Productive with little proof

Today was one of those days where I did a lot! There's just not much to show for it. For example, I spent the morning finishing Tim's double knit thick, fleece lined, hand spun wool hat and took it and a bag of other items to the post office to be packaged up and sent to Naknek, Alaska before his boat goes in the water on the 12th or 14th (never put a fishing boat in the water on Friday the 13th!). 

Once all that was done, I hauled the hose back up from the compost pile to the upper garden, finding I can wrap it around my whole lower parking area and still reach. The new seeds wont be up for at least another week, but our mulch pile has turned into a potato pile with green tops sticking up everywhere! Also the tomatoes are trucking along. I really need to get the starts out of the greenhouse and into the garden, though I'm running out of space up there.

While grandpa watered, I filled a wheelbarrow with weeds for the chickens, then collected a second wheelbarrow from my horribly neglected garden in the middle of our driveway turn around. Under all those horsetails, there is giant cilantro and miniature carrots that got pulled up with the horsetails. Also, the lettuce looks great in there, though tastes a bit bitter like dandelions.

I can stand in one spot and fill the wheelbarrow without making a significant impact. I have to tell myself I am collecting chicken food and not trying to save the garden or it would be hopelessly overwhelming. Perhaps if I collect several wheelbarrows of weeds every day for the chickens, we will someday be at a manageable level of weeds. My weeding was to feed the chickens, but also to stall myself waiting for sunset. Once the sun starts going down, the chickens become calm, docile, and sleepy which makes for the perfect time to mess with them (Tilly can confirm we like to take advantage of our sleepy pets). My other big accomplishment of the day besides knitting a had and relocating a hose was re-branding all the chicks!

Their blue baby leg bands were getting rather snug, so I methodically went through all the chicks and removed them, replacing all but four with the grown-up and official large yellow leg bands. The two marans that I want to keep - a rooster and hen, have feathered legs which seems uncomfortable with that leg band rubbing so I liberated them now while they are young and easy. I'm thinking if they are to be my breeding pair to populate the hen house with endless baby chicks and chocolatey brown eggs, perhaps they should have proper names: Henry and Henrietta? Hansel and Gretel? Bonny and Clyde? Andy and Annie? Barbi and Ken? Lucy and Ricky? Fred and Wilma? Barney and Betty? Popeye and Olive? Adam and Eve? Kermit and Mrs. Chicky? We need some votes. And since Tim isn't here...

So anyways, Mr. and Mrs. Chicken are infinitely identifiable with or without their leg bands as being particularly beautiful and feathery legged. The other two that have escaped the yellow badges of honor are "Little Chicken" who has such delicate and graceful features, that even when she is bigger than some of the others, her feet still slip right through the bands; and "Hospital Chicken" who is still rather small, but again, one of two "buff" colored chickens and one of two "lavender" colored chickens - these two also stand out in the crowd. It's mostly all the chickens who are shades of grey or "blue" who need the identifying, and to distinguish which of the white chickens is friendly ("Russia") and which one is the most skiddish thing ever ("Ukraine" - named for their baby markings and not their personalities).

So this is gross. One cocoon is really cool; watching the little caterpillar wrap itself up in a tiny home only to emerge much later as a moth - pretty amazing stuff. But coating every bit of green, brown, grey, black, red, blue, yellow, orange, purple, or white around... It's a bit much. Here they are taking advantage of the little spaces in the gate, and lining the trim around the barn...

And covering the undersides of the railings. I saw someones mailbox that was nearly inaccessible due to the little white clumps filling it. Hopefully the birds like the moths better than they liked the caterpillars.

And this little guy loves to gobble up the moths! My next Crafts On Whidbey class is going to be Felted Critters and Characters: needle felting animals and dolls. I figured I should make an example so the fiber-phobes out there could get an idea what it's all about.

Camora happy

The tent caterpillars are something from a horror movie. A really uneventful horror movie where people run off screaming into the night because a tent caterpillar fell out of a tree on to their head or is crawling up their leg and must be flicked away. They are thick on every surface, every plant, every railing, every foot of the now-orange street. There was even one on the floor of my bedroom, invading everywhere!

I have the sinking feeling that the black sand covering the landings of the stairs is actually droppings from all the tent caterpillars.

And even our large, handsome, hungry chickens won't eat those critters. They are beginning to form cocoons and hopefully the air will soon be full of fat happy birds gorging themselves on dull brown-gray moths.

 On the plus side, the tent caterpillars aren't the only thing appearing on the plants. There are a few ripe, juicy berries and a bounty of green ones soon to become something delicious. 

The stairs to the beach are a particularly appealing place for berry picking if you can reach over the tent caterpillars.

For a while I've been meaning to post a picture of my husbands handiwork on the point of the beach. With pieces of driftwood and washed up rope, Tim made a rather impressive slat-backed bench looking out at the waves which makes a lovely place to sit while the dogs run about all over the beach getting in trouble.

Up in the garden, the flowers continue to bloom, even pink poppies! Even without rain in what seems like a month, everything is still green and lush and alive and moist. It is an enchanted place here.

Grandpa finally got tired of hearing other people brag about their gardens and waiting for me to get motivated to plant all the beds I put so much work into digging and tilling. This morning he and I took the drawer of seeds up to the garden and Grandpa hoed littl vallys to be filled with seeds, tamped them down, and marked each row with a stick. We now have a garden filled with little perspective vegetables of every kind in all eight garden beds, plus the tomatoes and occasional eggplant running the length. Grandpa even found some cages so we could plant an entire bed of hot peppers for Tim

My fuzzy wuzzy is now a prickly pear - I shaved the dog.

Tim is up in Bristol Bay, hopefully with at least limited phone after tomorrow or so, and I hear they got quite a lot of rain yesterday. The chickens are looking less and less like chicks, and Tilly and Sancho have been enjoying walks around the lake.

Yesterday I had essentially an eight-hour interview, starting with movement activities and a grammar lesson for second grade, then moving on to handwriting with first grade, then an interview with administration, then stories of Alaska history and pioneers and geography with fifth grade, then an all-staff interview. All of that on top of the last month I have spent substituting and observing as many classes as possible. The list of things I could have said differently in my interview keeps getting longer, but the thought that someone went through all the trouble of coating the second graders in magic pixy dust to make them be the perfect engaged, creative students for two consecutive hours shows someone is really pulling for me so I will try to relax and wait to hear back on this job I want so badly. Send well-wishes to the keeper of the pixy dust for me!

Dog house

Min Min and Agnes left this morning about an hour after Tim and I headed for the airport. We made it in plenty of time, even after two Taco Bell detours and a bad accident blocking three lanes of I-5. I dropped Tim off a the airport with three of his four bags - we didn't notice one was missing until it didn't come out of the car. Luckily Tim has gone up plenty early and can get the important missing items through the mail. Tilly and I made the long drive home after our goodbyes and passed about two miles of cars backed up waiting to leave our wonderful island - so glad we left early!

After running some errands around town together with plenty of socializing, we headed to Search and Rescue. Tilly rocked Search and Rescue again today! Of course. We decided to go straight from the car to a search problem with no run-away lead in. She ran back and fourth working her way into the wind using the scent cone to locate the "victim" then enthusiastically brought me to him!

Now I am home with the dogs and my ice cream and Nutella and no Tim, though everywhere I turn and every time I pick something up I find a little love note from my sweetie, making me smile and laugh and miss him already.

Birthday

Happy birthday to me! I had a lovely nap and walk on the beach for my birthday, as well as pizza and cake with Grandpa and Tim. Joe was visiting for a few days and left on my birthday while I was at my Master Gardeners class, though before he went we had a lovely birthday dinner out and he got Tim motivated to do all sorts of projects we've been meaning to get to, like pulling apart the engine on the Escort to check for damage (could be worse, looks like we can repair it and get the car running again for not too much of the fishing money), and painting the truck - what a delightful sight to come home to!

The back is now finished, after an emergency trip for one more can of paint. He's also set about touching up all the trim with black, such as the cleats along the sides and the lettering across the back. It looks stunning - a whole new truck! And finally showing off the beauty of that 1978 body.

And would you look at those fine mirrors on the moped!

While Mom was here a few weeks ago, Tim unveiled his big birthday present to me - a full sized floor loom he'd done work trade for. Here he is leading me to it blindfolded while he and Mom narrated a scene about snakes about to bite me. Hence hiding behind Tim.

Also thank you to my parents and their support of my teaching plans with a very cool Alaskan themed hand crank ice cream maker (take note all of you planning to visit this summer) and the makings for my glow-germ kids hand washing lesson.

And thank you to Alice for the gift certificate to my favorite store: the Country Supply Store at the end of our street. After a few days contemplation, Tim and I walked Tilly and Sancho all the way to the store and stocked up on excellent, durable, and delicious Tilly toys, to be potentially used with Search and Rescue training. Also some ice cream bars for our long walk home.

It is tent caterpillar season here, and this seems to be the boom year before a, hopefully, long and dramatic bust in their population. We got fed up with their over population and decided to evict them all. Equipt with our extended trimmers, we did a little mid-season pruning on the trees around the property, then took our 5 gallon bucket of worms and nests down to the chicken coop for our relocation project. Unfortunately the chickens didn't eat them, but they have been busy making dust baths in the once-green run. They also have been tucking themselves up at the top of the ramp in the evenings after all day in the sun. Here are 25 rather large chicks tucked together to enjoy the sunset.

On gardening, our last Master Gardeners class was over grafting, so I have come home with many more tomatoes and a few eggplants that have suffered some Frankenstein practices. Hopefully between the potatoes, tomatoes, garlic, lettuce, and eggplants, we will get some reasonable harvest of food, though so far they are all looking a little doubtful - particularly those hot, dry kale starts. In better gardening news, I finally got a compost thermometer after two weeks of rotating my pile every weekend. The temperature is 160f, which is phenomenal and borderline too hot! I have yet to decide if that means I can forgo the rotation tomorrow or if that means I should keep at my weekly pitchfork exercises in hopes of having good soil as soon as possible.

Tomorrow, Cousin Min Min and Aunt Agnes come up for a visit and it is Tim's last day before heading North for a summer of commercial fishing in Bristol Bay. Tilly will keep me company and it won't be long before the next wave of visitors arrive: June for Mom and Dad, July for Nancy, August for Alice and September for Brother Daniel and Amanda. 

Much ado

Spinning group with Gustavus friend-of-a-friend, spinning Tilly's wool, spinning with Tim's mechanical questioning, spinning while watching Toy Story.

Green and blue wool spun and plied, ready to be knit or woven

Dogs playing on the beach, dogs tearing toys and chewing bones, dog rocking Search and Rescue training, dogs swimming in the ocean, dog learning to open gaits, dog very snugly in bed.

Tilly's swimming lesson

A deer in the water, a dog on the shore

Every day is a beautiful day for a beach walk

Who could refuse stick tug?

Plant sale with master gardeners, planting over 40 free tomato starts, planting strawberries here and there, plantlings needing lots of watering, plant fertilizer being made by turning compost and mowing lawns.

Job interview coming up, jobs non-stop substitute teaching, job starting soon summer commercial fishing, jobs going slow starting new business, jobs now qualified for with degree officially finished, jobs in progress while Joe visits.

Building slatted driftwood benches, building custom chicken feeders late at night, building drop spindles for future classes, building improvements on the little tool shed.

Chickens grow and peck and scratch and roost, chicks make new friends with clever canines, chicks explore the great outdoors, chicks eating all the worms in site, chicks enjoying sunny days and warm nights.

Potatoes

I planted the potatoes! Up in the old mulch pile there should now be about 50 potato plats preparing to burst from the earth. When there is some green up and it doesn't just look like a big pile of rotting sticks and leaves (beautifully composting into tremendous soil of course) and there are some little green tops showing, I will take a picture.

Next year, perhaps I will spread all that broken down mulch on the other gardens and try out a potato box! This comes from Tim's favorite website,  USpotatoes.com - who knew there was such a thing!

The little kale plants are looking happy up in the garden. My onions are a little yellow on the bottom leaves but otherwise big and strong. I will have to break out my master gardeners diagnostic sheet and see if there is anything I can do to help them out.

Our beautiful hot and sunny weather has finally gave way to some cooler, wetter days, which is nice for the young plants but not so nice for the young chicks who had their outdoor privileges revoked just as they were learning about the great outdoors. I will have to do some more weeding to keep them busy and happy while locked in the coop. Little "Hospital Chicken" is still alive, now living reintegrated with the others despite falling behind to half their size. Amazingly, the others seem to be mostly leaving her alone or mothering her. Every time I go in the coop, all the chicks are running about except one or two who stay with that sickly little one and cuddle in close, often fluffing up and sitting over her like miniature mother hens. I hope this loving, goose-like behavior keeps up.

Tilly had another excellent day at Search and Rescue training on Friday. She's currently working on learning to leave the "victim" and come get me once she's completed the find. Its a little tricky to break through her excitement to the next step, but she'll get there. On the SAR trainer front, I might get sponsored to go to a two-week intensive Wilderness EMT training course this summer! I hope it works out with puppy-sitters and work and such.

With work, I am lining up subbing jobs at the Waldorf school, applying for the 6th grade teaching position for fall, and eagerly anticipating teaching my first Crafts on Whidbey classes, assuming anyone signs up. Joe will be coming up to Whidbey soon with more general maintenance work to be done on the boat. By the way, have you checked out the Kachink Kachink and recommended it to all your friends? Please do! Price recently reduced, delivery negotiable!