Continuing the California in decline theme...

This is the piece Steve did for the LA Times book review this weekend. Don't think the link will take you to the right place after a week, however...

edited to change the link to this, which is just a thumbnail of the piece. Fame is even more fleeting in cyberspace than in print, sadly!

Color photos from 1939-1944

Found a reference to this huge Flickr collection today (imagine, the Library of Congress is now on Flickr!) I find it utterly fascinating to see color photos from this era. I love the carny/fair shots and I found the sharecropper photos particularly poignant.

Today's high? 21 degrees.... Celsius!

How balmy to hit 70 in January! I'm starting to warm up to this whole climate change thing....

Yesterday was nearly as gorgeous, we watched the inauguration then took off for the raptor rehabilitation center for a hike along the poudre river and a visit to some disabled birds of prey, including a huge bald eagle, golden eagle and great horned owl. In the afternoon, I bought 27 bags of steer manure for some garden bed building today. Of course, whatever I want to get done, I need to finish it by tomorrow, as the weather is expected to turn tomorrow night.

Steve and I have had a prosperous week, which is nice for a change. Steve last did two pieces of freelance art for the LA Times over Thanksgiving, and with exquisitely bad timing, he submitted his invoices in that narrow window just before the company declared bankruptcy. His unpaid invoice is now part of the bankruptcy proceedings and who knows when or if we'll ever see the full amount.

A week after the filing, the company was okayed to continue payments for future work and Steve got two assignments last week, which he just finished. Whilst I got my first writing assignment in 4 1/2 years from the LA Daily News, where my good friend and former colleague is now the editorial page editor. She was putting together a package on this current out-migration from California, and wanted a first-person piece. I thoroughly enjoyed writing it for her and you can read it here. Doesn't pay much, $150, and that is if I can get payment before something drastic happens at the Daily News, a distinct possibility these days. Still and all, a fun return to writing, and I may do more in the future.

Home-ground wheat -- with aspirations for home-grown...

We bought a grain mill last month and finally got it up and running this week. The pancakes and muffins we made with the first batch of wheat were deliciously nutty. I'd read that fresh ground wheat tastes worlds better than the store bought stuff, and wheat berries last for decades when stored securely, while whole wheat flour can go rancid fairly quickly.

I'm trying a batch of the no-knead bread with it right now, though I'm not sure how it will do, as our wheat is whole grain and I haven't tried this recipe out on straight whole wheat flour before. I'll report the results tomorrow morning. Here's Maddie and Steve doing some grinding....





Other recent events include a warm spell that got my gardening urge flowing again, so we started on another sheet-composted bed, down on the main lawn. The chickens, ever hopeful that there might be worms, were quite the hindrance while I was shoveling, but they spread things out nicely once I was done. We'll plant corn, beans and squash on this patch, but I might try another sheet composting on part of the lawn to grow some winter wheat in the late summer or fall, I'll have to read up on how to grow wheat. Threshing might be a fun adventure.











We tossed another layer of dirt onto the bed that was built in October with the Grow Food Not Lawns workshop, and watered everything in hopes of keeping some composting action going as we wait for spring. I'm going to tunnel-cover at least the October bed to get a head-start on spring crops.





We also enjoyed a visit from Grandma Judith and Aunt Joanne, who rode the train from Iowa to stay for a long weekend. They toured the Budweiser plant just down the road from us, learned to place a dice game called Farkle that we learned over Christmas from Aunt Cindi, and spurred Maddie to new knitting heights, which she blogs about here.

Chicken Disaster Averted! Harry Saves the Day!

Yesterday, we had a close call at S & S Homestead, but thanks to the sharp eyes and quick wit of Harry, all is well. It was midafternoon, very cold and the playground was deserted. I was fixing Harry a snack in the kitchen and he was standing at the sliding glass door when he cried out, "Mom, there's a fox in the yard!"

I ran onto the porch in my stocking feet, brandishing a paring knife, and I bravely shouted "Git!" The fox promptly turned tail and leapt lightly back over our back fence and into the school yard. I ran around the yard looking for signs of chicken carnage, not knowing how long the fox had been in the yard (it turns out Harry had watched it jump in) and not finding them in the coop, I feared the worst. I called and ran around and one by one they sauntered out from the far side of the garage, wondering why I was making such a racket. One, two, three four. Phew!

I locked them in their run and ran back upstairs to change socks and thaw my toes. I was surprisingly shaken by the worry that the girls had been gotten.

Maddie looked up information on the red fox, its diet and its home range, and we determined that the fox in our yard was mostly likely the same fox we've seen several places in our neighborhood and several times on the canal path. As they're omnivores and need about a pound of protein a day, and we're now in deep winter, we decided to put some dog food out for it, sprinkling it in the grasses along the canal in hopes that a hungry fox will be diligent about hunting out the kibbles, but a well-fed dog on a walk won't work that hard to steal it first.

With any luck, we can keep it from getting so desperate that it goes after the chickens again, or, heaven forbid, Sunny.

Feeling grateful, yet guilty...

I've kept an eye on Murrieta's housing market over the past year, since we left, with an increasing sense of having just avoided a major train wreck, combined with a growing feeling of guilt about selling our house to someone who is now stuck with a 50 percent loss.

Thanks to all of the foreclosures that continue to flood the SoCal market, and especially the Inland Empire, as our corner of SoCal was known, our house is now worth approximately what we paid for it in 2001. I'm stunned that six years and a half years of appreciation could have evaporated that quickly, and from what I'm reading, it's not over yet.

I just ran across this article today, on GQs website, about the city just to the north of Murrieta, which it describes as ground zero of the foreclosure crisis.

I'm so glad we got out and yet I feel badly for our buyer....

Happy Yule, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year!

What a strange, strange fall it's been. I confess that I haven't been posting these last two months because I have been spending my on-line time trying to understand what has been happening to the economy, and as I've begun to grok it, I haven't known how to write about the ordinary details of life without feeling like I'm ignoring the looming tsunami.

Trying to find the balance between understanding how things are changing and preparing oneself as best one can, while maintaining a sense of hope and gratitude for all that is well in this very moment, has been a challenge for me. I toggle back and forth between astonishment at the dramatic developments of the fall and the direction that those folks who accurately predicted this crisis six or eight years ago say we are likely to head next, and the attendant anxiety that accompanies thinking about such deep changes. I remind myself of the Buddhist insight that all this thinking and planning and worrying is truly just a story, the waking dream, and that in this moment, I have exactly what I need, joyfully enough.

So, with such crazy, careening thoughts and planning, can you blame me for not posting more and would you have wanted to read what I was thinking about anyway? (If you would have wanted to read it, I recommend the writings of Chris Martenson, Sharon Astyk, and John Michael Greer , though there's a whole blogosphere of writers out there, some that are really "out there" and some quite fascinating and compelling voices.)

On the home front, we are all well and thriving, and how wonderful is that!

Maddie is nearly 10 and I feel like I'm watching the early stages of her metamorphosis from child to adult -- she still plays freely, creatively and entirely in her imagination with her brother, spinning long and elaborate interactions between characters that they create, but she is also increasingly interested in becoming productive, in testing and expanding her abilities and competencies. We have set up an Etsy.com site for her art, and I'm sure she'll post about it once she's gotten her online store up and running.

Harry is a storyteller as well, and when he's not dialoging with Maddie in their long-running creations, he is telling his own stories, to himself and sometimes to us or other adults he knows and loves. Building, creating and battling are common themes in his play.

The kids continue their evolution into reading -- Maddie is a very fluent reader and Harry has quietly made the leap to early reading as well. Like Maddie, he was very quiet about his evolving skills, a trait I've always been fascinated by, as a primed-by-schooling-to-seek-outside-approval-and-validation sort of person. (Please, leave me positive comments on my blog so I can feel good about myself, okay?)

As I continue my exploration of mathematics and learning that I wrote about earlier this fall I am inspired by the ideas and activities presented by Pam Sorooshian and Sandra Dodd.

I find that even as I try to bring all sorts of new activities and games into our lives to explore particular skill sets, the kids are often quite thoroughly engrossed in their own skill building experiences, thank you very much -- from blogging to communicating with other kids in an online Legobuilding world to participating in the economy of the online World of Warcraft (We have a character for whom the kids would like to aquire an epic flying mount. But at a price of 5,000 gold, the kids are having to do a lot of farming for resources and selling them in the on-line auction house to other players, which involves determining low and average selling prices and pricing bundled resources at a proper per-item price.)

And just now, Steve and Maddie walked in the door with the three newest members of our household, two Auracana chicks and another Buff Orpington chick. We love our four girls, but we find that between the baking and the breakfasts, we're not self-sufficient on eggs yet. So our flock has increased to seven, and these three girls should start laying sometime in May. I imagine Maddie will post about them shortly, with photos from her new camera.

On the homefront, it's been pretty darned cold the last few weeks. I've been investigating and moving forward on various energy efficiencies. We've got plans to replace some of our old aluminum frame windows and sliders, I've bought insulating shades for some windows, we'll hang more curtains and I'm going to order a wood-burning stove (the local supplier is backordered through February, thanks to a steel shortage, apparently).

I've been pondering my lessons learned in the garden this year and am planning next year's changes and expansions. We're going to shift fencing to keep chickens out of the greens beds and we're planning to sheet compost and add a Three Sisters planting (I love Toby Hemenway's book, Gaia's Garden) to our backyard. I'm going to start earlier with row covers and hope to get a crop of melons and peppers this year. My grander ambitions include a glass and wood cold frame or two (the sheet plastic ones have been official blown to pieces by our periodic prairie winds) and a full-blown greenhouse, either attached to the south side of our house, or freestanding in the backyard with a northwall made of strawbale or cob construction (Maddie's been very interested in cob construction, so even if we don't do a greenhouse, Steve plans to do a backyard oven of cob this summer.)

And my secret, really crazy ambition is to get a dwarf dairy goat and make my own dairy products. I've found someone who'd like to board it at her mini-farm, though I'm contemplating at least part-time residency here. This may all wait a year or two to see if code enforcement officers go by the wayside as the economy gets worse, and to give our gardens and chickens time to produce enough to share with our closest neighbors.

The front yard will get more edible perennials -- a bed of blueberries, some hazlenut bushes, another asian pear, and the currants, gooseberry and service berries that are overwintering in our garage from a too-zealous plant-buying spree on my part this fall.

I don't know how self-sufficient we can really become on a quarter-acre in a cold winter climate, but I'm excited to explore the possibilities. I'm particularly inspired by the urban-homesteaders who have this blog.

We've had a wonderful month or so of visits to and from family and friends. Thanksgiving we spent at my folks where we got to reconnect with my Aunt Toby, Uncle David, and cousins Stacey, Siobhan and Eric.

Then in December, our inspiring friends, Karen, John, Saylor, Stone and Sage came for a visit as they started a grand adventure as a family on the road. As always, they both inspire me to be a calmer, kinder, more empowering parent, and that wonderful effect last for months after their visits (thank you and I know the kids thank you too!)

Lastly and wonderfully, we had a warm, fun and delightful Christmas week visiting with my folks and my sister and her family, down Boulder way.

Now, it's time to clean up the mess and remove a few carloads of stuff from the house to make up for the carloads that came in with the holiday. Oh, and feed the chicks. And keep the chickens warm (Steve built a great new run for them on the south end of the deck where they get sun but are protected somewhat from the winds and get some of the radiated warmth from the house as well). And walk the dog (before it gets cold again). And change the rat cage. And explain to the kids why a kitten is currently out of the question.