My Ideal Morning

Morning is my favorite time of the day. I love getting up to the sounds and smells of the morning. Today, on my morning walk, I thought about what would make an ideal morning for me.

First, I sleep late. Well, late for me, which is about seven o’clock. Then I get up, get dressed, and make my way into the kitchen for a cup of aromatic coffee, warm and rich, with just a bit of bite. The dogs lie at my feet and a cat jumps into my lap and settles down for a purr as I check my email and Facebook for the latest news.

After my cup-o-joe I get up and invite the dogs to join me for my morning walk, to let the chickens out of their coop and then get the paper. We walk up the driveway with the dogs chasing each other and running to nuzzle Anna as she guards the driveway from unseen intruders.

The chickens are moving around in the coop, watching me through the window. Crowlee is anxious to get out and lets me know by crowing over and over. I can hear Iris, the guinea hen, making her “ka-ka-ka-ka” call, also ready to be out of the coop. Tending to the chickens is next, adding feed to the feeders and giving them fresh water, then I can open the door to the coop and let the birds out to greet the morning. Crowlee literally jumps through the door and stands in the opening blocking the other birds from getting out, but they push past him, even running through his legs to do so.

Next I continue on up the driveway, calling the dogs and cats to join me on my trip to get the newspaper. We stop to look at the orchard and then start back towards the house via the path around the pond. The dogs take a short swim in the pond, and chase each other through the woods, running back to join me on the last leg of our morning stroll.

Our last stop is back at the house where I fill the dog’s water bucket and water the plants before I step back into the house and settle in with another cup of coffee and another check of my email.

Yes, this would be my ideal morning….

But wait. I have just described this morning.

I couldn’t ask for more.

On “The Farm” Life Is Certainly Entertaining

This morning was one of those mornings that held a delightful surprise for me. It wasn’t yet dawn when I crawled out of bed, got dressed and started my morning farm chores. The morning was rainy and damp and I didn’t relish the thought of getting out in it and experiencing the ambiance of a cold, wet day. Morning farm chores. Sounds positively dreadful, doesn’t it? Well, let me explain…


My mom started calling the acreage I bought “The Farm” from almost the first day she heard about it. The name stuck, even though, in fact, it was not a real farm. We have always had dogs and cats but up until this year we had no livestock. Three hens, a rooster, and three guinea fowl are now my livestock. Livestock!

Since I am now an official farmer I have official farm chores, which include letting the birds out of their coop in the morning, giving them feed and water, and closing them up in the coop at night. These chores are not something I shirk or try to avoid. I know from owning dogs and cats that they need daily attention to not just live, but to thrive, and I happily try to give them what they need to be happy dogs and cats. And now I do the same for my chickens and guineas.

In fact, I enjoy working with the birds, especially the chickens. Each time I approach their covered yard they run to the gate to greet me. I’m sure they are expecting a treat but I prefer to think they are happy to see me. As I work in their yard, giving them feed and water, they follow me around and two of the hens come up close and watch me. I pet them frequently, thinking that they will be used to human contact when it comes time to clip their wings and then remove the netting from the yard so the guineas can roam freely, eating the dreaded ticks that plague the other animals on The Farm.

This morning it had started to rain so I decided to open the coop up early in case the rain got harder and I wouldn’t have to go out in a downpour later on. I figured that the birds weren’t even awake yet since I hadn’t heard Crowlee (our rooster) crowing. I grabbed my raincoat but didn’t grab my camera because it was too dark to take pictures anyway. The dogs and I made our way to the yard and I opened the door to the coop. The chickens weren’t too anxious to get out of their cozy coop and into the rain, and I was ready to get back into the house. Then it happened. Crowlee crowing. What’s special about a rooster crowing? This time it wasn’t an ordinary crow, the one he crows regularly. No this was Crowlee making his trilling crow. He was still in the coop, but he was crowing and trilling. I wasn’t sure if he would still be crow-trilling if I went back to the house to get the camera to record it, but I decided to try anyway. When I got back to the chicken yard with the camera he was nice enough to crow for me a time or two. Thank heavens I was able to catch it.

My Tag Team Alarm Clock

Do you need an alarm clock to wake up every morning? I certainly don’t! At times I daydream about the high pitched rhythmic “beep, beep, beep” of my old alarm, wishing that it could awaken me out of my dreamy slumber like it used to. But alas, my alarm clock has become worthless. Useless. Not at all necessary. Yes, my alarm clock went the way of the Dodo bird.


And why is my alarm clock extinct? Well, you see, I have cats. Not just any cats. Special cats. Cats who have a built-in alarm system all their own. And they are nice enough to share.

It usually starts with Mini walking up the length of the bed stopping near my pillow where she sits and waits for me to wake up enough to get up to feed her. Instead I move her away, then roll over and try to snuggle back into the covers for another few minutes of sleep. Again she walks back up beside me and tries the “slap at the light switch” and the “climb the lampshade” maneuvers. I move her away from the lamp and try something different by rolling over, scooping her into my arms and trying to hold her down, hoping she will settle in and decide to sleep with me a while longer. Since her efforts have not resulted in their morning feeding her brothers Bart and Yowlee step in and take their turns. One of the two will jump up on the bed and attack my feet while the other lies down on the floor and uses his claws to pull him along the perimeter of the box springs. Now I snap my fingers, which at some remote time in the past worked to stop the cats from their bad behaviors, but not this time. No, the clawing at the box springs continues, sounding like the plucking of a guitar string below the bridge. Plunk, plink, plooopk. Noises guaranteed to get me out of bed and reach for the spray bottle of water I keep next to the bed to discipline the cats. I step around the end of the bed and aim the spray nozzle at the cats but they are not there. They have skittered down the hall and are now waiting in the kitchen for their expected breakfast.

No, I don’t need an alarm clock any more, and if you’d like one of mine I would certainly consider sharing.

I wonder. . . would I miss my purring foot warmers?

The cats enjoying their breakfast after getting me up.

The Virtues Of Patching Jeans

I know, I know… The fashion trend is to have shredded jeans. Some even have ‘patches’ showing through. At a recent art and craft fair I saw a pair walking by with shreds from thigh to shin on each leg, and quilted floral fabric peeking through the shreds as the 'patch'. And it was quite… ahem…. fetching? Well, not really. Especially because I knew that they had been purchased that way.


You see I believe that shredded jeans and patches should be earned and not purchased. Any hole, rip, shred or fringe that appears on my jeans is there by my hard work. And, when my favorite pair of jeans does develop said hole, rip, shred, or fringe what do I do? Wear them to town and flaunt my 'designer' look? No! I PATCH them.

Patching jeans is a tradition passed down from my Mamma, who was a true virtuoso when it came to patching jeans. She patched my brother’s, my dad’s, my friend’s, and my jeans for years. Her style was usually more structured than free-style, and her method was to use the best unworn denim she could find for the patch and to never use the stiff, ugly iron-on patching material that is still (believe it or not) available today. Even before she had a zigzag sewing machine she patched using a plain straight stitch. This utilitarian method, while not fancy, was certainly effective, and those patches usually held better than the surrounding jean fabric.

After getting a zigzag machine her patches became more artistic and whimsical, some even funny. I remember a certain pair of red jeans I wore and wore and wore, until the seat was paper-thin and the knees virtually gone. When she returned them to me after her patching session they sported appliqué fabric flowers on vital spots on the derrière, and vines and leaves and more flowers on the patches she applied to the knees. I wore that pair of jeans with pride and bragged to anyone who would listen about my Mamma’s patching talent.

Recently my brother presented me with four pair of jeans to be patched. I put the task off for several weeks because once one begins to patch it is hard to stop, and I was afraid that I would end up patching the cat-claw-shredded mattress pad that covers my box springs if I ever got started with patching. But yesterday, since the weather was nippy and I didn’t want to work outside, my conscience began to gnaw at me, forcing me to uncover my sewing machine and begin the patching task. I pulled several pair of really old jeans from a pile that I reserved for patching material and began to look for enough good denim for the patches I would need to apply. I unfolded one pair and looked carefully at them and there they were; patches from mid-thigh to shin, stitched with a feather stitch in dark blue to mimic the color of the denim. Patches made by Mamma.

I sat and fingered the stitching; thinking of her love for us; to patch clothing that was clearly worn but not worn out. Sacrificing her time and effort to stretch the life of the clothes. Making something work instead of making something new.

In today’s language she would be recycling. But that wasn’t the reason she patched jeans. She did it because she loved us and it was the right thing to do.

Christmas Is Over But My Dreams Live On

Have you ever had an idea that just wouldn’t leave you alone? Or one that you dreamed about? It doesn’t happen to me very often but when it does, WOW!


Before Christmas I made several blown glass ornaments. On one of them I ‘drew’ a poinsettia on a blown ornament and it didn’t crack while I made it or break from thermal shock in the kiln. I was elated. This success gave me so many ideas that I wanted to try and one of these ideas I actually dreamed about the other night.

Yesterday I was able to torch for the first time in weeks. The day was cool and the studio was about 55 degrees, a perfect starting temperature since the torch and kiln will raise the temperature in the studio by at least 10 degrees during the course of working at the torch. I knew I was almost out of oxygen so I knew that once I ran out of oxygen I might not have another chance for a while. So I got busy. I had to dip my hollow mandrels and get them ready, and I had to wait for the kiln to warm up enough for what I would feed into it so I made a red, white and green twistie to pass the time.

In my mind the ornament would have a clear base with grapes and vines decorating the top. I didn’t have any dark purple cane pulled so I created one with periwinkle as the base and dark amethyst transparent encasement, pulled out to about a 2 mm thickness. I cleaned a rod of clear glass and got ready to make the ornament.

Heating a freshly dipped hollow mandrel will sometimes cause the bead release to pop, so I carefully introduced the mandrel to the back of the flame and wafted it there for a few seconds. When I could see that there were no pops or cracks in the bead release I brought it forward in the flame and started heating the mandrel and also the clear glass rod. When the clear glass was liquid I applied it to the very end of the mandrel, and then marvered the glass to press it onto the mandrel and give a better neck to the ornament; and then I began to wind on the glass to form the hollow blob of glass that would be blown out later. As I wound the glass on, I brought it out until it was about double the diameter of the neck and then I wound it back down so that it had a roughly sphere shape to begin with.

Next I heated the glass until it was glowing and puffed a small amount of air into the ornament to expand it very slightly. This is to help center the bubble inside the ornament so it is a better final shape. Then I added another wrap of clear glass so that the glass is thicker and will make a sturdier ornament.

Now that the glass was thicker it was time to blow it out to make the ornament shape. I heated the glass until it had a uniform orange glow, and then I raised the blob straight up over my head and begin to blow through the hollow mandrel. Understand that when I say blow I really mean just little puffs of air, not like I’m blowing out birthday candles but more like saying “puh puh puh”. Watching the ornament grow with the air that I’m puffing into it I am aware that the ornament needs to be centered by turning the mandrel and also by lowering it to a horizontal orientation so that the heat of the glass will cause it to droop floor-ward but turning the mandrel keeps the ornament centered by using gravity and turning to offset each other and give a good shape to the ornament.

The base of the ornament was made and I really liked the shape of it. It was centered and a nice round shape. Now to decorate!

I used the purple cane I had pulled earlier to make dots in a grape-cluster shape in three places on the shoulder of the ornament. I didn’t concentrate on finishing one cluster before moving on to the next, but put two or three dots on one spot and then moved on to the next, continually turning the ornament and wafting the whole thing in and out of the flame to keep the whole thing warm. Putting the grapes on was definitely a stressful thing to do, and then I needed to put on vines and leaves! I found a piece of yellow-green cane and spiraled it on the shoulder of the ornament just above the grape clusters, making small loops that would suggest the tendrils of a grape vine. Next came leaves that I made using some vine cane that was on the bench. I added two or three leaves to the top of each grape cluster and then a few on the vines. I felt that it still needed something so I found a piece of goldstone cane and used it to suggest a stem on each of the grape clusters.

WOW! The ornament was complete. I couldn’t believe that I had put the decorations on the ornament without it cracking or the bead release breaking. I looked at it and decided to blow it out a bit, so I heated the ornament and puffed a couple of times into it. That made the clear glass at the bottom grow down instead of out, making it more of an oval shape. I knew that it was a good shape and I was afraid to take the time to check for any gaps or misshaped grapes, so I put it in the kiln.

Then I took a deep breath!

The annealing process takes several hours and when I checked on the goodies in my kiln during my nightly dog-walk, the temperature was still 125 degrees. I pulled each item out and looked at it, but didn’t keep them out long, and I returned them to the kiln to cool completely. At this first look the ornament seems to be okay, but the only way to tell is to check on it the following morning when it is completely cool. This morning I removed the ornaments and other beads I had made from the kiln and examined them closely. Unfortunately the grape cluster ornament has a very small crack under one of the vines but it is hardly visible. Overall it is in good shape. I won’t ever sell or give this ornament away, since it was my first grape cluster ornament, so it is definitely worth keeping.

Let me know what you think!

My first grape cluster ornament!

What Can Eclipse An Eclipse?

So, how important is it to stay up half the night for an event that hasn’t happened in almost 400 years and won’t happen again until 2094? I’m not so sure.


I thought that the news reports said that the eclipse would start at 12:00 and take over an hour to reach the full eclipse but at 12:15 there was no sign that I could see that anything was happening. I figured that I was up anyway, so I might as well stay up and see what it’s all about. A few hands of solitaire or a bit of web surfing would kill the time.

Well, at 12:29 I noted that the moon is getting a bit greyer, probably about 40%.

But. . . I was wrong. Upon checking at 12:49 I could see the edge of the earth’s shadow start to cover the moon, and I could see why they say it will take so long for it to take place. It was going at a snails pace!

At 1:35 I walked up on the hill so I wouldn’t be in the trees that surround the house, and the perspective is much different there. The constellations Orion and the Pleiades were visible, but clouds obscured the big and little dippers. The light cloud cover didn’t cover the eclipse but did provide a dramatic backdrop for it. I saw a ghost ship in the clouds, and the face of an old man waiting for the show.

The night sounds greeted me, the coyotes in the distance, the hoot of an owl, neighbors’ dogs barking, and the screech of an unknown bird, all accompanied by the bump-bump-bump of the gas well pumper just up the road

The cats and dogs joined me and I stood there for a few minutes watching the shadow creep onto the moon. I turned off my flashlight and stood surrounded by purring cats and nuzzling dogs and watched as the sliver of white disappeared from the moon, turning it a burnt orange color.

Was it worth it? I would say yes. Not just for the eclipse itself. It was worth it to catch a bit of the life I don’t experience because I’m usually tucked warmly in my bed at this hour. It was like going to a foreign place by just stepping out my front door. A place that I don’t visit often but when I do it’s always thrilling.

What’s There to Crow About?

I’ve mentioned before that I started keeping chickens and guineas. I bought them as one-week-old chicks and keets from Atwoods. There was a very helpful and knowledgeable lady there that answered all my questions and guided me on what I would need to start my chicken-guinea adventure. Four of the chicks I bought were ‘sexed’, meaning that they were supposed to be all female. I bought two others that I told the lady I didn’t care if they were male or female because I did want one rooster. The keets came as straight-run, meaning they were (probably) 50-50 male/female.


Fast-forward 15 weeks.

My routine each day starts with a walk up to the road to let the birds out of their coops and then on to collect the newspaper. The dogs and cats usually make the trip with me. It’s not a long one in distance but time-wise it can take quite a while, depending upon what I find to slow my progress. I have paused on my route for sunrises, flowers, birds, turtles, and anything that sparkles on the path.

This morning started like most others. I let the chickens and guineas out of their coops and checked their food and water and then made my way up the driveway. Anna, our beloved Pyrenees, was ‘guarding’ the driveway from a depression in the grass, so I made my way over to pet her and say good morning, and the other dogs joined me, nuzzling her to say ‘hello’.

Then we heard it; a strange sound. Something I had never heard before. I paused, and the dogs did too. Waiting to see if the sound happened again. Yes, there it was. What was it? It was coming from the chicken yard. Could it be? But that’s not what it should sound like. And again – the sound. Yes, yes, yes!

Crowing!

I walked up to the yard and watched as one of my ‘guaranteed female’ hens was crowing. I have wondered about this particular chicken for a few weeks because it was much larger than the other hens and it’s comb and tail feathers were larger. I have read that if one has only hens that one of them will take on the role of the rooster, crowing and acting more rooster-like and giving up their egg-laying role. But I don’t think it alters their physical appearance and starts at this early age, and especially since they haven’t started laying eggs yet.

Crowlee

So, I do have my rooster. It’s not one that I expected, but I’ll take what I can get. As to the crowing, I think it’s one of the sweetest sounds I could ever hear.

What a way to start the morning!