growing curious

it begins...

 

chickens here, wow!

D and E brought our first chicks home last night.  There are 16:  4 buckeyes, 4 buff orpingtons, 4 black barred rocks, 4 australorps (these last are 3 weeks old instead of 1 week old).  D got them at Naomi's and was very happy with the interaction there (even though they were busy again).

I can tell the breeds apart, but I can't tell the chicks apart yet.  I hope that will come.

I had never held a bird before last night. 

Tomorrow, if it's warm enough, we might let the older australorps spend some time on the grass.  Take a look at this picture of E sprawled out on the grass  (I think she looks like an Easter egg):

 

I wonder if I'll let her do that once the chickens start ranging?

We are broker than broke, but I feel so blessed by the life, love, and potential right here at home.  Spring has sprung, man.  I have sap running all through my veins.  I want to plant every single happy, hopeful feeling I have so that I can grow more.

From now on, I'll probably post more about the chickens at Curious Farm.  They belong to the farm, not to me.  But I wanted you all to know that they're here, peeping away in the brooder just a few steps from my computer.

bourdain's noggin

I can't believe this post has been out in the universe for more than a month and I just read it tonight:  For Parents Only -- Anthony Bourdain's thoughts on children's television shows.  Brilliant.

father's day

This is the first father's day since my father's passing.  I'm feeling many things.

Tonight my mother asked me why my brother and I are so fucked up as to need therapists and medication, and I had to swallow my response three times in order to say something warm and supportive in response.

I was just reading this on Salon:  Feminism Meets Father's Day.  I think it's great.

Clark-Flory references this post by Clio Bluestocking, which is just truer-than-true and so smart:  Daddy Issues.  Read it.

once a bookseller...

...always a bookseller.

Hey, everyone, I still have it -- that amazing ability to find an obscure book when no title, author, or specific details about the book are known.

Did you know booksellers feel pride in finding that book?  You know... "that blue book about women... no...  I don't know the author or any more about the subject...  my friend just told me to get it..."

I got really good at this when I worked at a bookstore here in town before I went on to the publishing world.

D has been wistful about a book from his childhood -- certainly out-of-print -- about a boy who builds a fort in the middle of nowhere.  He couldn't tell me a lot about it.  He just treasured it because it was about a smart boy who figured out how to create what he wanted.

I found it at Powell's yesterday:  Andrew Henry's Meadow by Doris Burn.  It was published 40-something years ago by a NW author, and a Seattle-based press recently re-issued it after it had been out-of-print a long time.

Now, why did I pick up this book out of the thousands and thousands of books in the children's section at Powell's?  The cover shows a old-fashioned, black-and-white drawing of boy surveying the world around him from inside of a fort.  That is D.  That is what he still does.  He finds a safe vantage point -- usually someplace he's created by himself with care -- and observes the world around him.

I flipped through it and thought, "This is the book...  this is the book!"  I couldn't wait for D to get home yesterday.  I really wanted to have found the one he loved so much.

"Hey...  look over on the counter there...  see that book?"

"This is the book I've been talking about forever!  How did you find it?"

And then I got to see him share it with E. Oh frabjous day!

Melissa Leo on aging

Melissa Leo is nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in "Frozen River."  There is a fantastic interview with Leo by Melissa Silverstein on wowowow.com.  Must read!

Gems:

In response to question about having a career breakthrough at age 48:  "Aren't you just breaking through all of the time? ...I have no regrets for my slow, delicious career."

When Silverstein asks her about Hollywood's obsession with youth, Leo says, "I would do nothing to stop my aging. Aging is growing up. When we’re children they want us to grow up, and then we get grown up and they want us not to age."

 

a snowcave in portland

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We got a lot of snow here at 500 feet -- more than a foot, and then there were gnarley snow drifts.

D made a "plow" out of big broomheads that he attached to his tractor.  He used this to push the snow up into banks, and this snow cave happened in the bank of snow closest to our front door. 

D is a really, really great dad.

In case you can't see these photos, here is the blow-by-blow:

• picture #1: E entering the mouth of the snowcave.  (E is wearing a rainbow wool hat, purple vest and purple snow boots... she contrasts sharply with the snow.)

• picture #2:  E scraping away the sides of the cave with a garden tool.

• picture #3: E peeking out of a window at the back of the cave.

• picture #4:  she's made the window larger.

• picture #5:  she's made the window large enough so that you can see most of her smile.

• picture #6:  she's smoothing the walls of the cave on the way out.

• picture #7: leaving the cave.

anne lamott again, thank goddess

I love Anne Lamott.  This article seems particularly brave.  She calls on us to be fierce, at-the-ready, afraid -- but full-of-faith in the middle of our fierce fear.

Sarah Palin, Burning Man, Nixon, and wolves are mentioned.