Beach Last Week

I woke up one day last week and said we had to get out of the heat! It had been over a hundred for a while, so off to the beach for day we went...What an awesome day!

Greening my family

In my previous post I explained the new family that will living in my house. Let me first start out by saying that I am the green tree hugger of the family. When I announced in January that I would not be buying anything except veggies from the farmer's market they all asked if I needed money. This is very sweet of them and I love them for looking out for me, however, they don't always get what I am about.

In fact, I recently took my parents to the local farmer's market (where I bought the veggies for the week), and as we were leaving my dad said, "I just don't get it. Why would you pay more money to get things here instead of just going to the grocery store?"

I replied with all the reasons such as locally grown, supporting local farmers, less fossil fuels, it tastes better...

"I still don't get it." he said.

My father is a wonderful man who usually humors me with all sorts of passions, however food is just not his thing. And after all, money is money.

I have also had the heater off for the past two months. Living in the central valley of California is not as bad say as Minnesota. It does freeze at night, but for the most part the daytime temps are in the 50s-60s. This past week has been amazingly beautiful - 60-70 degrees, sunny and makes me want to dig in the dirt. Coming in from digging in the dirt the other day, I was hit by a heat blast and I could hear the heater running. My mom casually said, "did you know your heater was off? It was 58 degrees in here!"

"Yes, I know." was my reply. I was very proud of myself for not starting a fight that would have just hurt her feelings. She is trying to take care of me and my kids. I did however turn down the thermostat as I walked by...

Does anyone have any tips for handling sticky family situations that involve trying to green your life?

Craziness

I haven't posted in a while because my life sort of exploded over the past few weeks! Not only am I going crazy finishing my masters, presenting my thesis, trying to get my garden ready to plant and the baby chicks living in my laundry room, but there have been some health concerns in my family.

I personally went through a breast cancer scare several weeks ago. Let me tell ya' - biopsies are no fun! My tumor turned out to be benign. However, my sister also decided to get tested and her results came back malignant and it has metastasized. Obviously, this means that she will having radical surgery and chemo. She is also a single mother and we have decided that the best thing overall will be for her and her kids to move in with me and my kids. (My house isn't very large.) Additionally, my mother has decided that for the foreseeable future, she will coming and staying with us Monday-Thursday to help with kids, cleaning, laundry...

If anybody has any suggestions on how to stay sane through this trying time, please feel free to let me know! As a side note, I am finishing my masters for my therapy degree - in other words I am a Family therapist. This doesn't help much when the painful family dynamics are happening in your own family!

The beginning...

Cyberspace, community, journaling, staying in touch with the ones you love...these are just some of the reasons that I have succumbed to posting my very own blog. I never quite understood blogging until recently. And strangely what started my fascination - was chickens. If you are scratching your head, I am not really surprised. You see, I have always been a sort of hippie, bohemian rebel - sometimes intentionally, but most of the time just by accident. However at this stage in my life I have consciously decided that I would like to live more intentionally, environmentally friendly, eat healthier and introduce my children to the roots of their food and simple pleasures in life. Now enter the chickens.

First of all, I am a Master Gardener. That is just a fancy word that I took some classes and volunteer (or try to volunteer) to teach people about gardening, water conservation, pest management, you get the idea. At one of the community seminars, another Master Gardener talked about her backyard chickens. They are a natural pest control - they eat your bugs! (I don't spray, so this is really good news to me!) They provide fresh eggs. And, if socialized, they are pets. Wow, where to sign up? I grew up on a very small farm with chickens, among other animals, but I had no idea that chickens could be so useful, except for meat of course...

Second, let me explain that I live in the city. I live in suburbia where my neighbors open their garage doors, drive in and you never see them. I have lived here for 5 years and have met three families. (I'm sure I will complain more about suburbia later.) So, my chicken endeavors are not exactly legal. However, I asked all 3 families that I do know (one on each side and the guy across the street) if they would have a problem if I kept a few chickens, no roosters of course, and they could benefit from the extra eggs. Permission granted, I began to research the types of chickens I wanted to get.

Because I have 2 small boys (4 and 6) I wanted to have some fun. I wanted chickens that would make good pets, be good layers and look good too. This is where I started reading blogs. Two of the most useful sites I have found http://www.backyardchicken.com/ and http://www.the-coop.org/ were wonderful in giving all the information I needed to get started and connected me with other chicken lovers. So off to my local feed store. After several attempts (I will write about this later, because a Pomeranian breaking into the new coop is actually a very funny story) I currently have 4 hens. (I bought a total of 12 pullets, 6 succumbed to the Pomeranian, 2 ended up being roosters, 1 had a severe run in with a new toy poodle, so my mom felt sorry for me and gave me one of her laying hens to add to my three that still aren't laying.)

All of this is to say that I have found some blogs that I really enjoy reading. My particular favorite is Ninja Poodles at http://ninjapoodles.blogspot.com/. This has led me to realize that, I am terrible at creating scrapbooks considering all of my kids baby stuff and pictures are in one big box in the closet, and this would be a wonderful way of journaling and scrapbooking not only for my children but for my family and friends. I read some wonderful articles this week about the Amish and how they decide to use technology based on whether it hinders or creates community. I am terrible at staying in touch with my friends and to some extent my family. I try not to blame it on my life, because these are all my choices, but I reasoned that a blog would help me stay in touch, keep up and create community.

Max after swimming

Ryan after swimming