My Honeydew List

It is SO dry. I can't remember the last time it rained. What a year! 

a crawdad chimney in the lawn

In the 14 months since we have moved here, we've had extreme weather. Last spring we were inundated with rain. We had crawdad holes all over, in the yard, in the hay field, even in the dirt floored areas of the upper barn. In order to spare our shoes and socks, we always went outside outfitted in rubber farm boots. They squelched wherever we walked and were always splattered in mud. 

We even mowed in rubber boots! We had to mow whenever it was not raining so that we were not overgrown like Sleeping Beauty's castle. But it was still so wet that even the push mower left ruts in the lawn and threw mud onto our legs!

When the three months of rain ended, a drought began. The ground became rock hard and fissured. The grass turned yellow and crunched like straw. The ferns died. Trees dropped their leaves early. And the heat stuck around into the fall. We went camping at the end of October.

When winter arrived, it didn't really. The temperatures were very mild. We got two barely-there snows. And the spring bulbs were poking up in January! Spring stopped and started in spurts with unseasonably warm days followed by frost. Many trees leafed out more than once. And the frost hardy plants had a very long jump on the growing season.

Luckily we cut hay early, because it looks like it may be a bad forage crop year. It has only sprinkled lightly once since we hayed... in May. And there's still no rain in the forecast. Everything is headed toward a repeat of last summer. The lawn is stiff. The ground is cracked. The hay is turning to yellow instead of growing. The ferns are dying again. Even the weeds are wilting! Crab apples and tree leaves are falling regularly.

tulip tree blossom

The trees that are dropping the most leaves are the yellow poplars (also called tulip poplars, tulip trees, canoe wood, saddle-leaf trees, and white wood.) After being weakened by flooding and then drought, the mild winter has lead to a large number of insect pests that didn't get killed off by a hard freeze. Then, to make matters worse, we had a couple of late frosts well into an early growing season. So some of our poplars had to put out leaves two and three times this spring, wasting their precious stored up energy. Now, since they were weakened, they are particularly hard hit by a pest called tree scale. 

Despite the name, Tuliptree scale is a large soft scale insect. This insect infests trees, multiplies at an alarming rate, and they are spread by wind and songbirds. Once established on a tree, the branches will look warty. But before a homeowner notices these, the honeydew that the insects secrete will be noticed first. 

tulip tree leaf

You see, honeydew is a sticky, sugary material that is secreted by the soft scales as they grow. It drops from infected trees in a light mist with a mild infestation- like last year. This year it falls like rain. I mentioned in my bird post that honeydew blows onto the windows of my house, coating them in sticky spatters that quickly collect dust. It coats everything with a glossy, sticky sheen. Gravel below trees sticks to tires and boots like it is coated in molasses. Sidewalks become damp and tacky. Windshields and hoods become coated in sticky "bug spit" that collects dust and obscures vision. 

But it gets worse. Honeydew gives rise to other problems. For one thing, black sooty mold grows on honeydew. It makes sidewalks slippery and black with mold. This mold gets tracked into your house very easily, and stains rugs. It also stains cement. It coats foliage and blocks sun, killing plants that are not rinsed of it. And wasps, ants, and aphids like honeydew too. So the populations of these insects increase as well. In fact, the ants will work to protect the tree scale from predators and parasitoids, so ants make tuliptree scale matters much worse. Controlling ant populations around trees in one of the few practical ways of helping to curb the tuliptree scale problem.

All this adds up to one big nuisance for tulip tree owners, and one big problem for an infested tree. Already our poplars are losing the leaves on their crowns. The lack of rain is only helping to stress the already weakened trees further, as if it is not bad enough that they are literally being sucked dry. 

Tuliptree scale is such a problem in our area this year, that some folks think poplar will be cheap soon as there may be a glut on the market. Many will choose to cull the trees before they die, as dead wood is not valuable as lumber. For example, a local man who owns a nearly 400 acre tree farm, and who won our state's "tree farm of the year award" last year is representative of the predicament. Forty percent of his property is in yellow poplar. That's pretty common, as yellow poplar's are native here and thrive here. They also grow fast, tall, and straight.

So if the market isn't flooded with poplar this year, it may be flooded with fire wood next year! While we don't raise timber for profit, we have MANY yellow poplars in our woods. More concerning, nearly all the large shade trees surrounding our home are tulip poplars, and all are infested to some degree, although some are much worse than others. Hopefully weather will cooperate this winter and our trees will recover. I shudder to think of the stumps and destruction that could be left if our trees succumb to the freak explosion of tuliptree scale.  

Rose of Sharon

This is a self-pity post. I'm missing my old place today, especially the Rose of Sharon which are in full bloom wherever I drive. You see, I planted LOTS of Rose of Sharon  along the road at our old place for privacy and beauty. I scavenged volunteers from underneath the bush on the front slope and planted them in long, thin rows on either end of the property. I envisioned a hedge. (You can barely make them out in the above photo.)

The neighbors probably thought I was crazy. My husband was patient with me though, despite my doing this unannounced, and helped me to mow around them when they were small and it was a pain. But soon, with repeated plantings and with dedicated pruning, I did indeed have a hedge that afforded us tons of privacy, beautiful blooms in 4 colors, and something else to be proud of. (The blooms are just ending in the photo below- you can barely make them out, but these bushes were always laden with large flowers when in season.)

For the Birds

fledgling robins

This place is wonderful for bird watching. I am too busy to set out to try to watch for birds. I'm not sure I really would set out to birdwatch if I had the free time, but I catch chance glimpses of birds outside of the windows of my house as I go about my daily tasks all the time. When I'm able, I grab my camera and get proof of my sighting. (I need to put the camera to good use, as it was a present from my husband. And it's motivation to keep the windows super clean- no small task with the honeydew that the yellow poplars drop, and which blows all over my windows. Yuck!)

an eastern bluebird on a tree outside the kitchen window

I'm forever telling my husband when he gets home at night, "I saw a such-and-such today!" And he nods his head and mumbles an unexcited, "mm hmmm." He's clearly not impressed, but he's glad that I'm finding things to like about our new place.

A pileated woodpecker in our side yard

As a city-bred girl, whose parents were amateur birders, I've been programmed to take notice of and to appreciate seeing birds that most don't see. In the last year, since moving here, I have seen more birds of note (and more frequently) than I have in my many years previous combined! I've seen scarlet tanagers, 

scarlet tanager in a tree across the drive in front of our house

indigo buntings, eastern bluebirds, 

eastern bluebird on the board fence behind the house

Baltimore orioles, hummingbirds, 

a female ruby throated hummer outside my dining room window

meadowlarks, wrens, brown thrashers, brown creepers, pileated woodpeckers (a pair!) 

a pair of huge pileated woodpeckers outside my bedroom window

a juvenile bald eagle, red shouldered hawks, turkeys, 

a turkey hen in the "triangle" across the drive from the side yard

red-tailed hawks, turkey vultures, goldfinches, 

a pair of goldfinches eating dandelion seeds in the back yard- outside the study window

chickadees, assorted sparrows, grackles, starlings, robins, blue jays, white breasted nuthatches, flickers, red headed woodpeckers, hairy woodpeckers, crows, ravens, warblers, swallows, 

a barn swallow in the upper barn

sandhill cranes, mockingbirds, gray catbirds, Canada geese,
birds that I'm sure I'm forgetting to mention,

a pair of Canada geese on our pond (critters got their eggs though)

and umpteen birds that are new and still unknown to me! I hear calls all the time that I can't recognize, as I know mostly meadow birds and not woodland birds. I wonder how many more I'll see this year? 

"Three is too many!"

I had to deal with an unpleasant situation Friday. My four children and I were leaving our local cooperative grocery (bastion of diversity, tolerance and community support). We walked nearly single file past the outdoor café area, each of us carrying (or “helping” to carry) a grocery item. We must have made quite a spectacle, the five of us walking along, for we got many the set of raised eyebrows, a big smile from one patron, and a disdainful look from a young woman sitting with a slightly older male. “Three is too many!” She called out after us as soon as we passed. The comment pretty much broadsided me.

For a split second I felt shame. That's probably what she intended. Then the anger started to simmer and it took some doing for me to grit my teeth and walk silently on. I didn’t even look back at her, as I was afraid that the anger would show in my eyes or that what I saw in hers might tempt me to speech that I might regret. It's one thing for a stranger to be rude to me and pass judgment without facts. But it's another thing altogether for her to insinuate in the presence of my children that they should not have been born! That raised some proverbial Mama Bear hackles. I hoped that by not gracing her with a response that my younger ones might not take particular notice, and that my older ones would learn not to waste their time on anger. 

After I mastered the wave of anger, I began to try to wrap my brain around what would make a person say something like that. Maybe she thought that simply by having four kids I am using up an unfair share of environmental resources… But I was shopping for organic and local goods at a cooperatively run grocery at which I am a member! I’m very environmentally aware, and do my best to be responsible. We live a simple life. I do things like make my own cleaners, eat organic food, cloth diaper my children, recycle, use natural body care products, get our vehicles repaired at a green LEED certified auto repair business, buy only wool carpets, use VOC-free paints, have always purchased energy star appliances, never use pesticides, herbicides, don't own or watch TV, etc. etc. Heck, my husband even works in a building with LEED certification. And he drove a truck that ran on recycled veggie oil for 8 years! (We even have plans to get our diesel tractor to run on a simple wood gassification system.)  We consume a lot less than many one-child families that I know. But even if we were an over-consuming family, we would simply be a product of this society. Even if she assumed that I was selfish and had not looked into "overpopulation" etc., when "family planning," my children would still be humans with inherent dignity, not deserving of such an insensitive and degrading comment within their earshot. 

Besides, I wouldn’t be surprised if she has a dog or two. (I think that there might have been one lying next to her chair.) And no one says that dogs are a waste of resources or pollute the environment, although technically arguments that could be made against having “too many children” could also be made about having pets, and then some. For example, dogs use up valuable clean water. They defecate in public places. They make noise pollution. They cause more pesticide use due to flea and tick treatments and the like. Energy is used and waste is produced to manufacture and package their food, the myriad of treats, toys and other paraphernalia (leashes, collars, tags, bowls, dog diapers, dog sweaters, etc) that people buy them. They take up public land and taxpayer money for dog parks, pooper scooper stations, leash signs, and municipal animal shelters and control agencies. People buy them sedatives to calm their fears of fireworks and thunderstorms. They are administered vaccinations, psychiatric drugs to deal with their mental problems (like separation disorder.)  Medications are prescribed for them to help deal with their medical problems like diabetes, etc. The resources used for the care of dogs could be used instead for the poor who often go without food and medical care. So the environmental argument just doesn’t hold water. It’s more about the fact that dogs are more fashionable/socially acceptable, and large families are not.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not advocating limiting dog ownership- certainly not! It's just that whoever heard of someone yelling at a woman walking her three dogs that two are too many?! No matter how an individual may feel, it’s rude! It passes judgment on the person without any other fact than she is walking three dogs. Maybe she is walking them for a friend. Maybe she has a dog walking business. Maybe she is taking them to visit a nursing home. Maybe she trains them as seeing eye dogs, search and rescue dogs, allergy detection  dogs, or bomb detection dogs. Maybe her grandfather left them to her when he died. We just don't know.

And yet I get comments like this all the time. I know this will sound crazy to some, but I feel that children deserve better treatment and more respect than dogs (even though I advocate respect and good treatment of ALL living creatures and am NOT judging those who have dogs.) After all, no pet dog has the potential to figure out how to cure disease. No dog will ever become president. No dog can independently dig wells in Africa, feed the poor in Haiti, or take in the homeless. Yet dog owners get more respect in our society than parents of three or more children, despite the fact that being a good parent is one of the most difficult and important of jobs, as it directly affects the future of our society. 

Here’s more proof that things are warped in the area of appreciation for children. My cooperative grocery has a “take your dog to work day” coming up. They DO NOT participate in the “take your son or daughter to work day.” Seriously?! Their employees are not welcome to bring their children to work for a day and teach them about the value of work, but they can bring dogs to a place with a salad bar, a full-service deli, an indoor dining area, produce, etc.? How would that even pass health code? Where will they take the dogs to relieve themselves? What is the purpose of hosting such a day? How does it benefit the staff or patrons? Apparently, given the many run-ins I’ve had at the coop, not only are children not welcome to come see where their parents work for a day, member/owners are not supposed to take their kids to shop there and teach them about the value of organic, local, minimally processed food either. That pretty much sums up the “enlightened” thinking of the age- Oh, that and vegan dog food... of which there are many brands… Sigh. (No, I don't have it in for Vegans. If I could figure out how to get my family enough protein without meat, eggs, or dairy...and without making my food-related jobs any more difficult, and if I could get my kids to eat a wider variety of vegetables.... I'd certainly jump on the band wagon. If nothing else, it's supposed to lower your risk of cancers a ton to up your fiber and reduce your animal fat intake!) It's just that dogs are omnivores. They are made to eat meat. If somebody has a problem with meat being eaten, why would they buy a pet whose very nature is such that it eats meat? Why not buy a guinea pig or rabbit? I guess because it is more socially acceptable to own a dog.

The more I thought about it though, the more my anger and frustration turned to sadness and pity. I think that if I had stopped and asked that lady which children I should have "gotten rid of" she wouldn't have hesitated to point to the youngest two! She just had that look of abhorrence on her face as we passed. But even if she wouldn't go that far, I feel sorry for anyone who can't see the beauty and potential of a child that is already in existence. And if she was that disrespectful to me and to innocent kids, if she finds no indignity in that sort of behavior, I can't imagine that the man sitting with her respects her much or that she respects herself much, for that matter. That makes me feel bad for her. 

Or perhaps she was just jealous. I have found a happy, healthy, loving family to be a blessing. Maybe her parents took her for granted and she never received the love she deserved. Maybe she never had siblings, and is resentful somewhere deep down inside. Maybe she can’t have kids, and that hurt is like a wound that won’t heal. It makes her lash out like an injured animal. Maybe her own child died. Who knows? 

Since she was a black woman, I would have thought that she’d have been a little more sensitive to arbitrary unkindness. But maybe she received some disrespect from someone of my race, and that hurt boiled over and made her lash out. It certainly seems to me that unbridled and unwarranted viciousness of that kind must stem from some deep hurt or jealousy that that she harbors, not just simply a warped societal norm. But I’ll just never know. Whatever the case, with her current attitude she will likely never experience the love that a growing family like mine is so full of, so I feel sorry for her. 

Now granted, not all people are negative about my family size. I do get the rare, random compliments concerning my kids (mostly from older ladies or people after Mass.) But I think happy, healthy, well-behaved kids deserve compliments! Unfortunately, far more often I get nasty looks, shaking heads, comments like:
"You really have your hands full!"
"Better you than me!"
“Are all of those yours?”
“Do they all have the same father?”
“I hope you know what causes that by now!”
“You really need a new hobby!” 
“You must be rich!”
"Are you done now?"
"Were they all planned?" 
"Don't you think it's time to stop?"
(And not just from people at the co-op either.) It’s as if, because it is possible to contracept and abort, that therefore I should have. I guess it irks people that “choice” goes both ways. 

But I know the value of life and love. I’ve suffered through a stillbirth, and buried that daughter as my milk came in. I’ve listened to a grieving three year old (who was my only child at the time) tell me that he wanted a new baby, but that it had to be alive this time, as if it were my fault that my daughter died of a severe birth defect before birth, as if I could have chosen to have an “alive baby.” I’ve also had a miscarriage, grieved the loss of a child that people don’t even acknowledge, whom I buried in a tiny wooden box by myself in the plot at the cemetery where my daughter is interred- because what else could I do? I couldn’t let that little one be scraped from my womb as the miscarriage began only to be discarded with medical waste like a pus-soaked bandage. 

I’ve talked to women who struggle with infertility, some of whom have been through the harrowing and expensive process of adoption several times, only to have arrangements fall through. They have had to decide whether to go through the complicated and long process of international adoption so that they could adopt an infant (because so very few are available in the states) or to adopt an older child from the foster care system. And that’s no small choice: travel to foreign countries, "tribute" fees to officials, court hearings navigated with translators- or a "high needs" older child? The average age of children in foster care is almost 9. Many are teenagers or pre-teens. More than 50% come from minority cultures. Approximately 40% are siblings who need to be adopted as a group to stay together. Many have physical or mental challenges. Others have emotional problems resulting from circumstances beyond their control, such as abuse, neglect, abandonment and the lack of permanency in their lives. All Foster Care children are classified as “high needs.” (http://photolisting.adoption.com/waiting-children/adopting-a-child-from-the-foster-care-system,2.html) I know all of this because I've seriously considered adoption before. And if I hadn't been blessed with my own, I would certainly have prevailed upon my husband to adopt a slew. (I still feel called to this, so who knows? Maybe adoption through the foster care system is still in my future.)

I’ve talked to old women who regret the fact that they have no children or grandchildren. I’ve also seen older women surrounded with love by grateful, happy families, and hoped that I would know that joy and satisfaction some day. But I’ve never once heard someone say:
“I wish I had aborted some of my children.”
“I wish I had never had kids.”
"I don't want any grandchildren."
“I like being dependent upon government programs in my old age.”
"There are too many people paying into social security."
"There are too many kids taking all the minimum-wage jobs."

So yes, I have chosen a path that most turn their back on in this modern era. But I have done so consciously, not because I didn’t know better or am too ignorant (as the “intellectually enlightened” assume) but because I think it's possible for a "large" family to leave a small footprint. I value the gift of my fertility. I respect my basic biological functions. I don’t think it healthy or reasonable to try to use artificial hormones with serious side-effects to trick my body into "thinking" that it is perpetually pregnant so that I don’t conceive. I don't find it liberating to be held solely responsible for the creation of a human or the prohibition of a human's birth. I don't think that I should have to deny my biology in order to have respect or equality. I want to be respected and valued in part because I am a woman and because of what my female body can do that male bodies can't, not in spite of it. I want my children to be gifts, not possessions, doll-like creatures, or "mini-me's". In addition, I cherish the gift of children who are unique individuals with new insights that add love to the world and who have so much potential for working good and instilling positive change. (And all of these reasons are simply logical conclusions based on natural law, they're not even the beautiful reasons that my Catholic Faith has given me.) 

So while it is shocking and hurtful to hear comments like the one I heard on Friday, I just need to get used to taking the heat for my choices concerning family size I guess. It still makes me sad that it is socially acceptable to be judgmental, hurtful, hostile, and rude, especially to certain subsets of people. And I’m filled with sorrow by the fact that humans have become so devalued. But I’m going to continue to raise the children that I am given to the best of my ability. And I hope that in the process I am teaching them to value the precious resource that humans are. I also hope that I am raising them to be loving and kind (among many other things.)

Creepy Crawlies and Things that Buzz

There are a lot of bugs in this area of the country. 

I mean a LOT. 

And there are more bugs at this house than at our old place. 

Apparently woods equals bugs... 

especially ants... and spiders.. and other unmentionables 

(like ticks, which I'll save for another post.) 

We also have a wide assortment of mud daubers, hornets, wasps, and bees. They're all fairly harmless if you leave them alone, and they actually help control the general insect population. It can be hard to avoid them when their numbers are so high though. Just the other day my three year old somehow managed to let a wasp of some sort crawl up the sleeve of his shirt as he played in our sandbox. It stung him three times before I was able to pull his shirt off and shake it out. He was pretty miserable for about 15 minutes. 

And the buzzers can be messy. The mud daubers leave their casings on the beams of the pole barn and the purlines and rafters of the hay barn. The paper wasps leave bits of cells here and there- even on hay bales. And the wasps that somehow sneak into the attic in the fall make a mess on the floor before the windows.

They bees can also be destructive. The bore bees (also called carpenter bees) drill round little holes on the underside of wooden benches, wooden eaves, board fences, etc. They leave their tell-tale piles of sawdust underneath. And at night you can hear them gnawing in the wood. It's a bit unnerving, even if they're not particularly aggressive or threatening  At our old place we had a colony of bore bees take up residence in a split rail fence. Then one spring a pair of downy woodpeckers decided that all the bore bee larva made good food for their babies and decimated the fence because they made their way to the bee's galleries through the sides of the split rails. 

Did I mention that our closest neighbors keep honey bees? -FIVE hives! Actually, I'm all for keeping honey bees. I tried to talk my husband into keeping some when we lived at our old place and had so many fruit trees. But they can be a nuisance when the weather is dry and flowers are scarce. Picnics are way out.

Someone once asked me if the mosquitoes are worse here than at our old home now that we have a pond and all. And actually, they're not as pesky here! The fish help to eat the larva I guess, and the aforementioned bug lovers must deal with the rest. AS for the rest of the insects, we get lots of frogs, newts, salamanders, bats, and bug-eating birds like barn swallows, too. 

Oh, and I should point out that there is a perk to the prevalence of insects- lightning bugs! The fire flies put on amazing shows here at certain times of the year. Hatching out of the hay field by the hundreds, they rise like newborn stars, twinkling and flashing in fantastic numbers. And later in the summer, they seem to populate the trees like blinking Christmas lights and put on awe-inspiring light shows. Amazing.

Nowhere Mid-America

My husband has seen the ocean from both coasts this week. He's that sort of guy. He talks to investment bankers, venture capitalists, professors, IT departments, CIOs, start-up reps., etc. He presents at conference after conference. 

Me? While he jets, I sit in Nowhere, Mid-America. Well, I don't exactly sit. I take care of the animals. I chauffeur my kids to their activities, change icky diapers on a child that I can't manage to "potty train," prepare and clean up from umpteen meals, preside as "Queen of the Perpetual Laundry Pile," etc. etc. (Actually, It's always in hampers or baskets, but you get my point.) 

While my husband dabbles his toes in the Pacific, I sort of tread water. My circle is small. Sometimes it's claustrophobia inducing. But at other times I think that I'm focusing on what is most important. Then travel, uninterrupted meals in restaurants (I won't even aspire to the fancy places he goes), and a long contact lists in my phone don't appeal to me anymore. 

It's sort of a chicken and the egg thing though. Do I want this life because it's what I have and what I know? Or do I have this life because it's what I want? Because I didn't set out to be here. And if you asked me 15 years ago what my life would be like today, I never would have guessed anything close to what it is. But I have little to complain about (unless I'm being selfish and needy.)

My four children have all been brushed and washed and tucked into bed after our evening prayers. (And I got hugs from them all on the way to their beds.) The baby goats now have full bellies, thanks to me, and are nestled together in a cosy corner in the barn. The dryer is tumbling the things that my oldest will need again tomorrow at sailing camp.

Yes, there's a sink full of dirty dishes waiting. Yes, there are baskets of clean laundry that need to be folded. But that's because I have food, I have clothes. With possession comes responsibility. So I should really be grateful for such jobs that remind me of my blessings. 

And as for Nowhere, Mid-America... I'm sitting on my screen porch linked up via 4G service. A mocking bird is running through his repertoire at the top of his little lungs. A white tailed doe is browsing in front of me in the hay. A couple of hummingbirds are having a noisy aerial dogfight. Some bullfrogs are playing call-and-answer down at the pond. The crickets are chirping and trilling. And somewhere in the distance, dogs are faintly barking. 

Whatever my life may be, it sure is wholesome. And I should be satisfied. But things like that empty bottle of sake that my husband left on the side table next to my chair in the screen porch, and the phone call earlier from the steps of St Patrick's Cathedral still niggle a little. They make me aware of my homeliness, my current lack of culture, my limited set of experiences.

I guess it is human nature to wonder "what if" and to want "bigger, better, different, more." So I will quiet my pride and be satisfied. I will thwart my thirst for leisure and pleasure. And I will bask in the many undeserved blessings bestowed upon little old me.

Besides, maybe what is really niggling me is simply that my Love is elsewhere while I am here. After all, his comment on Facebook today was, "I'd much rather be in Nowhere, Mid-America with you than anywhere else by myself!" And he's coming home in the wee hours of the morning, only a handful of hours from now. What more could I ask for?!

Turkeys

No, this is not a post about Jive Turkeys, stopping things "cold turkey" or the freshman "turkey drop." This is a post about actual live turkeys in the wild. 

Last spring when we moved in, I frequently saw flocks of turkeys on our land. Usually it was a group of hens walking along. Sometimes it was a Tom and his flock of hens out foraging together. Invariably they followed the path into or out of the woods across from our house, the mown path through the hay that runs from the upper barn down to the lake, or a portion of our long gravel lane. Even the deer and coyote are spotted on the same routes. I guess the path of least resistance is taken by all creatures, not just humans.

But ever since the hunting season for turkey last year, I've only seen solitary hens at our place. I see them walking down the hay field path when the hay is high (or rather, I see their heads above the hay.) I see them frustratedly following the mowed strip along the board fence, seemingly unable to duck under or fly over. I see them running willy nilly on our lawn along the edge of the woods in a fluster. 

I'm not much of a hunting advocate. In fact, I'm pretty anti-gun. But there is a little bitty part of me that thinks it would be pretty apropos to bag a wild turkey for Thanksgiving dinner some year. (I know the overall population is fine because I've seen plenty of gobblers and their flocks as I drive to town and back.) 

My husband just wants us to raise our own Thanksgiving bird. I suppose, as weird as that seems to me, that would be pretty satisfying too. After all, whole, organically raised turkeys cost a small fortune just before Thanksgiving. And we usually have a houseful of guests for Thanksgiving dinner, so we get a large bird. It would feel mildly fulfilling to be so old fashioned and frugal.  

But I can see how that would quickly lead to a Christmas Goose, and then where would it stop?! :) Soon we'd be buying feeder cows and spring pigs. And then, why not raise a flock of meat chickens instead of just layers?

Right now a big sticking point is that my kids don't want to raise anything that will eventually be butchered. They want fiber animals like sheep and alpaca. They want milk animals like goats and cows. They don't even mind egg layers, since we've never eaten fertilized eggs. But they are citified enough to desire only dissected, sorted, prepackaged meat that comes in cellophane in neat stacks at the store. I sympathize with them. How removed from the reality of food our modern American culture is! 

The other challenge is that we haven't managed to engineer a predator-proof chicken coop yet, so right now there's no way we could secure a turkey. Also, I'm not sure if my husband is up for slaughtering a turkey. He thinks he could do it. But I sure don't think I could. Shoot a turkey 20 feet away- yes. Stick a turkey in a "killing cone" and do the business- no. I think I'd reenact a version of the scene from "Son in Law." And if he manages to present me with a bird, that means I'd have to pluck... and other yucky stuff. :)

Baby Animals

 'Tis the season for baby animals. We've been enjoying seeming scores of bunnies this year. There are 8 fuzzy ducklings paddling feverishly on the pond. All the woodland birds are busy tending their young.

And of course, the doelings are taking up some of our time and entertaining us with their antics. 

They are endlessly hungry, and bleat and cry for company and a full belly whenever we're near the barn.

They get foamy faces from their frenzied, greedy suckling.

And they like to nuzzle, nibble, and lean.

They also like to tussle, climb, jump, and nudge.

But it's always a bit of a thrill to see the first fawn of the season.

There is one doe and her fawn that are particularly fond of our place. They forage in our hay, walk along our gravel lane, and nap by the pond.

We've even inadvertently herded them down our LONG driveway just trying to leave our house. The fawn couldn't figure out how to hop the fences that line it. Its mom seemed clueless about showing it what to do, and was only able to amble after it confusedly. And we didn't want to be late.