Jayzus it's hot!

Wow... as I type it's 100°F and climbing and the forecast is even hotter tomorrow... My home office feels more like a place to bake cookies than make photos. The chickens are miserable, standing around under the deck panting. I gave them some ice water and some frozen blueberries, but they still look very unhappy. And poor Delilah is molting... although, losing some feathers in this weather doesn't sound so bad. Chickens are notoriously grumpy when they are molting, and she's gone from the friendliest to down right mean. I tell her it will be over soon, but she looks at me incredulously, then tries to take a piece out of my hand. Poor girl.
I'm sure the tomatoes and peppers are enjoying this, though. The rest of us will just have to lay low [like in the basement...] and wait it out. And probably watch a lot of movies.

Back to the Front Page

Thanks to some prodding from friends, we're back to blog more regularly. Aw - you guys are great. So there should be a few posts appearing more often than the usual "every blue moon." In this post, I'll catch you up on whats been news lately.

If you've not heard the old news, flip back and read about our trip through Patagonia, which wrapped up in January. Since then, I've switched jobs - haha, yet again. I decided to recognize that tougher times are just around the corner and picked up a full-time position at an old client. They're a good shop and have their eye on the long-term, instead of what seemed like very short-term thinking in some other places I've seen. Plus, the people are wonderful.

On the home front, we're still fuzting around with our bathroom remodel - slowly picking through the final pieces and putting them together now and again. We've definitely fallen into the "long tail" finish of this project. There's around 5 things left, its all going well though. We use everything in the room and it all works great.

We overhauled the "back 40" on our lot and tilled the yard up, spread compost everywhere and planted a mix of grass and wildflowers. It's been a cool, wet Spring so the sprouts are slowly coming along, but there's a peach-fuzz of green across the yard.

The chickens have been moved to the side yard. They don't like this area as much since their view is obscured and their sunlight is more limited. However, it gives the back yard time to revitalize and allows us to set up the garden without worrying about their scratching and pecking at all the sprouts.

I'm learning to bake bread! We don't have a bread mixer or a bread machine, so I'm perfecting the use of the food processor (the "chopper") for some initial mixing. I'm quite impatient so the "rising" portion of the making sometimes gets cut short. I still don't know what a second rise is all about, so I skip it. The first loaf was horrendously bad, as I didn't understand the purpose of gluten. (Imagine an all-gluten loaf of gum) The second loaf was better, but it was a little dense, as my yeast poured right through the chopper's center hole (note to self: turn machine on).

Han has been out in the nicer Spring days on paid shooting gigs. She's also picked up a very fun assistant position as a web designer for a sustainability blog. She's quite busy when those schedules converge, and the post-processing is a big job.

The bikes have been tuned up for Spring. I performed my first "brake job" on the mountain bike the other day - it was tricky but when finished, the lines have no bubbles and I could flip over the handlebars as easily as my first day. I rode to the new job yesterday and it was one of the most magical, wonderful routes I've ever enjoyed on the way to work. It's close to 15 miles each way, with a few steep hills, so the evening was a hot bath in the gigantic tub.

Hanmi set out the sprouts and our first round of garden plants are just about ready to go in the ground. She also prepped the plot and sowed seeds directly last weekend. I'm very excited. After a break last year from tomatoes and similar plants (peppers) - we're back with a full-range of vegetables: Potatoes, Cucumbers, Peppers, Tomatoes, Strawberries, Blueberries, Swiss Chard, Cilantro, Basil, Oregano, Sage, Spinach, Snow Peas, and 2 different kinds of Beans. The lots of Carrots and Brussel Sprouts, Mustard Greens, Kale, Lettuce, Chives, Onions, Garlic and other stuff are all around the house in planters. We also have a fig tree and a persimmon tree we planted last winter that will hopefully bear fruit this year. Should be interesting!

The eggs are arriving steadily, about 3 a day. We have given a lot away lately, which feels good. We received a cute Thank You note from a small child (and family) that walked by to "visit" the chickens, since they are now visible in the front yard. The chickens are quite friendly, almost to to point of being nagging in their quest for food, sunlight and attention. Riding on shoulders is a common sight when we're in the yard. We let them out to clean the front yard of slugs now and then. It's a fun, carefree feeling to relax with chickens napping on your legs on a lounge chair on the porch.

We are harvesting rain! The first 2 rain barrels are in place and full already. I'm slowly adding delivery pieces to the output side of the system. Our barrels are "nonstandard" in their storage, so that I could fit them under the back deck. But after a few tests everything seemed to work out. I'm very happy with it. We'll have the garden on a pH-balanced and filtered water system, run off a battery timer, flowing every morning for an hour or so. It's drip irrigation so there's not a lot of waste. The pressure from the gravity feed, with 110 gallons about 2 feet about ground seems fine.

We've played a lot with the numbers and the space we could devote to this concept. We have room for 6 more barrels for a total of ~400 gallons (about 3200 pounds!). I've been imagining some neat uses for all the water in later phases (toilet, basement sink, bird feeder, etc). For now, I've been advised to finish some older projects first. Wise, those unnamed advisers.

Two eggs in one!

That giant egg we got last week did indeed turn out to be a double yolker!

Giant egg!!

I'm not 100% sure who laid this monster, but it's nearly twice the size of the eggs I collected yesterday!! It's either Foxy or Delilah--I'm tending to think Foxy. Not only is it the largest egg any of our hens have laid, it's the biggest [chicken] egg I've ever seen! I wonder if it has a double yolk?

Thrrrrreeee! Thhhreeeeee eggs! Ah ah ah ahhh!

Much to my delight, in the time it took me to write the last post, Delilah, Foxy, and Francine all took turns and left a neat little pile of 3 eggs in the nest box for me! Delilah's was huge for a first, and it's clear that she had a bit of a painful struggle, as well... but all are well and happily feasting on some cottage cheese to celebrate. That means Betty is next, and I'm sticking to my prediction that we'll be getting 4 eggs a day before the end of the week.

Cooper, Cooper, Party Pooper!

Well, our little friend has returned several times, now. We've got a positive ID--it is a Cooper's Hawk. Not surprisingly, this is one of several breeds known as a Chicken Hawk... This biggest bummer about the visits is not being able to let the chickens roam freely. Now we must supervise their yard time, and learn to speak [or at least understand] "bird"... On 3 occasions I have observed distinct behavior and vocalization changes in all the other birds, and as such shuttled the girls into their pen... within minutes the hawk has appeared, but always too late. "Cooper", as we've been calling him/her, is also a juvenile, and apparently their first autumn on their own is when they are the hungriest. But there is NO way I'm letting him near my girls. We've got many ideas on hawk-proofing the yard so they can get out more, but with everything else going on right now, it' going to have to wait, unfortunately.

In related news, Foxy Brown started laying eggs a couple weeks ago, prompting me to take a day out of the bathroom remodeling to build an addition to the chicken coop. Now we have two nest boxes, and in fact, Delilah is sitting in it right now, quite possibly laying her first egg...

This is a photo of Foxy's first... it's pretty darn big for a first egg... definitely bigger than Francine's first.

So now I must go check the nestbox... if Delilah has laid an egg, there will be another post soon! :)

Chicken Visitor

Well, it was bound to happen. Counting our block and the one adjacent, we have 4 chicken coops and a total of close to 20 chickens. With all that squawking and strutting about, we were destined to catch the attention of some others.

Yesterday, our visitor swooped low over the yard, sending the girls into a wing-flapping and crowing tizzy. There was the one hiding and another three bumping into one another trying to decide which way to go. Meanwhile, Han went out back and snapped this picture of the tree above our yard:


Cooper's Hawk, the common North American 'Chicken Hawk'

Han shuffled the girls into the coop and shut door. After a short time, she lost sight of the hawk. Today the chickens are just going to have to stay in the run/coop until we think of a way to give them more room without open access to the sky. Bring a little nature into your home and you're bound to get more than you anticipated. However scary for the girls, it is exciting to see wildlife like this inside the city.

Egg #1

Number 1

Jim sent this to my cell phone while I was shooting in Seattle. How cute is that? :)

We have EGGS!

Still busy with a recent photoshoot, but wanted to announce that the eggs have started arriving! And with this news comes confirmation that Francine is definitely a hen. She is our first layer and has already supplied us with 3 [#1 came on Sunday morning] delicious, albeit small eggs. The shells are light brown and the yolks are a deep orange-yellow. And man, are they tasty!! Yay Francine!!

My, what a busy summer!

It's officially fall here in Portland. The chickens are pretty much full grown, [we'll be looking for eggs in the next month or so], the pumpkins have been harvested, the last of the tomatoes are slowly ripening, the bathroom has been gutted and the remodel is in full swing, we've renewed our climbing gym memberships, the fenders are back on the bikes, we've been eating figs off neighborhood trees and checking the fallen chestnuts for little treasures.

Jim has been working very hard and very long hours over the summer, so our adventuring has been minimal. Instead we've put a lot of energy into projects in and around the house: a new roof for the deck, gardening, and the bathroom remodel. The demolition began 3 weeks ago, and the skylight is being put in as I write. The framing of the new lofted ceiling/walls has begun and almost all of the components and fixtures have been ordered. Where we could we've bartered with friends to keep costs down and keep the money "in the family". We're going as green as possible--to the point that it hurts at times! It's been a lot more work to research and specify truly green products, but it is worth it. In most cases we're actually saving money over the conventional route. We're doing our best to keep it local, too. I'll do another post later with all the details and final specs and, of course, photos. Today I just wanted to post a quick update to let you know all is well.

I've been getting several requests for portrait work, and in fact have one this weekend in Seattle with my friend Lisa. Once the remodel is done, I'll be able to focus on building a business. But for now I've dusted off my design hat and busted out my tape measure and clipboard and play Designer/General Contractor most days and evenings. It's actually been pretty fun, and in spite of all the dust and inconvenience of taking our only bathroom to the studs, it hasn't presented too much hardship. We still have a working toilet and tub, but eventually everything will need to come out to do the floors, which is when I expect we'll have a couple of rough days. But our neighbors have offered to let us use their bathrooms and we can shower at the climbing gym, so it shouldn't be too bad.

Now I'm off to order lights, call the plumber, and go to Pro Photo Supply...

More Chicks!

The girls are growing like crazy! These were taken last Friday and they're already noticeably bigger. Francine and Delilah pretty much look like full grown Bantams... But since they are standard size chickens, they'll get even bigger! Enjoy!