Global Warming in the Chicken Tractor
Sunday was one of those perfect weather late-summer days where you get the cool, dewy morning followed by an overcast, yet warm afternoon, then bright sunshine, clear skies and a light breeze.
It was also a task day. We have a month to get the rest of our stuff out of the house in the country (mostly scrap and a few things we want to keep that we’ve been storing in the garage and barn). It looks like we found someone to rent. Actually, they want to sign a rent-to-own contract, which Chris is getting his lawyer to put together this week. I had some initial nervousness about renting because I’ve heard so many stories of plumbing ripped right out of the walls, of cat pee in carpets so thick it soaked through the floor boards, and of it being impossible to get slackers out once they’re in. But this family so far checks out pretty well. They’re actually just the type of family we hoped would want to live there—locals who want more property so they can raise animals and garden. They have a bigger story than that, but it’s not mine to tell. I just hope this works out for all of us—so we can all have our new beginning.
We also moved the chickens to their new spot yesterday. When we pulled away the logs that Chris buried around the edge of the tractor to deter the raccoons, a gojillion of those armadillo bugs swarmed into the cage and the girls had a protein feast. Such a riot the way they were tripping over one another to get to them.
We put a new layer of chicken wire around the cage, with about eight inches folded down over the ground around it. I’m determined that next spring we’ll have a permanent structure built for them, with yards for them to roam around in. We have hawks so I’ll need to put netting over the top.
Lila was a little freaked out by the bugs, but she stayed in there with us as we fudged and fidgeted with the tractor to get it level on ground that had an invisible hill. Jeesh.
They had lived too long this summer on the steaming pile of straw and manure, especially with the rains we’ve had this past month. After we moved them to the new spot, the ladies spent more than an hour having a communal dirt bath. Can’t you just hear them bitching about the husband and the kids—how they never pick up their dirty socks? Sharing recipes? Complaining about their overbearing, interfering mothers in-law?
When I uploaded these next photos I thought of Appalachia. I hear a fiddle playing and a high-lonesome voice like Iris Dement’s singing in the hills.
But we’re in Ohio. I’m trying to make the best of it.
The second half of the day we listened to an assault of music from somewhere on campus and it wasn’t until Lila had just dozed off and the house shook with the booms that I realized it was homecoming.
This was the view from our back deck for about thirty minutes last night. It was a wacky interlude for me because I was in the middle of reading Jim Kunstler’s The Long Emergency, right at the part in the last section of the book where he’s talking about the future possibilities for education after petroleum products become scarce. How the college and university systems will collapse in this century because the world will not need a constant influx of undergrads to flood the job market. What the world and our country in particular is really going to need is people who know how to grow food. He hints at social upheaval due to racial and financial inequality, of continuing education only for those with great wealth and in fields the average person won’t be able to consider viable.
Then blam! blam! blam! and I put the book down, grabbed my camera and got up on the picnic table.
I think about the money that had to go into that fireworks display that rivaled the one the town did for the fourth of July, and realize that nobody knows what’s coming. We’re a short-sighted bunch as a whole, we humans. But we individuals? We can open our eyes and our minds to the possibilities. And some of us can learn how to grow our own food. A whole lot of us are already doing just that.
Technorati Tags: chickens, chicken tractor, education, peak oil, garden, organic garden, growing food
"All through the long winter, I dream of my garden. On the first day of spring, I dig my fingers deep into the soft earth. I can feel its energy, and my spirits soar."
~Helen Hayes
August 27th, 2007 at 7:01 am
I grew herbs this summer. I feel so inept, but I look at my yard. See room for another bed or two. Plan on feeding ourselves a bit more next year.
August 27th, 2007 at 8:24 am
Hey, herbs are a wonderful thing. And I really do believe that not everyone needs to grow their own food, just that a lot more people should be learning about it so that regional food supplies can be re-established. It’s exciting to me that there’s a new movement to do the farm thing with young people. There’s a lot of criticism that these new organic growers are boutique farmers who cater to the wants and whims of rich people, but I think that’s shifting. At least, I’m seeing a big shift at our local farmers’ market. It’s everyday folks coming down and stocking up. I see a lot of people carrying many bags of food, when two years ago I saw people stop by for a little bit of this or a little bit of that.
Anyway, if you need any tips, you know where to find me!
August 27th, 2007 at 8:26 am
Oh lordy! You read Jimmy Kunstler too?
By my book, Ohio IS part of Appalachia; we went to Ohio U. in Athens and I remember the culture shock when I first saw the southern part of the state forty years ago.
And them are some dead-sexy tomatoes in the previous post, the Black Krim being the real stars. It’s gonna be so hard weaning ourselves off the tomatoes…
August 27th, 2007 at 8:29 am
Congratulations on getting your other house rented and maybe sold!!!
Those fireworks sure were loud last night. And expensive. I kept thinking, there goes another student’s tuition, and another, and so on. Some poor kid is still going to be paying off the loans for those fireworks in 2020. The University would probably say that the money they used to pay for the fireworks was from a special fireworks fund. From private donors who donated money on the condition that it ONLY be used for pyrotechnics. Not books. Or teachers. Or scholarships. That is what they tend to say about things that cost a lot and are of questionable educational value. But, hey, I am just sour grapes. You got some nice pictures!
August 27th, 2007 at 9:24 am
Emily, they were SO loud. And literally right behind our house! The music all day was ridiculously loud. And I’m all sour grapes right along with you about the fireworks. Sure, they’re pretty and exciting and a lovely way to celebrate, but yeah. Huge waste of a LOT of money. But I’ve got that on the brain anyway…wondering about just about anything we choose to spend money on right now, if in ten years we’ll be wishing we had that cash and not this useless piece of electronic whatever. I don’t know. Weird. I question the value of this kind of education anyway. The massive influx of students who are mostly there to party their asses off…and get their BA and run…then try to figure out how to pay off their 80K in student loans in a world where they can’t get a job in their field. I’m extra sour grapes.
August 27th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
James Kunstler’s book has informed much of my thinking over the last 3 or so years. I also recommend his book The Geography of Nowhere.
He also has a blog…
August 27th, 2007 at 7:03 pm
look at those chickens!
August 28th, 2007 at 8:02 am
Fireworks assault the environment. Although they are beautiful to watch, they assault my senses. The cost is ridiculous–both monetarily and values. And I think of my niece in Iraq, who sees the r-e-a-l ones on a daily basis.
The girls must be thrilled in their new digs. I’d be glad to take some if you have extras. The roosters are gone…….Winston.
xox
August 28th, 2007 at 7:30 pm
May I simply say that it is FRICKIN AWESOME that you have a potential renter. Fingers crossed it all works out.
August 28th, 2007 at 7:30 pm
I mean rent-to-owner!
August 29th, 2007 at 9:27 am
. . . i think the same thing when i see something like the fireworks display . . . the other night i was driving and thought about all of the lit up signs, all of the wasted electricity, yesterday it was looking at some closely trimmed grass in front of a building, all of the money/fossil fuel that goes into the pesticides, the mowing of it . . . and you can’t say it to people, most folks just aren’t there yet . . . isn’t it weird? don’t you sometimes feel like an alien just because you can see things that others can’t???
August 30th, 2007 at 8:45 am
maybe a visionary rather than an alien…
September 1st, 2007 at 9:16 pm
I see fireworks and I think “that is SUCH a guy thing,” and move on.
Geez, girl, how many birds you have there? I see maybe a couple buff orphingtons, a few barred rocks, a couple Isa Browns…can’t quite tell on the others but wow that must be lots of eggs.
And yeah I see Lila and I think more Iris Dement than Deliverance, frankly. And soon hopefully everyone will have a few back yard biddies, so you’ll be completely mainstream
September 2nd, 2007 at 7:29 am
El, we have eleven! They’re too crowded in the tractor, so I’m planning to drive four of the girls up to Debra (author of the comment above yours). We had 25, and gave away the rest when we moved to the “city”. There are Buff Orpington, Barred Rocks, Dominique, Golden Buff, and Rhody Red. Because they’re over crowded, they’ve been eating their own eggs, so if we don’t get to them around lunchtime (hard to do when you work!) then we only get 3 or 4 at the end of the day. On weekends we can get up to ten each day.
Our girls are illegal here, no livestock allowed in the city of Kent. But if it ever comes down to it, I’m going to get out there and fight for it.
September 2nd, 2007 at 9:08 am
Wow, we have eleven birds too! But four are guineas. (We got the guineas because of their sky-is-falling wails that they do if they see a hawk; we lost two girls last year.)
Illegal? Hmm. I know in lots of places chickens were legal (it dates back to WW2) and the laws have just kind of stayed on the books. I found a rooster once at the end of my alley in near-downtown Minnesota; called the pound, and they said yes they were legal IF you get signoff of half your neighbors. It’s all fascinating, I think, laws that govern things like chickens and clotheslines.
But I meant to mention Kuntsler yesterday. I will have to check out your book. Read the Geography of Nowhere and thought it was so-so…
November 29th, 2007 at 5:19 pm
I loved the recommendation you gave about the book Miss Rumphius (commenting on Miss Wilmott). I checked it out and have just finished ordering the book — two actually: one for my grand daugther and the other for me!
And, anyone with chickens is 100 in my books!
Diane
February 17th, 2008 at 11:22 am
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