Loss

Our family recently suffered a terrible loss.  My mother-in-law passed away on the morning of December 9th.  She was at home and surrounded by people who loved her.  I have been hesitant to write a blog post since she passed.  I only started keeping a blog after reading hers, at http://insidemysecretgarden.blogspot.com/.  She inspired me in so many ways, and I feel so blessed to have had the priviledge of calling her "family".  There is so much more I could say about her, but it feels far too personal.  All I can do is hope that peace and acceptance find us during this difficult time.

November is indecisive.

The weather can't make up its mind this month.  A week ago it was near 70 degrees, and I ate lunch outside at work.  Yesterday it was 42 degrees and raining.  Tonight they're wanting snow.  I'm so confused!

I get the feeling that a rough winter is on its way... partly because the squirrels look particularly fat and furry this year... and partly because I feel like we're due for one since last winter was so mild.  We ordered extra firewood this season in preparation, and I've heavily mulched the strawberries and garlic.  We fixed the propane heater in the greenhouse (which we never needed to turn on last year!) just in case it gets REALLY cold in there. 

I worked on Thanksgiving, and the whole weekend after.  It was insanity in that ED.  I can say without exaggeration that Thursday was one of the weirdest days I've ever had at work.  In my area alone, we saved two human lives within one hour... and that was just me. People were circling the drain throughout the whole department. 

I rushed a stroke patient over for his CT scan.  He went into cardiac arrest while on the table for the scan, and I immediately began chest compressions.  By the time the physician arrived, 3 minutes after he lost his pulse, his heart was beating again.  We kept him going long enough to transfer him by helicopter to a hospital with more advanced neurosurgery capabilities for his brain hemmorhage.  Half an hour later, I transported ANOTHER critical patient to CT scan, who proceeded to have a grand mal seizure and lose her airway... and we ended up intubating her right there on the CT table.  For the rest of the night, the radiology techs cringed when they saw me.  Strokes, heart attacks, GI bleeds, respiratory distress... they just kept coming in.

Madness, I tell you.

The weekend wasn't as dramatic, but still very busy, and I am exhausted.

It didn't help that I've been on my feet 12 hours/day for the past four days on an injured knee.  This morning I had an MRI done.  Months ago, I injured it while running... and my own attempts at rest, isometric exercises and stretching have not resolved the pain.  In the past few weeks it has gotten worse.  My doctor suspects a torn meniscus.  I am hoping that I'm just a big wuss and that there isn't anything wrong... knee surgery does not sound like my idea of a good time. 

That's what's going on in my life, in addition to the daily routine of working, eating, sleeping, schoolwork, and tending the critters!

In the clear

I am happy to report that our little homestead, and our friends and family, came through the hurricane just fine.  No property damage, just some downed tree limbs and crazy ducks who rode out the 60mph winds on the overflowing pond, and looked like they were having a grand time doing it. 

The weather remains cold and overcast, and I have been hard-pressed to do much except cook, eat, and feed the woodstove.  With the passing of Samhain winter is now well on its way... the year has ended, and it's time to hunker down with my books and cats and daydream about next year's garden.  I expect our weekend tradition of eating breakfast while seated on the brick floor of the greenhouse will resume soon, when we are starved for sunlight and a bit of green.

Sandy

The storm is moving in, and the pond is just about to overflow its banks and join with the surging stream that runs alongside our property.  So far we still have power (obviously!), but I don't expect that to last through the night with the way the wind is howling out there.  I am due in to work at 0700, and am nervous about the possibility of driving at pretty much the exact time the storm will be right on top of our area.  I got a voicemail from my work stating that the hospital has "declared an emergency" and no staff are permitted to leave until their relief arrives until further notice... which means that come hell or high water, I'd better make it in tomorrow. 

So here's hoping that the gutters stay attached to the barn, the trees remain rooted and upright, and the roads stay clear of debris and flood waters!

Anniversary

Today is our first wedding anniversary.  It's amazing how quickly the time goes by when you're having fun!  Since Hubbybunch works today, we took our time celebrating this past weekend.  Friday night I set a pretty candlelit table, and ordered takeout from the Indian restaurant that catered our wedding dinner.  We ate the same meal we did a year ago, and even had a bottle of the same mead.  It was lovely.  Saturday we spent all day working in the garden and greenhouse, and upon discovering a few fleas on Sammy, we gave all four cats and the skunk fleabaths.  I am covered in scratches.  In the evening we drove into the city and met up with friends for a rare night out on the town.  Yesterday, Hubbybunch pasteurized popcorn and jars for mushroom-growing medium and I tore out all of the carpet from the upstairs hallway :D  We have our own unique ways of celebrating, I suppose!

As I type, I'm sitting in front of the woodstove and sipping a mug of coffee.  The past several days have been cold, damp and dreary, and today is the first day of the season that I rekindled the fire from the coals upon waking in the morning.  It's not easy to tear myself away from the coziest seat in the house, but today is Columbus Day, which in my part of the world means it's time to plant the garlic.  I am a BIG fan of garlic, as is Hubbybunch (thank goodness for that!).  This will be the first time I'm attempting to grow our own.  I bought five seed cloves of an Italian softneck variety that smells fantastic... here's hoping for garlic braids hanging in the kitchen come next Spring!

October is here!

My most favorite month of the year has arrived.  I love October, everything about it... the crisp cool nights, the trees changing color, Halloween! 

Winter is coming...

...and I stacked a full cord of firewood all by myself today.  I feel like a superhero.

The end of a very long week.

This past week wore me out.  I worked my usual three 12-hour shifts, and each one of them was a living nightmare.  I don't know what is going on around here lately, but not even a Saturday morning is quiet in that ED anymore!  Lots of really sick, really injured people coming through those ambulance bay doors.  Which I don't mind, when we have the staff to handle it... but we're running with a skeleton crew and it shows. 

In addition, I attended an all-day Advanced Burn Life Support course and got my certification, and went to our ED's Emergency Care Conference (a full day of continuing education lectures on anything from strokes to vicarious trauma). Tuck in a little schoolwork and the bare minimum of housework, and I'm cooked. 

However, I had today off!  It was glorious!  Autumn has arrived in all her glory, and today was as close to perfect as it gets... sunny, breezy, and cool enough to need a sweater and cozy socks.  We lit our first fire of the season in the woodstove tonight to ward off the chill (we might be rushing it a little, but it's just so cozy). 

I baked two loaves of extra tangy sourdough bread, the dough for which had been in the works for nearly three days by the time it got into the oven this afternoon.  I fed the starter Friday night, mixed in the rest of the ingredients Saturday morning before work, let it rise in the fridge until Saturday night, punched it down and let it rise again until this morning, then formed the loaves and completed the final three-hour rising. 
It was worth the wait, oh yes it was.

One of those days

I worked a 12-hour shift one day last week that turned out to be one of those days.  It's always busy in our ED, and we are chronically understaffed, but this was a particularly crazy day even for us.  There were only two nurses in our pod, which meant that each of us had four patients to care for. 

That is never a good thing in the acute care areas of our ED. 

I found myself caring for critically ill and injured patients that ran the spectrum... from a 8-day old, 4 lb. infant with sepsis, to a 39-week pregnant trauma patient whose baby's heart rate started to drop, to a 40-something man with chest pain and a history of "7 or 8, I forget..." heart attacks, and everything in between.  As soon as I would I get one stabilized, another one would be ushered into one of my rooms needing my urgent attention. 

I was overwhelmed, sweating, with a full bladder and an aching back and my hair in a disarray. 

And I was happier than a pig in poo.

I came home, and I was THRILLED to be home... and thrilled that it was my last day of work for the week.  I rambled on to my husband about my day, about the horrendous mess of it all, about how hungry and tired I was... and I found myself saying, "Honey, there is something so very wrong with me... why do I love this so much?!  Why am I at my best when things are at their worst?!"

Days like that exhaust me and leave me physically, emotionally, and mentally drained.  But as it is all happening, something clicks inside of me and starts running like a well-oiled machine.  My thoughts clear.  My hands become miraculously steady... steady enough to get an IV line into a 4 lb. infant who hasn't eaten in two days.  The more my patients need from me, the more I have to give.  I get this euphoric feeling that I am exactly where I need to be, doing exactly what I was made to do.  Eventually after I go home, the fatigue, hunger, and body pain hit me... and I hit the wall. But even so, I sleep better than I ever do otherwise.

When I was younger, I never would have guessed that immersing myself in a world of stress, chaos, pain, and death would be the key to my self-actualization.  Sometimes I wish I were one of those people who discovered that they were ultimately engineered to be a yoga instructor, or something like that.  But I wasn't.  I was made to be in the middle of the storm.  Part of me knows that someday, I won't be able to do this anymore.  The stress and physical wear and tear of my job will eventually become a hazard to my health, and I'll need to adjust.  It's only been a bit over a year since I started this job, and I've already found my first gray hair (I'm only 25!). 

But I know this... I'm going to keep on doing this as long as I'm able to.  It feeds me, and I'm good at it. 

Saved her life...

...like a boss.

Expertly intervened and turned a cardiac arrest into a MICU admission today.  I felt a little swagger in my step, with this song running through my head for the rest of the shift.

Warning: not safe for work, offensive, lewd and profane... proceed at your own risk.  But enjoy, if you're into that kinda thing!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NisCkxU544c

Kitchen work

I spent most of my morning yesterday laid up in bed with a killer migraine headache... but when it finally let go of me, I tried really hard to make up for my lost time. 

The garden has devolved into an unruly mess, typical of what happens here around September.  The tomato plants were pretty much done producing... a few little green fruits left on them, but nothing that would be ready to pluck before frost comes.  Plus, stinkbugs were enjoying them a bit too much for my comfort.  So, I pulled 'em all out and into the compost they went.  The sudden absence of all of that disheveled greenery revealed the five gigantic basil plants that I've been neglecting over the past two weeks.  I pulled two of them, and plucked their lovely fragrant leaves. 

 

I always make a lot of pesto with our basil harvests, frozen in small portions for pasta, pizza, and other endeavors.  But I really wanted to make something that showcased the amazing flavor of the basil when it is this fresh.  So I improvised a tomato-basil soup that turned out pretty damn delicious.

 

I typically don't make my own pasta sauce or soup because of that labor intensive prep.  Every recipe calls for skinning and removing the seeds from the tomatoes, then putting them through a food mill (which I don't have).  However, yesterday I decided I was just gonna try my own thing. 

 

So I chopped up some onions and garlic and sauteed them in olive oil, then tossed in handfuls of the basil and sauteed them as well.  I cored and quartered enough tomatoes to fill the pot (seeds, skins and all), tossed in some veggie soup base, thyme, black and white pepper, and a little can of tomato paste.  I cooked it all down until soft, removed it from the heat, pureed and tasted it.  I thought it needed a bit more zip, so I added a splash of lemon juice and some garlic salt, a splash of milk, more black pepper, a teaspoon of sugar.  Then another few handfuls of fresh basil added in and pureed with the stick blender.  Served with a dollop of sour cream and a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese. 

 

It was incredible.  The addition of the skin and seeds of the tomatoes give it a hearty, chunkier texture than the super-smooth tomato soups found in the store... but I like it better that way!  It turns out that sometimes taking a shortcut works out nicely!  There is still a big bowl of basil and two more plants out there, so I think this afternoon will be spent making lots more pesto.

 

I also made a new sourdough starter.  Mine died ages ago after we moved, and I never got around to replacing it.  I forgot how delicious, and beautiful, homemade sourdough bread can be.  This first batch has just a hint of sour, being made from such a young culture... but I can't wait to see how it evolves and deepens as the culture grows in complexity.

Up until this point, I have not put up any sweet corn in the freezer.  We love adding corn to our favorite Mexican dishes, my sweet corn bread, soups and stews... and the crap you can get in the frozen section of the supermarket doesn't taste like anything.  So having a good supply of fresh, delicious, local sweet corn to carry us through winter is a big deal.  When I went to a local farm market yesterday, the fella behind the counter made me an offer I couldn't refuse for 100 ears of their beautiful corn.  As a result, I doomed myself to an evening of husking, blanching, and cutting!  By the time I was finished it was near midnight.  This morning was dedicated to bagging up 18 quarts of kernels with my Foodsaver for the freezer, plus a quart or two more for fresh eating over the next day or two.

Happy Labor Day!

 

I don't know about you, but I really enjoyed being able to sleep in until 0900 this morning!

Autumn in the air

It feels like Fall is coming early this year.  The days are still hot and humid in our part of the world, but the nights have begun to glisten with the chill of fall.  I find myself needing a sweater to put the chickens to bed at night.  Yesterday I sat and watched the delicate yellow leaves of the walnut trees rain down as a brisk wind ran through the branches.  And if that isn't proof enough, I harvested and baked the first of our pumpkins. 

 

These little beauties are from our one "Winter Luxury" plant.  Really a gorgeous variety, with that delicate silver netting over the orange rind.  In addition, they are delicious!  I baked and pureed them, and ended up with 12 cups of puree.  That's enough for 6 pies!  So I simply had to make a pumpkin pie straight away, you know, to make sure it tasted good. 

 

 

Around this time of year I find myself getting all excited for no reason at all.  I'll be lying in bed at night, trying to go to sleep, and just buzzing with excitement.  I don't even know what I'm excited about.  Maybe it's leftover from being younger and getting the 'going back to school' butterflies in my stomach.  Either way, the chill of approaching Autumn always makes me want to dive into something new. 

 

Lately I've been feeling out of touch with my body.  I started running again three weeks ago, and that has helped, but I've been struggling for quite some time with this sensation of feeling heavy, slow, and clunky where I used to feel light, lithe and graceful.  We threw a party at our home Saturday night, and I had the opportunity to play with a friend of mine who is an amazing acrobatic yoga teacher. We've known each other for several years, but have not had the opportunity to do acro together. I've played with it a bit, but never with an experienced partner.  So when he flew me and we started moving through postures together, I was thrilled with the ease and grace of the movements.  It felt amazing. 

 

Later on we danced together, after I learned that he did ballroom and swing dancing for years.  It's been a very, very long time since I took a beginner's salsa or jitterbug class... we're talking at least 5 years.  But again, when matched a strong and talented partner, the movements came easily to me, and I found myself lost in the joy of it.  I used to feel that way all the time when dancing with my hoop.  I'm hoping that I'll be able to find a salsa night somewhere out here in the sticks... I'm hoping that learning a new movement art will help me find my creative space within the hoop again.

Experiments

So this year the husband and I have been conducting a few experiments.  Hubbybunch has been working on growing edible mushrooms in our basement.  It has been a process of trial and error over the past few months... we want to grow them from spores, not the expensive prepackaged kits.  I think he may have figured it out, because this morning we had a delicious breakfast of homegrown eggs with garden onions and cheese with a side of sauteed pearl and phoenix oyster mushrooms. 

They REALLY like growing out of the bucket.  We tried some in bags as well with limited success, but the bucket seems to be key.

I experimented with growing some new veggies in baskets in the greenhouse.  I planted Reisentraub cherry tomatoes, Table Dainty squash, and Italian frying peppers in hanging baskets.  Initially, they were growing beautifully.  And then the heat of the summer hit, and despite watering on a daily basis, the baskets simply dried out too fast.  Everything but the peppers shriveled and died.  The peppers, however, seemed to love the heat and tolerate the drought very nicely.  They didn't get really big, but produced quite a few fruits on a small plant. 

I also experimented with growing beans and peas up a string teepee in the greenhouse.  We had issues with mice getting in there and eating the seeds before they germinated.  However, those that did germinate flourished.  From only two black bean plants, I got about two cups of dried black beans.  I'll take that yield any day. 

Our Roma tomato plants in the garden are going gangbusters.  They busted the square tomato cages I used to try to support them (cheap pieces of junk!), but still managed to produce an absurd amount of food.  I've been harvesting consistently since early July, and picked an over-flowing half-bushel box last week.  There's more out there today that need attending to.  They are not the tastiest for fresh-eating, but I am LOVING them roasted with olive oil in the oven on low heat.  I've canned about 6 quarts so far as well. 

Our Black Sea Man tomatoes got a late start, as the first batch of seedlings got killed off by a frost when I forgot them outside in the spring.  But even being late-bloomers, they were doing very well through the dry heat of July.  Earlier this month, we got two days of heavy rain, and all of the almost-ripe fruit on the vines split open and rotted.  Very sad.  They are by far the tastiest eating tomato I've had, with tons of acid and a great texture... and I was disappointed that we lost so many.  Next year!

Our potato harvest was not as large as it could have been due to my neglect... I failed to mound them up properly and just kind of let them do their thing.  Even so, we got a nice big heavy paper sack of yukon gold taters from a very small bed of plants, so I have to say that I'm pretty happy.  I've never grown potatoes before, so I'm calling it a success.

Lammas

These days, I have a hard time keeping track of what day it is.  I work different days every week, I don't get the newspaper or watch TV.  Especially after a weekend, I find that I often have to check the lower right corner of my computer to remind me of the date at work.  So the fact that important days go by, unnoticed and uncelebrated, isn't much of a surprise.  However, I really am more in tune with the Wheel of the Year than I think!

Wednesday night, I came home from work, changed out of my scrubs, and poured a glass of wine.  Before I could even take my first sip, I was overcome with a tremendous urge to run out to the garden and harvest everything I could.  Hubbybunch came home and there I was, piling tomatoes and basil and carrots and onions into the garden cart by the pale light of dusk.  We watched the full moon rise and grinned.  We came inside and made a giant batch of pesto, and sliced the many pounds of carrots to start them in the dehydrator.  I stayed up WAY too late for a work night, preserving the harvest and thinking about Autumn.  I went to bed happy.

It wasn't until yesterday that I realized... of course, it was the Lammas full moon.  I suppose that explains it!

Today I canned peaches, and turned many more peaches into sweet yummy nectar that I then bagged and froze for winter morning refreshments.  I still have a big load of Roma tomatoes that need to be sliced and roasted on low heat for hours on end until chewy and leathery, then bagged and frozen.  I have lemon verbena and chives dehydrating now.  I'm feeling a bit stressed, as we're supposed to leave tomorrow morning to go to a hoopdance festival, and there is still so much to be done!

I suppose I should stop blogging and get on with it then, yes?

Busy all day, but still not caught up??

How is this phenomenon even possible? 

I've been neglecting the blog lately, as the weeks have been packed full of work, schoolwork, and TRYING to keep up with the most basic household maintenance... and the weekends have been full of festivals, which is awesome, but time-consuming.  This weekend is the last festival of the season for us, and while we've had a great run of it, I have to say I'll be relieved when it's over!  I want to stay home, tend my garden, and bake bread!

I have most of a bushel of peaches sitting on my dining room table right now, waiting to be canned... a task that will *hopefully* wait until Friday, when I have off from work again.  Today I reduced a full colander of Roma tomatoes from the garden to a single tray of oven-dried-to-slightly-leathery-but-still-succulent-perfection for the freezer.  I got a handle on the laundry situation, swept all the floors, and cleaned the kitchen.  Then I went food shopping, and gave our skunk, Flower, a bath and a manicure.  I did some class work, and (I admit guilt here) watched a documentary about ballet.  I helped Hubbybunch make a set of wicks for a fire hoop.  Somehow, this consumed all 14 waking hours of my day until this very moment.

There must be some way to become more efficient with my time spent at home... but I've been striking out these past few weeks.  Any tips, big world?

Also, dug all of the taters from the garden last week... I let the plants get too dry, and certainly did not hill them up frequently enough to maximize our harvest.  However, we got a good bit despite my hands-off gardening technique (ha!), and damn they are delicious!

The garden in July

Oppressive

That is the word I would use for the heat we've been experiencing all week.  It is draining the life out of me.  I had off from work today (well deserved, after dealing with a violent and drunken patient who tried to beat the crap out of me last night at work), and had the very best intentions of getting a lot of housework done.  Unfortunately, I found myself exhausted and overheated after completing just one task, and ended up retreating to the bedroom to cool off in the A/C.  That made today a most unproductive day.

I was fascinated to hear that a new subatomic particle was recently discovered (they think).  I got the gist of the story while listening to NPR, but found this little video very helpful in explaining what exactly the Higgs boson is and putting into context why it matters if they have really proved its existence.  I thought I'd share!
http://vimeo.com/41038445

I start my BSN program on Monday, and have already completed the first two week's assignments in an attempt to get ahead of the game.  I'm not looking forward to this, but I know it must be done in order for me to advance my career.  I've resigned myself to this reality.  I'm going to do my best to improve my attitude and try to learn something useful as I progress through my classes. 

The pumpkins have crawled over the garden fence and are making their way across the lawn.  There is a marina di chiogga pumpking out there the size of a steering wheel.  I'm a little frightened of them, honestly... if I don't post for several weeks, I may very well be being held hostage by the pumpkin patch.  Send help.

High summer

Harvest season is kicking into high gear now.  Strawberries and asparagus have come and gone, and now we're in the height of blueberry and sweet cherry season, with a sprinkling of black raspberries and the first of the peaches coming in.  I'm freezing and vacuum-packing as much of this wonderful fresh fruit as I can manage in preparation for this upcoming winter.  Last year I felt like I didn't put up nearly enough... we ended up buying a lot of not-very-locally-grown pineapples this past winter to satisfy our cravings for fresh fruit.

I'm in the middle of a very busy, long work week... I picked up some overtime hours, and shortly after was offered the opportunity to audit an ATLS course (a trauma course for physicians)... I couldn't turn that down.  I'm desperate to get into the trauma bay at work, and this is a big step towards that.  So what if it means working 64 hours this week, right?!

The garden is going nuts.  The pumpkins are becoming problematic.  I knew I'd planted them kinda close together... but damn.  They're climbing over the fence, wrapping themselves around the tomatoes, and even the potatoes, which are two beds away!  I'm just hoping we get a decent harvest from these unruly beasts, who seem to have no sense of boundaries.

The three ducklings that survived their first week of life without getting snatched up by a predator are getting so big already.  We moved them into the chicken tractor with Coyote, and moved the chickens back into their fenced run for now.  As much as I hate confining them, it was very clear that they needed some protection from hungry wild critters until they're big enough to scurry away in a timely fashion.

Hubbybunch made friends with this beautiful creature last week.  The cecropia moth is apparently the largest moth in North America!  Its fuzzy bonkers were enough to make me melt.  So cute.

Summer solstice

Summer has arrived with quite a sense of drama.  It is excruciatingly hot out there.  And, I'm passing a kidney stone.  I would be at work right now, if it weren't for my friendly nephrolith and its accompanying hydronephrosis.  So, since last evening, I've been laid up in bed with painkiller and my Kindle, our window AC unit cranking, and I've only really moved to care for our critters and make sure they all have plenty of water.  Today is a sick day.  And I'm trying really hard to not feel guilty about it.

We did everything we could.

Yesterday was a very difficult day. 

I worked a 12-hour shift in the most acute area of our emergency department.  A few hours into the shift, we got a call from an ambulance bringing in an older man with abdominal pain.  It was assigned to one of my rooms.  I shrugged, got all the supplies ready in the room for starting an IV and drawing the typical abdominal pain labwork, and continued drinking my coffee.  I saw the ambulance pull up to the bay from my desk, and rose to meet them.  They were walking faster than a crew typically would for a belly pain. 

"This guy's in V-tach, and I couldn't get a line in him," the EMT said as they roll into the room. 
"Some simple belly pain..." I said to myself as I ran down the hallway to fetch the crash cart.

The gentleman was awake and talking to me, despite his heart's arrhythmia.  As we moved him from the ambulance litter to our stretcher, his rhythm converted, and we all breathed a sigh of relief.  We attached him to the defibrillator pads and monitors, got an EKG, got two IVs started, drew the blood work, started anti-arrhythmic drugs, shot a chest x-ray, and got a complete medical history.  I cracked a joke or two, making him laugh and helping him feel at ease.  He said his wife would be coming in and bringing in his list of medications.

Ten minutes later, he was looking a little bit short of breath.  I checked his vital signs, listened to his lungs, asked how he was feeling, called the physician, and was given an order for a breathing treatment.  Five minutes after that, my orientee (a brand new nurse right out of school) yelled out my name from the room, and I ran in to find my patient moaning, with agonal respirations, and watched as his rhythm again converted to V-tach. I yelled for the doc, and searched for a femoral pulse as his moaning ceased and he went limp on the bed. 

The next two hours of my life were spent at his side, pumping every kind of medicine we could think of into his circulatory system, performing CPR, intubating him, performing additional testing whenever we got a pulse back for a few minutes.  Two ED docs, a cardiologist, a respiratory therapist, a medic, and three nurses worked in beautiful, cohesive unison to try to save the man's life.  Ultimately, despite our very best attempts, despite truly excellent team work and timely intervention, cardiac ultrasound confirmed that his heart muscle simply would not contract, and he was gone.  A man who I'd made laugh, only hours before, died under my hands.  And I found myself crying as I stood next to his wife as she sobbed and kissed his face, blaming herself for not being there to hold him when he died. 

I came home to find that of five ducklings, only three remained.

While walking back to the house from the yard, I accidentally crushed a firefly under my foot. 

By the time I got to bed, I could not stand the thought of another death.

Sometimes, in my line of work, people die.  Most of the time, they die because by the time they come through our doors, they're already gone.  It is very rare that someone comes in speaking to us, and leaves in a body bag.  I know for a fact that we did everything right, but it still feels like failure.

Coyote has done it!

We woke up to the high-pitched peeping of ducklings Tuesday morning!  Little Coyote, our blue runner duck, successfully hatched out five eggs, and man, are they cute!  She already has them out on the pond and everything.  What a loving and proud mother she has become!

My garden in June

We cracked open the beehive today for the first time this season.  I know, I know... we were late.  But with the bizarre and unpredictable weather we had earlier this season, we had a really hard time finding the right time... And, I'll confess, we were a little bit scared.  The colony has become quite... vigorous. 

Today we inspected the upper deep frame by frame, and then removed it from atop the lower deep.  We intended to place a screened bottom board beneath it, then stack the two boxes again and put on a honey super.  Well, once we got that top deep off... the bees got MAD.  And no amount of smoke would soothe them.  They came pouring out of the hive, covering all surfaces of both boxes, and both of us. We chickened out, and replaced the second deep as quickly as we safely could. 

I did not get a chance to look at the frames of the lower deep.  I didn't see any brood in the upper deep, just frame after frame of gorgeous capped honey.  I was hoping to get a good look at the lower deep to try to find the queen, or at least evidence of her in the way of brood... I suppose we'll have to try again in a week or two, when we've recovered our courage.  I'm a terrible beekeeper :*(



My flower bed, with cosmos, succulents, allysum, and a newly planted celsiana rose bush and provence lavender.

Salad greens and squash.

Lush potatoes, hilled up...

The squash are tyring to take over the entire garden.

Baby Roma tomatoes!

The bean bed, with black beans growing towards the back, more planted yesterday in all that empty space.

The chicken tractor, doing its job of keeping the chickens out of my strawberries

Today's strawberry harvest.  I got about two quarts yesterday, and ate them all in one sitting.

The perrenial garden as viewed from the top of the barn/

The veggie garden and greenhouse as viewed from the top of the barn.

Hops climbing up the barn.

My new love.

Tortellini soup, made with the day's massive harvest of swiss chard and kale, plus last year's home-canned tomatoes.

Tortellini Soup:

Carmelize one chopped onion in olive oil in a stock pot.

Add 1 quart canned tomatoes, 1 quart veggie stock, 1 clove of chopped garlic, 1 tsp dried basil, 1/2 tsp dried thyme.  Add a package of frozen or fresh cheese tortelli.  Boil all until pasta is cooked.  Add as much chopped fresh green stuff (I used fresh kale and swiss chard, spinach works beautifully as well) as you want, stirring in and removing the whole mess from heat.  Season with salt and black pepper.  Serve with grated asiago cheese on top.

You'll be amazed at how much nutritious dark leafy veggies you can mix into this recipe... my entire bed of kale went into my 6-quart batch.

Kittens

All three kittens have been captured, and tomorrow we're taking them to a local shelter to get the vet care they need before finding forever homes.  It pains me terribly to not be able to keep them... even the little dark one who we've taken to calling HellDemon (and who we are praying does not have rabies, as he's drawn blood from both of us). 

The next step is trapping the Mama... who will be a challenge, I'm sure!

Still no ducklings...

... but we did find a nest of kittens in the barn!  We've seen Mamacat running about for the past several weeks, but did not realize until earlier this week that she had a stash of three babies in the hayloft!  We've caught and crated two of them in preparation for turning them over to a shelter (long-haired cutie-pies, they'll be adopted in a heartbeat)... and once the last kitten is rounded up, we'll trap-neuter-return Mamacat so she can continue to hunt the mice, moles, and squirrels (of which we have found gruesome remains) in our yard.

I'm hoping to update with some garden and kitten photos tomorrow after I get home from work... it's been a crazy past two weeks and so much has changed and grown in the garden, I can't keep up!

PS- Coyote, our blue female runner duck, is still returning for a visit to grab a quick bite of food every day, but then immediately takes off up the hill across the road to return, we assume, to her nest.  It's just about time for the eggs (that we're assuming really exist) to hatch... I'm keeping my fingers crossed for some super cute squishy ducklings soon....

A rough start to the week.

This week is, so far, a pretty rough one.
I'm on my third of four consecutive12-hour shifts.  Luckily, I'm scheduled for Fast Track, which doesn't open for another 45 minutes.  This past hour may have been the only hour of rest and relaxation that I've gotten since Friday afternoon.
This entire week is forecasted as rainy, stormy, and warm.  My garden is thrilled about it, but so are the weeds and grass!  The lawn is somehow entirely out of control once again, and will probably not be mowed again until sometime next week.  The vegetable beds need weeding, the potatoes need to be hilled up, and I'm not even going to discuss the state of my house. 
Another complicating factor is that I've been having some trouble with my back lately.  I just saw a new chiropractor for the first time last week, and had some x-rays done.  My follow-up is on Thursday, and I'm anxious to see what my films show.  Something feels wrong... not just the usual muscle soreness and fatigue.  Hopefully it's something that chiropractic care can treat.  I want to be able to do the work that I enjoy without pain.
In other news, I'm officially registered for the first class of my RN-to-BSN program.  Bachelor's degree, here I come....

It's my Birthday!

And I'll play with snappers if I want to!!  Found this baby snapping turtle in the stream.  He's a mean, mean little dude.  Hoping he moves on downstream before he gets big enough to hurt our duck friends.

Yes, the General comes into the kitchen for breakfast sometimes.  Don't judge me.

Here is our little chicken tractor, built and in operation!  It seems to be working well, though I have a hard time collecting eggs that are laid in there because Fritz, our nasty rooster, tries to scratch my face off every time I do.  We have to wait until they're all asleep to get in there and find the eggs.

Taters are growing nicely!

Peas, and behind them, squash.

Tomatoes and basil.

The peas we planted in the greenhouse are thriving.

Today I'll be planting out more peppers and tomatoes, and clearing out the bolted salad greens from the greenhouse beds.  I have carrots, peas, chard and kale to harvest from in there too!

Progress

Our veggie garden, now fenced in and chicken-free.

Planted out so far: yukon gold potatoes, carrots, parsnips, yellow onion sets, sugar snap peas, and salad greens.

Chimney fires and berry bushes.

It's been an exciting weekend around our little homestead so far.  Yesterday I kindled a fire in the stove for the first time in a while... it didn't have the best draft as I was kindling it, but it wasn't all that cold outside yet (but the forecast was calling for in the 30s overnight) so I didn't think much of it.  20 minutes later, after feeding it and damping it down a bit, I was in the kitchen making bread dough when the smoke alarm sounded.  I went into the living room and found smoke coming out from around the connection points of the stovepipe, and the thermometer on the stove pipe was reading about 400 degrees.  Oh sh*t!!  Chimney fire!! So I closed the damper, grabbed the animals and shut them in a bedroom with the windows open, opened all of the windows and doors in the house and went outside to wait for the smoke to clear. 

I guess I thought we'd be okay until May to get the chimney and stovepipe swept... I guess I was wrong.  We're having that done on Thursday, so in the meantime we cannot use the stove and it is downright COLD out there tonight!  So, we're turning on the boiler in the basement for the first time since last March.  So far it appears to be functioning, thank goodness...

This morning I woke up feeling sick, with a sore throat and runny sneezey nose.  I can't tell if it's from the smoke yesterday, or if I am coming down with yet another virus.  Either way, it has prevented me from performing in a fire show that we've done each summertime with a local troupe that I was really looking forward to tonight.  I figure that breathing in the smoke and fumes of the fuels we burn to perform would not be the best thing for me given how I'm feeling.

So instead of working on choreography, I spent the afternoon gardening and working on projects.  We are almost finished building a chicken tractor for the Chickiechickiepeeperpants Clan.  All that's left to do is making a door, staple fencing to the floor, and add a handle to the end opposite of the wheels.  A chicken tractor has been on our to-do list for some time now.  When one of us is home during the day, we let the chickens free range all over the property (and sometimes across the road into our neighbor's property, oops!).  But on days that we're both at work, we let them out into the fenced run that joins their coop. 

Over the past year, they've scratched or eaten all of the vegetation in that run, and it's a muddy awful mess if it's rains or snows.  We also have to have someone house sit anytime that we want to go away, even if it's just one night, because that run isn't quite predator proof.  So we are hoping that by making a chicken tractor, we'll be able to rest the run and reseed it with grass, AND be able to spend the night away without a house/chicken sitter every once in a while.

I also made a lot of progress weeding and mulching our perennial garden beds today, and made post-and-wire trellises for our blackberry and raspberry bushes.  Our asparagus is thriving, as our our strawberries and the blackberry bush.  The blueberries are a little bit spindly, and three of our raspberry bushes had to be replaced this year as they died over the winter.  But I'm confident that with some loving care they'll do better this year.

A thorn-less blackberry at the end of the row of teeny-tiny blueberries.

Little green berries are showing up all over the place in the strawberry patch!

The asparagus is on the far left in this photo.  We harvested a few spears this year, not much since it's only the second season for the plants.  But it was very tasty and tender!!  Now if I could only keep the chickens from scratching in the straw mulch around the raspberries...

My tomato and pumpkin seedlings are growing nicely in the greenhouse.  I don't think it's been consistently warm enough for the pepper seedlings to really thrive, but I'm holding out hope that they'll perk up once Beltane is here and gone.

Pumpkins!

Tomatoes!

Carrots and green bunching onions!

Some strawberries that I relocated from their settlement in my lawn.

I also took a nice walk in our woods, casually looking for morels.  I did not find any, though I did find these GIGANTIC poly pore shelf mushrooms growing on a dead log....

 And I found some velociraptor turkey tracks in the stream bed...