What Would Jeeves Do?

Posted on April 30, 2014 by Keely

10th graders gave me ten good reasons we should go outside today.

We could get bedsores from sitting all day!
We need to get tan! (why do I care?) because you want us to have self confidence and feel beautiful!
We get vitamins from the sun!
Childhood obesity is a major problem, Ms, O.
God made this beautiful day (it’s actually cold and icky out, but whatever) for us to enjoy.

I forget their other reasons. They had just finished the End of Course Biology exam, so I said yes. While we were outside, I watched as they rolled a tractor tire around the schoolyard (yeah, we have those in our schoolyard). Eventually, they put one kid inside and boosted another on top and rolled it around while the kid inside clung to the edges and the kid on top walked as it rolled. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me to make them stop, but it didn’t (Bad Supervisor!). It was pretty impressive and pretty country.

During lunch, I heard the following kid joke

A: “Tell the one about the bison!”
W: “What did the buffalo say to his son when he left for college?”
Ms O: …
W: “Bison. Oh dang it A, you spoiled it!”

During 6th, a mystery that had been plaguing me all day resolved itself. I had arrived at school to find my normally grubby classroom spotless. Who or what could have wrought this miracle? C came in after lunch and immediately asked where I wanted to keep a stack of old binders. When I asked why he cared, he explained that he’d “tried to tidy up” for me while I was out yesterday and thought he’d “better finish the job.”
Since a girl who’s recovering from surgery has been spending 6th with us, C and I wound up helping her with her sonnet instead of tidying, but it was a really thoughtful gesture, and I think I’ll make him a thank you card. He’s really enthusiastic about the poetry unit they’re doing in 9th grade English. Maybe I’ll ask him if he’d let me post one of his poems.

I’m reviewing point-slope form through piecewise functions right now in Algebra 1 and it is AGONY. They look at me all wide-eyed like they’ve never been through anything so excruciating before. WE SPENT TWO WEEKS ON IT THIS FALL. I need to kick it into high gear to get them ready for the test, and I thought this week of applying a variety of skills to piecewise functions would do the job, but it seems to be doing more harm than good. I’m so frustrated and angry with my students, and that’s terrible for morale. So many of them come to me for extra help outside of class, but can’t focus during lessons or work time. I know that this is my fault for not building their self-sufficiency, but LORD IN HEAVEN they are airheads. AIRHEADS. end rant. I will meditate upon the Jeevesiest course of action and reimagine for tomorrow. I hate review.

On a more cheerful note, this is happening 100% of the time in our yard. Rubbadubdub three pigs in a tub. They have devised the best possible fattening system: sleep in your snacks! The little hoof sticking out of the tub is my favorite part of this photo.

Gotta Catch ’em All

Posted on April 27, 2014 by Keely

It’s now 10:37 and we’ve concluded our annual Spring Sunday Pig Chase.

dinner at 10:30 and a cranberry margarita, thank you very much.

dinner at 11:00 and a cranberry margarita, thank you very much.

We went to Memphis today to pick up groceries, feed and maybe a canoe. As we stepped out the door, dressed in our raincoats and dreading the deluge, our three little pigs greeted us cheerfully from the driveway.

Aw. Heck.

We chased them back into their pasture with the full understanding that they have completely lost their fear of the electric fence. We knew they’d get out again, but we had to go.

Memphis was nice. We didn’t get the canoe, but we got a sweet new grill, fencing for the gardens, lots of pig feed and some needed staples at Whole Foods (staples = bagels, chocolate, cranberry juice and baguettes). We hurried home so that we could unload the truck and get to Helena in time to watch Game of Thrones with some friends. When we got home, the pigs were gone. They were nowhere to be found, but they had left clues.

Pig damage in the garden. They must be stopped!

After searching for a while we came in and made some calls, cancelling our plans and asking friends for backup. While I was on the phone, we spotted the swine trotting through the yard. Sean and I cornered them in their house and managed to tackle Daisy.

The first one was easy. She brayed horribly in Sean’s arms, but his triumph was unquenched.

We stashed her in the chicken yard. About ten minutes later, we caught the next one. Sizzle bashed her head into the chicken gate when we herded her in, but she’s fine now. That left Levi, and Levi didn’t want to be caught. Ian showed up after a while, and the three of us chased her all over these hills. At one point, the boys had her cornered in a hollow tree (!) but she escaped them.

When it got dark, we lost track of her. All we had for light was Ian’s phone, and he needed to get home, so we nearly gave up. I knew I wouldn’t sleep well without knowing Levi was in her pen with her sisters, so we cruised down to our neighbor’s place to borrow a flashlight. While we were there, our car crapped out. No joke. Byron is a saint and (of course) he helped Sean fix it. All it needed was a little battery scraping.

Levi wasn’t in her old pasture. She wasn’t visiting her sisters. She wasn’t in the yard anywhere. We found her asleep in her hollow tree and Sean snagged her.

My sweetheart is the ultimate Porkemon Master: he caught ’em all.

Pig Problems and Other Stuff

Posted on April 25, 2014 by Keely

We had the worst night of sleep in intergalactic history this week. The first time we woke up that night, there was something screaming bloody murder out front. We thought it might be a pig, so we leaped out of bed. I threw on shoes, snatched the flashlight and sprinted down the driveway following the shrieking sound. The sound stopped, and I turned back, illuminating the porch where Sean stood half-dressed, barefoot, and loading a shotgun. I turned the light on the pigs and they looked at me with expressions of porcine consternation. They were piled like sausages in their little shelter, wondering why I’d disturbed their slumber. I guess the screaming was a rabbit or something in the claws or jaws of some predator. We went back to bed.

The second time we woke up, there was a quiet murmuring coming from the kitchen, a quiet, British-accented murmuring. I sat up. There shouldn’t have been anyone in my house aside from the snoozing Sean beside me, and there certainly shouldn’t have been anyone British in the house at all. I shook Sean awake, alarmed, and he coolly rolled out of bed to silence the clock radio in the kitchen.

Nights here are usually not peaceful. There are always owls and coyotes in the woods, and often an armadillo or two will trundle by under the bedroom window in the night, making as much noise as a lawnmower or a small marching band as it rustles through the dry leaves. Sometimes the rain will drive sideways through the open windows over our bed and soak us awake, or the lightning will rattle the windows. What we don’t usually get are human disturbances like the BBC world news.

It rained a lot yesterday. Sean has threatened to go all Army Corps of Engineers on the hill behind the house to create some kind of drainage system that doesn’t require an ark.

antediluvian back porch with Chunky the raccoon

Postdiluvian back porch. My shoe floated away.

The raccoon that has been raiding our back porch has friends and/or family accompanying him to the buffet now. We’re going to have to start keeping all of our feed in the house, which blows. The varmints are cute, though, and it’s cool to see them out there, fearlessly growing ever fatter on our dime. Tonight, we heard squealing out front and went to check on the pigs, only to discover a raccoon brawl in a treetop beside the house.

We’ve outfitted the front porch for relaxation time. It’s not perfect, but watching the storm from the couch last night was pretty exquisite. I love the smell that soaks up from the ground when it rains and the rumble that starts underground with each thunderclap, and climbs to rattle the windows. We’re warm and dry on the porch, but only just.

we donated this homestead basket to a friend’s silent auction

We’re facing some pretty serious challenges with our pigs right now. They seem to have no respect for the electric fence. We peeked outside about half an hour ago, and they were in the garden. They had dug up all of the corn that Sean planted this week, completely ignoring their new boundaries. They’re fearless when it comes to the fence, and we’ve got video of them hopping over it like fat little gazelles. It wasn’t an issue until Sean moved them this afternoon, but now it’s a front-burner concern. They’re loose right now, and we’re hoping they’ll independently decide to hop the fence back into their pasture. If they don’t, we’re kinda screwed. They’re too skittish to herd and not hungry enough to lure anywhere. I’m glad we don’t live near a major roadway or have any nearby neighbors with aggressive dogs, but I’m not thrilled at the idea of letting them have their way with our gardens.

pigs on the loose

pigs in the garden. Oh boy.

Update: Night is the best time to deal with unruly swine. They just want to sleep and they don’t see especially well. We were able to rebuild the fence around them while they huddled together in a pigpile. After a long week of teaching, building an electric fence in the dark is an excruciating exercise in patience. The wires tangle up in the shadows, your flashlight dies, your partner mutters threats under her breath and you can’t quite make out whether they’re directed at you or at the errant hogs. You slip in the mud and pig shit and discover new crimes (they’ve dug up the onions!) every few minutes. It’s awful. I don’t recommend it. Electronet, here we come.

I am so ready for some pulled pork sandwiches.

Hitch

Posted on April 21, 2014 by Keely

Hitch up yer dungarees! This weekend kicked some derriere and I’ve got some thoughts I’ve been thinking on and I’m ready to spill because I think I done thunk ’em out fully.

1) Hitchin’ up the team:

Meet Jesse and Chelsea. They’re living and working on Jesse’s family’s farm in Ohio.

We played board games and had real conversations and amazing food all weekend. Every time we end a visit with them, I’m left with a hole in my heart as the car rolls down the gravel road. We always talk about ways to bring our lives closer together, and someday we will. These folks are our family.

The farm just acquired two gorgeous Haflinger draft ponies, Molly and Polly, at an auction last weekend. They’re a trained team, and are to be used, among other things, for logging and to haul wagons and farm implements. It felt so good to smell like horse again. Jesse and Chelsea taught us the basics and let us each try driving the team. The girls know their stuff and they’re eager to work. They’re really magnificent, purposeful, powerful animals. My superior position felt fragile: It was a privilege to direct their strength, but I never felt like I had any ability to command them without their consent.

We were lucky enough to be present on the farm for Open Farm Day. I hung out with Molly and Polly and got them ready for the driving demonstration, but not before checking out the chinampa and the hugelkultur. I helped Chelsea put up signs, which meant I got something of a grand tour.

It's a living fence! You can see the willows starting to leaf out. It'll provide fencing for livestock, withies for basketry, food for critters, and wildlife habitat.

It’s a living fence! You can see the willows starting to leaf out. It’ll provide fencing for livestock, withes for basketry, food for critters, and wildlife habitat.

They raise a lot of sheep, and they’re ridiculously cute when they’re small.

This eggmobile is moved from place to place to give the chickens fresh grass. As it moves, it leaves a well-fertilized swath in its wake. There are also chicken tractors for the broilers, which are moved on the daily to keep the meat birds delicious.

In addition to all the cool stuff mentioned above, the farm practices management intensive grazing with their sheep and cows, presents farm-to-table dinners, and is hosting a permaculture course. I’m selling them short by trying to list it all. They rock.

Jesse told me a great story about a hawk that used to prey on the chickens that would graze in the pasture. When they started grazing the pigs and chickens together, the hawk killed a chicken, only to have his dinner stolen by the pigs! The hawk spent the rest of the summer sitting mournfully on his perch, gazing down at the fearless fowl below, knowing they were unattainable thanks to the pigs.

The kind of farming that our friends practice is something that I aspire to emulate in every aspect of my life. They solve problems creatively and seek to build streamlined, efficient systems that are sustainable and productive. The farm is beautiful and it does important work. It allows the people who live and work there and the patrons who support the business to live ethically. It educates people about the significance of food in the economy and the environment.

On Saturday night, we had a picnic dinner and a fire in a hilltop pasture. The view was stunning, the food delicious, and the conversation candid. We are all at this amazing point in our lives where we have these enormous choices to make, and the imminent decisions can either be crushing in their significance or can make you feel free.

2) Gettin’ hitched:

A ton of our friends are getting engaged these days. Sean and I have been together for almost six years, we are the dream team, and we choose each other every day, gladly. Marriage seems like an obvious choice for us, but we’re not getting married, at least not for a while. There is no compelling reason for us to get married: We don’t believe that our lifestyle is sinful (apparently some people do?!), and, though we want to have kids someday, we don’t think marriage necessarily has to come first. There is, however, something that compels us to not get married: we can’t buy into an institution that excludes people that we love. Love and partnership aren’t limited to one man and one woman, and marriage shouldn’t be either. Until it’s an option for all of our friends, in any state, we refuse to take advantage of our privilege. For Sean and Keely, the personal is pretty much always political. That said, I’m super stoked for some beautiful weddings.

3) Bonus

highlights from my conversation about the farm photos with C:

Ms O: “they have a wire bottom on their chicken house, which is on wheels, so the chicken poop falls on the ground and fertilizes the grass, and they move it so they can fertilize all over the place”
C: “That’s awesome!”
(this is markedly more enthusiasm than I expected)

C: “Are those solar panels? Way cool.”

C: “when they were logging my woods, the tractors ripped that place up. Probably, if you were doing it with horses, you’d do way less damage. That’s what my grandpa did. He had mules and stuff when he first got here. That seems like a pretty good way of doing things.”

Hard Work

Posted on April 16, 2014 by Keely

On Saturday, Sean and I got up and started working at 8 am. We didn’t quit until 4, unless you count a break for lunch and to entertain some guests. We cleaned out the chicken house (think Augean stables) and set up the little chicken family in their new digs.

This wire cage is partitioned, so the chicks can move freely between the halves but the big chickens can't. The idea was that Freckles could come and go through the open top, but the chicks would have half the cage to themselves so that they could be safe from the big birds. Unfortunately, Freckles shoved her big chicken self through the tiny doorway, so now it's just kind of a tiny cage for the silly bird.

This wire cage is partitioned, so the chicks can move freely between the halves (chick food and water go in the covered half) but the big chickens can’t. The idea was that Freckles could come and go through the open top, but the chicks would have half the cage to themselves so that they could be safe from the big birds. Unfortunately, Freckles shoved her big chicken self through the tiny doorway, so now it’s just kind of a tiny cage for the silly bird.

We built trellises for the peas, started planting a flowers and forage project in the chicken yard, tilled and weedwhacked around the upper garden, washed, dried and folded two loads of laundry, and planted salad. We’re just sitting here now, trying to study up what we can do now to show the world that we ain’t afraid of hard work.

Sean made a pork sirloin roast for lunch. It’s from the pig’s lower back, just above the hams.

I don’t know how that man does it, but I will never let him go. With the pork we had our first garden salad of the year and some sweet potato fries with sriracha mayo. We ate on the porch, enjoying the breeze and the quiet, drinking in cool water and the pleasant, quiet shade.

check out the cool garden to-do board Sean hung for us!

Days like Saturday, I wouldn’t trade this for anything. Sweat was beading on the sunscreen behind my ears and the plane just above the unscratchable spot on my back was sunburning anyway. I’d been working since I woke up and could have worked until I dropped and not finished everything, but I was splitting my dimples all day.

We left home around four to head to the Juke Joint festival in Clarksdale, Mississippi. I loved it last year and I loved it this year. There aren’t a lot of events that celebrate Delta culture and heritage, so Juke Joint is special. The way Clarksdale lights up one night out of the year reminds me of the Magic Toy Shop pop up book I had when I was a kid. There’s a lot more beer, crawfish and guitar at Juke Joint, but the mood is the same. ‘Nuff said.

In a total change of scenery, on Sunday, we went to the Orpheum to see Ballet Memphis’ Peter Pan. The Orpheum is a beautiful old theater in Memphis; it’s all chandeliers and gold and silver paint. The show was magical. The ballet and the flying were seamless, and the fantastical, dreamlike mood of ballet suited the story perfectly. I’m still working on understanding the language of dance; a dance party will go on for a while and I’ll lose the plot, fail to understand what the dancers are saying with their movements. I’ll get there, or maybe I won’t, but I’m trying.

On the way home, there was an emergency weather alert on the radio. It’s that tordado-ey time of year again. Sean asked “do you think they make these announcements crackly and use that creepy automatic voice to give these announcements a scary, doomsday kind of quality?” I’ve never heard them that way at all. I grew up thinking that the robot voice was a guy named Noah. When I hear weather radio, I just assume I’m on a boat adventure and that Dad is there, looking out for me. I might be about to get wet, but I feel safe and exhilarated and salty. Thanks for bringing me up on boats, Mom and Dad.