungry people don't have enough to grow wheat on purpose, much less enough land to try to grow decorative grasses for leisure.

This week it is rainy. Perhaps it will keep raining (climate change models do predict increased rain for this area), and perhaps I won't be able to get out and mow again, to do my suburban duty on time. Perhaps I'll be forced to watch the wheat grow until it is too tall for us to tackle, and we'll get a citation from the zoning board for our overgrown lawn.

I would be forced, then, to testify in court one of two absurd positions: 1) the wheat, one of the staple crops of world agriculture, is a weed, and I was negligent in allowing it to exceed the legal 8" height for lawn weeds, or 2) the wheat is not a weed, and I had the audacity to grow a grain crop in my front lawn. Either way, the legal implications of prosecuting me are fascinating; the story could be front page world news of the weird, either way, about the craziness of the U.S. and our insane culture of lawns and food.

It's rather fun thinking about it while I watch the spring rains outside.

The Crazy Weed Lady Walks the Neighborhood...

Weather lately is a bit crazy, and I have never been a fan of mud (my definition of bad weed: a plant which leaves me with mud). Today it is warm and lovely, interspersed with thunderstorms and wind. I donned raincoat, and headed out for a walk.

First stop: the Community Center, to adjust my kids' days to match their friends'. While there, I talked to two friends who work there; one offered me a book she'd just finished, which I left at the desk so I could pick it up on my way back.

Next: Down the road for my walk. En route, I took a couple of side streets, looking for spring beauties for Sheila to photograph (that's her wild garlic, above). Passed an abandoned gray Abercrombie sweater on the roadside, and left it while I walked, but picked it up on the way back. Picking up litter, or stealing? Does it matter how many times it had been run over? Looped through a couple of favorite neighborhood streets, turned around, and walked back. Picked up the sweater en route (if you know the owner, I'm glad to return it, washed gently...). Stopped back by the community center, now feeling a bit odd, carrying sweater, book, and watching the clouds threatening.

But one more important stop called, one I'd been meaning to make for at least a couple of years: the bulb garden, which we planted for Emily's birthday back in 2005. Some of the bulbs are thriving, others not, but more importantly, I needed some wild garlic.

This weekend, our friends S & R had us over for dinner, and served leek and potato soup. It was amazing. I was inspired. So this afternoon, I gathered handfuls of wild garlic at the community center. I didn't get the roots - whether I was saving some wild garlic for the next person, or failing to complete a job of weeding, well, you be the judge. Feeling raindrops (it is now thundering, 30 minutes later, while I type), I scurried back around the pool fence to home.

I've never made this soup before. I've got out Laurel's Kitchen to the page with potato-cheese soup, but have already started diverging from it, using milk, vegetable broth, and parsnips, in addition to potatoes. The handfuls of wild garlic are draining in the sink while I type. Hopefully it will end up tasting good.

I do like thinking of myself as the neighborhood eccentric, the chicken lady who writes weed books. Today, I was a bit more so, heading out for a walk (that, eccentric enough by local standards, even in dry weather), and returning with a roadworn sweater, a book about hedgehogs, and a large handful of weeds for dinner. The only thing I was missing was Birkenstocks.

Going to seed...

An impossibly delicious Over-the-Hill 40th birthday cake, given to me in sustainable agriculture class this morning. The chef apologized for not having any weeds growing on it, but with soil this yummy, weeds are hardly necessary.

California weeding...

I was just in San Francisco this weekend visiting family, and got a chance to confirm the geographic range of the weeds in Good Weed, Bad Weed. Aunt Jackie immediately found most of her lawn weeds from Wisconsin; and a new friend from San Francisco opened the book and recognized her lawn weeds as well.

And while I wasn't near many lawns as we walked the neighborhood of North Beach, I found woodsorrel and chickweed hugging tiny soil patches near the street trees. (I thought about eating the chickweed, but decided that I had no idea what it might have soaked up from passing dogs and cars.) Even better, in front of the U.N. building, the only lawn space we saw, English daisies were in full bloom, making a festive scene under the trees.

I think my family were rather amused by my obsession. By the time we got to the Farmer's Market at the Ferry Building, I didn't bother pointing out the dandelion greens for sale. And if I had a dollar for everyone in California who thought the book title was about that Other Weed, I would be very rich!

Winter greens

It's that time of year again, at least for those of us with the cold-rain version of February outside: weed foraging. Our next door neighbor just told me her mother's secret for dandelion greens, which is to harvest now, with the early spring cold rains. The interesting thing about this is that whether you're harvesting dandelion to kill it or just to eat it, this is still one of the best times, the time of the most tender, least-bitter greens, and also the time when the plant is relatively weak, and vulnerable to being pulled.

Garlic mustard (see Sheila Rodger's photo at left) is also at its best time. With garlic mustard, my goal is definitely to kill it (and unfortunately for cooking demos, I think I succeeded last year - I don't have many rosettes of it out back this spring), but using it in February or March yields strong garlic flavor with less bitterness.

And then don't forget the winter annuals - chickweed, cuckooflower (another Sheila photo at left) - perhaps not at their largest yet, but definitely at a good stage for some "spring tonic", as the first greens of spring used to be called, back when lettuce wasn't a year-round staple at the grocery supercenter. Red sorrel, overwintering at ground level, can give some oxalic acid-punch before the rhubarb is up yet. Your wild garlic is out there now, just waiting to masquerade as the freshest chives.

I worry about sounding like a salesperson when I talk about weeds like this, and yes, if you want to find these plants and don't know what they look like, of course you could buy my latest book, and I'd be grateful. But whatever education you need is your own business: the weeds are out there, if not *in* your yard then close by, just waiting for you. No one is going to mind if you take them. Call it your own personal grocery self-checkout line, with no line.

Good Weed, Bad Weed: It's Here!

I got home today to find a stack of boxes in my garage: the long awaited copies of my latest weed book, Good Weed, Bad Weed, from St. Lynn's Press. The timing is just right for spring - before the lawn trucks begin their trolling around for customers, before the new weeds take off, before the garlic mustard begins growing...and the same day I saw the first daffodil shoot poking up in front of our house.

Not long before it's time to go out and collect Japanese knotweed shoots for strawberry-knotweed pie, too; the first weed recipe for spring!

Hickory nut holiday

This Thanksgiving, many traditions went by the wayside in service of trying to keep the holiday low-stress. At my parents' house, mom served sweet potatoes, rolls, snap peas, cranberries, and tenderloin; I think our holiday meal with Brian's family was pizza, topped off for me with a Blue Moon beer. We had plenty of family meals, but none of them involving a turkey.

However, the tradition we didn't ditch is actually my favorite: the family hike. I've historically thought of this hike as the one where I either walk off the meal, or, as during grad school, the one where we walk off the all-day drinking we did while we were cooking and before the bird is ready. This year, the only association between the hike and the food was incidental.

But the hike ended up being all about food, anyway. We set off on a trail near Boston, Kentucky, up a half mile from the Bluegrass Parkway to a 2.5 mile loop. We like this hike (this was our 3rd time), because it seems to have it all: woods, a hill with good views, a stream, and fossils. In August, the wildflowers were excellent. We have yet to see another hiker on it, which is an extra appeal. The length is just right for us - enough to be pleasantly tiring, but not long enough to have any drudgery to it. I'd packed snacks.

We noticed lots of lovely moss, including one patch which I thought had an old washer on it, but actually featured a crinoid stem (fossil) instead. Both girls found geodes. We found the views to be all that winter hiking has to offer. And Emily found her own food.

I'd kept wondering why Emily wasn't asking for the packed snacks. Instead, she had picked up a bunch of hickory nuts, which must have just fallen, as they were perfectly sweet and fresh. She found a couple of stones, and cracked them for all of us (see above), and still she carried home more.

If I'd served hickory nuts at the Thanksgiving table, I have no doubt she would have refused. If I'd made pecan pie, she would have turned up her nose at it. But Emily made her own meal, found food outdoors, for herself, in a season none of us expected it. We topped it off with a few fallen wild grapes. Who needs turkey, or even a table? Emily found what the harvest season had to offer, and enthusiastically gathered and prepared food for the rest of us, for Thanksgiving.

Cloudy with a chance of bright spots

The loss of afternoon daylight hits hard for us, with all of us getting home right around dusk from afterschool and work. Emily, in particular, hates that walk home in the dark, and I am struggling these days to remember a flashlight or lantern for her for the route home. I am glad to still be woken up by sunlight, and am trying to be mindful of it because I know soon I'll be waking up in the dark again, as the days continue to get shorter. The chickens don't seem to mind too much, but they tell us about the short days in other ways; lately we get an egg a day at best. I'll put up a light for them soon, but for now I confess I'm enjoying the respite from our summer's egg-based diet.

So our mornings are literally a bright spot. Brian recently went out one morning and took some photos of our frosted lawn. Foggy mornings aren't quite as cheerful, but have the advantage of not being quite so nippy. On more leisurely mornings, frosty or foggy, I let the chickens out for a while, and they forage while I work upstairs in our brightest room, the office.

This week, we have one other bright spot in the house, too. Back in February, 1996, Brian brought home a blooming plant to celebrate a new job I'd gotten, coinciding also with Valentine's Day. He's tended Miss Clivia and now her daughter (he helped her self-pollinate and raised babies) ever since, and though in some windows she bloomed yearly at best, her current home seems to be her favorite so far. Anyway, she's blooming again now, and I can't think of a better time of year to have a little spot of sunshine in the house.

Front yard chickens, yeehaw!

I find it hard to believe we've now only had these chickens in their coop, outdoors, for a year, as it feels like our lives here have always included chickens. However, a year it is. This Halloween, the hens feasted on pumpkin guts, dug nests in our new mulch, and seem to have truly, finally discovered the front yard.

I only let them out when I'm home (or making a run over to the community center), so they don't have time to go exploring widely through the neighborhood. During grape season (our downhill neighbor grows grapes along our boundary with her), in early October, they seemed determined to wander into the "bad neighbor" yard (see December 2009 and January 2010 postings, if you're new to the blog, to see why we call it that); I don't know if they were trained away from that behavior by my hose sprayings or by the end of grape harvest, but they don't do that now, mercifully. They wander a bit uphill - into friendlier neighbor territory, though I do try to discourage them. They wander down toward the pool, but seem content to search for bugs in the woods, rather than trying to head across the parking lot for farther pastures. They wander a bit in the side yard, but so far, they have explored very little in front.

I have been glad of this, generally, because I am enjoying having the chickens so much, and I don't want to cause trouble by having them be public (somehow, the blog doesn't feel public, don't ask why!). I've been slow to come out of the proverbial chicken-keeper closet, at least in some contexts. But lately, it is almost as if the fear and anxiety about getting a variance (which was awarded last January!) have finally abated. The coop is still in the backyard, but I've stopped trying to keep them out of sight from the street.

In part, we have a new chicken keeper in the neighborhood, and though I won't out her here, her arrival gave the excuse for a chicken-keeper get-together, at Susan's house. (I hesitate to call it a "chicken dinner" because we didn't even eat eggs) So now we have a community, rather than just two crazy chicken-keepers. Emily has finally told her friends at school, rather than trying to hide the chicken-facts from the upper-cliques. In a further act of self-outing, I invited the garden club conservation committee over to meet the hens, so I've outed myself to the demographic most likely to think me a low-brow Kentucky girl. This is a part of my identity - our family's identity - no longer needing to be hidden.
Oh, well, and one more reason - Gabby, who had been undergoing a particularly unattractive molting season, is finally getting in some new feathers. She's still a bit funny looking, but at least she no longer looks half-plucked.

So let the chickens roam! This Kentucky girl may be unspeakably ashamed to be from the state which elected Rand Paul (if only it were RuPaul instead!), but I'm darned proud to have hens, their companionship and their lovely eggs.

(I think I'll wait at least another year, though, before I try for goats)

Emily's 11th Birthday, on the cheap

We didn't intend to make this a bargain birthday, and in fact, the planning process felt rather extravagant. Outdoor adventures can be, like Everest or a trek on the Appalachian Trail, something for only the rich or richly sponsored; at the same time, they can be the cheapest form of family entertainment. I'll spare the credit card advertisement about priceless, but you get the idea; $16 for the shelter reservation and a few more dollars for grilled cheese and cake fixings, and we had a party I'm pleased to remember, even while still recovering my wits.

But luck was with us, too. The dry summer yielded just enough to make campfire-building easy, but not dangerous. The moon, just a couple of days past full, made the late-night bathroom trips less scary and more beautiful. The cold made the mosquitoes go away, and made it possible for all the girls to sleep in tight quarters, rather than having to spread out and split up for ventilation. We had enough experienced campers to make the experience not-too-scary, but enough inexperienced campers to add the wonder and awe and excitement.

I'm exhausted. I needed caffeine today in a bad way. I hated unpacking our backpacks and putting the things away, and I hated, as every weekend, putting away the mountain of laundry (not all done yet). But there was not a single moment of the party when I wished to be anywhere besides where I was, when I needed space I couldn't get, when I wondered whether we'd bitten off more than we could chew. Even when Brian was helping the girls use the saw to get firewood, I felt glad to be where I was, and comfortable enough with the first aid kit close by.

Next week, all of the 5th graders from Emily's party will head off for a week at school camp. I know some kids there will be camping for the first time, and Emily will be camping the first time without me, and probably every kid going is somewhat anxious about *something* - who isn't, even before the best camps? But I'm hoping that turning 11 while outdoors overnight at a state park, in the company of family and 6 good friends, gave the birthday girl a good start on her tweens, some extra confidence to carry into the darkness of puberty, middle school, Camp Allegheny, and whatever else the next few years might throw at her.

Natural Bridge, naturally hazardous

One of the aspects of Kentucky which I particularly love is that, in general, people are still able to swim, fish, climb in the craziest spots, not separated by fences or CYA legalese signs posted all over. It gives the state a bit of a Darwinian feel - as in Darwin Awards. And there is no place where this is more obvious than Natural Bridge.

As you can see in this photo, Hazel is standing by a sheer dropoff with no guardrail, in front of the bridge we'd crossed, moments before, also with no guardrail (after climbing some stairs in a spot aptly described as "Fat Man's Misery").

I wasn't ready for any rock-climbing or anything like that (frankly, some of the stairs on one trail terrified me, though that was partly because they were rain-slick rather than because they were actually all that scary. But this was a pretty good thrill, even on a misty day, when I could as easily imagine thousands of feet empty below me as hundreds, or tens.

It's been a good summer for scenery, and adventure, and confidence-building. Between scary steep scree en route to the Burgess Shale, high winds on bear-laden mountains at Lake Louise, and finally this last jaunt at Natural Bridge among steep rocks and by a copperhead (Brian bravely took this photo; I was long gone up the trail after a quick look). Of course, none of this adventure kept me from my standard week-before-classes nightmares (forgetting to go teach class, cartoons infecting my powerpoint slides), but maybe it just help keep us all agile, young and old alike.

I like to think that after facing scenery like this, mean girls and school bullies, assignments and assemblies all seem smaller. If you've walked up to a sheer cliff face and peeked over, just to see the view, surely anything that happens at school is just a proverbial walk in the park.

Cross-training, with kids

About a month ago, I tried to convince Emily to sign up for the local kids' triathlon, which she did last year and seemed to have a good experience with. However, the moment she gave me a firm "No", I realized who really wanted to do a triathlon in the family: me.

Having completed a couple of short tri's back in Ithaca in the late 1990's, before children, I knew the experience to know the agony and the ecstasy of it: the glory of that fast-dry bike ride after swimming, the pain of that first half-mile of running after a long bike ride. I'd accidentally exposed myself swimming backstroke in open water, so I knew what clothing would be needed.

The only problem, if you can call it that, was that between parenting and work - even just getting some writing done on the upcoming weed guide - time was short for training. 600 m swim, 20K, bike, 5K run, all in a row. Improvisation was in order.

I'd spent the early part of the summer keeping up with the growing grass with my reel mower (beloved reel mower), so that had to count as training. The 12 mile hike to and from the Burgess Shale had to count for something, too - presumably stamina training, and hill training. Swimming training was easier - adult swim is just long enough to complete a 700 meter swim, and with a few extra laps I could manage some safety net for extra stamina. During trips to Ohiopyle, I fit in one 20 mile bike ride. I literally ran circles around the girls while they played at Squaw Valley park, getting in a run or two.

The best part was Thursday and Friday, when Brian and I took the girls on a trek from Ohiopyle to Confluence, 10 miles one way on rail-trail, camped overnight, and rode back. I don't know how to count that kind of interrupted ride as training, but like I said, this was improvised training.

I've talked to a couple of dads recently who do longer triathlons, and they spoke of generous partners and flexible work hours, all the better with which to fit in 4-6 days a week of (!) 2-3 hour workouts. Listening to them I've felt envious. I can't do that kind of time, and what's more, I like to think that my training is part of family exercise. Sometimes the exercise is separate, like my 20 mile ride while Brian played with the girls in the water at Ohiopyle; but at the same time, my getting out is related to the whole family getting out.

A recent Wharton School study found that women who participate in sports as youths have better rates of employment, and I love knowing that our daughters will benefit from school and neighborhood sports programs. Thinking about men and women in triathlon, though, I have to wonder - when moms train, is it possible that their kids get more workouts than when dads train? Do moms often do this kind of improvisational family-training, involving children in workouts simply because that's the only way the workouts can happen?

In any case, the race this morning went well. I didn't carry a watch - it's been too long since I did this, and I wanted to be listening to my body rather than constantly berating or cheering myself with split times - so I won't know my times until they're posted on the website. But I finished running hard, didn't drown, didn't wreck, didn't puke, and was ready to come home before they posted my official results. This is the biggest difference for me between doing this now and my race 12 years ago, before daughters - I've got someone waiting for me at home, and I was awfully glad to see them, so we could go out for some adventures.

Early harvest?

This year, determined to get some more of our own pumpkins for Halloween, I planted a lot of them...Yes, there is room in the garden also for kale, rhubarb, some herbs, tomatoes, potatoes, and snap peas (alas, now gone), plus a random assortment of weeds which I've kept for photographic and culinary purposes. But maybe not as much as we'd like.

In any case, though, the having pumpkins for Halloween thing is clearly not going to happen, because they're all getting ripe, right now. I finally harvested them, seeing they were more likely to rot by October than get bigger, so it looks like pumpkin pie is in my future/freezer sooner than I thought. Global warming? Or poor garden planning? (and I know the eggs aren't directly from the garden, but I love that basket and couldn't resist including them)

Not-so-lazy river

One of the many must-do activities we hadn't done yet since coming to Pittsburgh was rafting or kayaking at Ohiopyle. This seems to be one of the main activities at the park, and we've always wanted to do it each time we watched the rafts go downstream. Hazel is turning 8 and is now a decent swimmer, which made us eligible for tours we hadn't been able to sign up for earlier, so the time was ripe.

It surprised me how long that 1.5 hour drive feels at 8 in the morning, but still, we only hit the river at 10:30 or so. We paddled, and coasted, and worked our way off rocks. (The guide who gave our safety spiel explained about letting your feet float if you fall out, to prevent foot entrapment. She said at the time there was no such thing as "butt entrapment" but after all those rocks I got stuck on, I beg to differ.)

It was 3:00 before we reached our takeout spot, soaked, a bit stiff, very hungry (note to self: pack more lunch next time), but also very happy. Ready to do the whole thing again, before long.

Motivation and memory

I don't know what the girls would have said if I'd asked in advance, because I didn't. Last winter my mother-in-law asked if the girls would be able to handle a 12 mile hike to see the Burgess Shale, and I impulsively said yes, without asking them. They'd never hiked that far before, but why not? Plus, with a lunch break and a fossil hunting break in the middle, it should be OK, right?

As it turns out, the kid-led (with adult supervision) kids' hike to the Burgess Shale, one of the most diverse sites for fossils from early in the history of life, was a gorgeous, well-run trip, and easily within the kids' capabilities. Hazel and her cousin Thea were the youngest on the trip, but Hazel was hopping along even at the last mile. The adults were, well, a bit sore in the knees and toes by the end, but nothing beer and Advil couldn't fix (or simply cold packs, for my MIL, but that sounds less fun, doesn't it?). (The photo at left, alas, was not from the Burgess Shale hike, because we weren't with them for the hike - we were staggering along 30 minutes behind, since only 10 or so people can be on the Burgess Shale at once - that's from Mt. Revelstoke instead.)

I think for Brian and his brother, who knew best what to expect, the fossils were perfect. For me, as for the girls, they were a bit, shall we say, subtle - smudges on rock, easily enough mistaken for chalk drawings or rock fracture lines, at least to the uneducated eye. Emily said afterward that the hike was great, but the rocks were not worth all the effort. No one argued with her on that point, though she did acknowledge that the mountain goats, at least, were pretty cool.

I often wonder, during these family vacations, what the girls will remember. Will they remember the roadside grizzly, grazing shrubbery, or the view of Emerald Lake from the Burgess Shale? Will they remember the hotel pool at Lake Louise, or the stream behind our campside on the Kicking Horse River? I know I have ideas of what I hope they remember, and I'm sure that these ideas don't always match up with the reality.

This summer, though, I think what all of us adults noticed was how capable these kids are (our two and their two cousins). We hope that what they remember is that they climbed a mountain, crossed rockslides with ease, and scampered down afterward with nary a scratch. I myself had to take deep breaths and control my fear in places which they didn't think twice about. And maybe, whether they remember it or not, they'll carry with them a sense of physical capability. On the way down the mountain, Emily told her younger cousin about what a good job she'd done that day, and asked her if she knew the word "endurance." I don't quite remember how she explained it, but she explained it well, and when she finished explaining the word, she told her cousin "You had endurance today. You were tired but you kept on going anyway."

I think it might have even been fun, too, but I didn't try to convince them of that at the time.